Turning Creativity into Real Stuff
It’s a small sample, but the brilliant people I know and have known share two underappreciated traits: a sense of humor and a quirky passion for following their curiosity, no matter what. These two qualities can get you into a lot of trouble. Continue reading “Claude Shannon plays games, searches for truth, invents Information Theory”
This column appeared in the Now! Nova Scotia section of the Chronicle-Herald.
From the taming of fire to symphonies and Silicon Valley, the principles of creativity have remained the same. Click here to read the article.
This column appeared in the Now! Nova Scotia section of the Chronicle-Herald.
Alexander Graham Bell loved Nova Scotia. He did some of his best work here. Click here to read the article.
Strategy and innovation have much in common, not all of it pretty. They are the questing beasts of mythology let loose in the world of business, which most of the time is concerned with process, maintenance, the status quo—what Richard Rumelt calls “doorknob polishing.” Rumelt is a professor of strategy at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Considered “the strategist’s strategist,” he was interviewed by the global management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Continue reading “View from the mountaintop”
In my last column, I quoted the definition of strategy given by Richard Rumelt, a professor of business strategy at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. To paraphrase: the essence of strategic thinking is speculation. The key word is “speculation.” Success usually appears during periods of stability, when the systems we have designed are producing the outcomes we desire. During these prosperous times, we may forget the earlier stages when we planted the seeds of future opportunity. There was uncertainty, soul searching, and trial and error—a certain fumbling around. A mathematician friend of mine came up with the phrase “data momentum” to describe most of what happens in our lives: 90% is driven by what happened yesterday, by forces that have already been set in motion. Continue reading “Lessons from the Bell Curve”
Kayaking in the Bay of Fundy, I saw a giant shark fin coming at me out of the mist. My heart raced. My brain snapped into high gear. I was, in a word, afraid.
Actually, this never happened.
What really happened was that I recalled what two fishermen had told me the last time I was out paddling. Some other fishermen had told them they had seen a huge fin out there. One guy alone in his boat had been afraid enough to get the hell out of there. Continue reading “The power of fear”