Here's to the Crazy Ones, the Unreasonable People

When Steve Jobs launched Apple’s iconic “Think Different” marketing campaign in 1997, it was clearly a reflection of his own philosophy and ideals. He praised “the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.” Nobody would disagree that Jobs himself personified this category, along with the famous individuals who were featured in Apple’s ads, such as Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Sir Richard Branson, John Lennon, Thomas Edison, Ted Turner, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Martha Graham, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Pablo Picasso.

By their nature, radical innovators tend to be contrarians, heretics, revolutionaries. They are forever discontent with the status quo. They are people who challenge conventional thinking, who show no respect for rules, or precedent, or popular opinion, and who never accept “can’t be done.” They dare to defy the deepest-held dogmas, dispute the most established industry practices, and trash the proudest of institutional legacies. Where everyone else seems content to “zig,” they feel compelled to “zag” – to swim against the mainstream, contradict prevailing wisdom, break the accepted patterns, slaughter the sacred cows, question the unquestionable, fix things that “ain’t broke,” turn the seemingly impossible into the possible, and, well… to simply “think different.”

Innovators are not satisfied just playing the game. They have an irresistible itch to rethink it, to change it, to improve it. Or to invent an entirely new game. They are, as George Bernard Shaw once explained, unreasonable people. Shaw argued that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Rather than conform to the existing patterns of the world, innovators can intuitively see what is wrong with those patterns – where others cannot – and they instinctively want to put them right, or to replace them with their own patterns. They quite literally want to change the world.

In a 1994 interview conducted by the Silicon Valley Historical Association, Steve Jobs said the following: “When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much… That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that it – everything around you that you call ‘life’… you can change it, you can influence it… you can mould it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just going to live in it, verses embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Jobs summed it up very well. Innovators don’t just accept that “the world is the way it is.” They are always driven to reshape it into the way they envision it could be. Innovators behave exactly as those “Think Different” ads said they do: “They invent. They imagine… They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy… Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Leonardo da Vinci's Unquenchable Curiosity and Acute Observations

Helen Gardner, in her book Art through the Ages (1970) writes of Leonardo da Vinci’s “unquenchable curiosity,” and we see this reflected in the 13,000 pages of his famous journals, in which he made a daily record – in notes, drawings, and scientific diagrams – of his observations and studies. These notebooks cover a wide range of interests and phenomena, from human anatomy and facial expressions to animals, birds, plants, rocks, water, chemistry, optics, painting, astronomy, architecture and engineering.

Biographer Daniel Arassa recounts just how far da Vinci would go to try to understand everything around him. On one occasion, the great man coated the wings of the fly with honey to find out if this would change the sound of its buzzing noise in flight. Observing that the note produced by the fly was lower than usual, he attributed this to the fact that the ballasted wings were beating the air less rapidly than before. Thus, da Vinci concluded that the pitch of a musical note is connected with the speed of the percussive movement of the air.

Da Vinci’s acute observations led him to think about and try to solve problems that hadn’t been seriously considered before. Nobody, for example, was asking for a parachute, a car, a submarine, a hang glider, a diving suit, a helicopter, a calculator, or floating shoes and stocks for walking on water, but Leonardo da Vinci invented, or at least conceptualized, these things.

He also came up with military innovations like the machine gun, the armoured tank, the finned mortar shell, a giant crossbow, a triple-barrel cannon, and a mobile bridge. He sketched mechanical breakthroughs such as a steam engine, a hydraulic pump, a reversible crank mechanism, a flywheel system, ball bearings, a hoisting machine, a more accurate clock, an automated bobbin winder, a lens-grinding machine, and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He designed the world’s first canal lock system, a method for excavating tunnels through mountains, a 720-foot (220 m) single-span bridge, a new kind of musical instrument, a double hull for ships, an industrial use for solar power, and a fully functional robot (which he built and displayed for his patron, Ludovico Sforza, at a celebration in Milan in 1495).

“Da Vinci,” writes Rowan Gibson, “was able to spot unmet needs and innovation opportunities because he was vastly more observant and more engaged with his environment than others. He was focusing his attention on issues and frustrations that most people simply ignored.”

[Quoted from The 4 Lenses of Innovation (2015) by Rowan Gibson. Title mine]

                                                                                                                    

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Story of Idea #4: How Mark Zurkerberg Passed his Exam by Using the Internet

“Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected.

People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family,

to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them”

(Facebook’s Mission Statement since 2012)

Currently I’m reading Don Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital (a great book indeed!) and he told a story about Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. In January 2004, Zuckerberg had a real-life version of a common nightmare. He was facing his first round of exams at Harvard University and he hadn’t studied or read anything the professor has assigned for a first-year art history course called Rome of Augustus. Zuckerberg hadn’t even gone to class during the term. He was too busy creating a cool computer program called Facebook that would help students get to know one another and share information. Now, a few days before the exam, Zuckerberg was, in his words, “just completely screwed.”

But he had an idea, straight out of twenty-first century computer science. He created a Web site and put pictures from the course on it, with a little discussion beside each picture. Maybe the other students could help out by filling in the blanks. Within 24 hours, Zuckerberg’s classmates helped out alright, with notes so cogent that everyone, Zuckerberg included, passed the test with flying colours. And according to Zuckerberg, the professor didn’t see it as cheating. Instead, he was “really pleased” to see the students collaborate in such a creative fashion.

After acing his art history test, Zuckerberg returned to his school project, Facebook, which has since become one of the most popular social networking sites in the world; on it, friends and acquaintances keep up with each other’s news. Zuckerberg know how to use social network and the Internet alright. He know how and why is it for, namely, to use it to connect and share information, to find and collaborate on projects or ideas of mutual interest. Do you know how to use social network and the Internet for good cause? Learn from Zuck. These are his and his team original ideas.

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s).

Story of Idea #3: Soichiro Honda Never Lack of Resource

“Innovation creates a resource. There is no such thing as a ‘resource’ until man finds a use for something in nature and endows it with economic value. Until then, every plant is a weed and every mineral just another rock” (Peter Drucker)

Soichiro Honda was always fascinated by things mechanical. However, he was not the academic type. At 28, he joined a technical high school to pick up the theories in engineering needed to help him is his endeavours. Nonetheless, he chose only to attend the classes that he wanted to. His principal was not too amused about that and promptly dismissed him. That did not discourage him. Instead, it fired him up and he succeeded in manufacturing sound and functional devices.

Immediately after the World War II, Japan was immobilized by a severe fuel shortage. Honda could see that there was no point in driving cars. He solved the problem by attaching a motor to a bicycle. Using a small gasoline engine that had been used for electrical generators during the war, he created the world’s first motorcycle, which is today the ubiquitous mode of transportation in the less developed nations.

Because of the governmental restrictions on gasoline and the manufacture of gasoline-using machines, Honda substituted pine resin, which he recalled had been used a temporary aircraft fuel towards the end of World War II, for gasoline. Since then, Honda had never looked back.

He turned a temporary problem into a long-term global demand. In fact, he was so passionate about the motorbikes that he created the Dream, a sleek and powerful motorcycle with a four-cycle engine. As he said later: “We do not make something because the demand is there. With our technology, we can create demand; we can create the market. Supply creates its own demand.” The name ‘Honda’ is now seen not only on motorcycles but also on cars and other vehicles. It is a name that spells quality.

Reference: I Can Cre8! (Prentice Hall, 2001) by Peter Leong. Page 15-16

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Have Crazy Idea, Don't Give Up!

Fred Smith, founder of FedEx

“I think there are two keys to being creatively productive.

One is not being daunted by one’s fear of failure, the second is sheer perseverance”

(Mary-Claire King)

“It’s so crazy, it might just work,” said Fred Smith optimistically. He was an undergraduate at Yale University in 1965. As part of the coursework, he wrote an economics paper exploring the process of transportation of goods in the United States. Fred Smith wrote “crazy” idea on paper how a company carrying small, essential items by plane could be a much better business. He, however, did not go into details about how to actually run such a company.

As expected, his professor gave the paper a grade of “C”. Just like Smith’s professor, other people thought that the idea was indeed deserving a “C”. Some even thought that it was “crazy”. It was, but not for Fred Smith. Therefore, Smith held on to the crazy idea despite what others thought of it. He believes in his idea. To cut the story short, in 1971, the company was launched. It is called FedEx Express. Throughout the years, will all the challenges and failures, Smith never give up. “Today,” wrote Abhash Kumar, in YouStory.com, “FedEx is a global giant with operations in more than 220 countries and territories and an annual revenue of US $45 billion.”

What I learned from Fred Smith’s story is this: Logic will dictate that we stay away from crazy ideas. True, but the crazy ones are dared to go beyond what is “logical” and what is “safe”. They were the ones who have ventured out of the boundaries of the norm. Highly creative people are basically crazy. And once they believe in the idea, they will never give up. Remember Steve Jobs’ famously quote: “the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Are you crazy enough? Do you have “crazy” idea that you believe in despite people’s negative criticisms about it? Do you want to change the world? Then, stay on. Don’t give up.

Many ideas deemed as crazy at first may just turn out to be very creative and innovative. “Nearly all creative ideas can sound crazy when first presented,” write Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari. He continues, “Most people don’t have creative imaginations, so most people don’t get what the creative is saying. And people tend to be fearful of things they don’t understand.” Here is the fact: Not all crazy ideas have worked out – but most do. Add that crazy idea to perseverance and believe. Remember, some will just laugh at your idea. Don’t give up. If it is a worthy idea, make it work despite how silly it may sounds.

Have crazy idea. Don’t give up.

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Common Blocks to Creativity #3: Resource Myopia

“Resource myopia is common among pragmatic,

no-nonsense realists who ‘see things as they are.’

Innovation thrives on seeing things as they might be” (David P. Campbell)

Myopia means “the quality of being short-sighted” and “lack of foresight or intellectual insight.” Resource myopia, thus in this context, mean, the inability to see the resources at our disposal. It is a common block to creativity! We are often unaware of our own strengths. The resources at our disposal are usually much larger than we imagine. Consider a man like Nelson Mandela. He had no formal authority nor, to begin with, an exceptional gifts. But by his pen, by his speech, by his example, and by his ability to bring together dedicated men and women, he was able to move mountains, so to speak.

The ability to perceive one’s strengths and weaknesses accurately and the awareness of the resources in one’s environment are indispensable for overcoming resource myopia. Curiosity about the situation one find oneself in, the habit of asking around who has what resources and where, “the managerial trait of being able to draw readily on the resources of others,” are worth cultivating to get rid of this block.

Resource myopia gives rise to a number of other disabilities that also hinder creativity. They chief of these are fatalism, excessive dependence, “learned helplessness,” and inferiority complex. These are dangerous! All these disabilities arise because resource myopia makes us poor problem-solvers. Get rid of resource myopia, immediately!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

References:

1.      Lifelong Creativity: An Unending Quest by Pradip N. Khandwalla (Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, 2004).

2.      Take the Road to Creativity and Get Off Your Dead End by David P. Champbell (Center for Creative Leadership, 1977)

My Top 17 Book on Innovative and Creativity Lists

I wrote this article on my other blog Word Speaks Today. Here are my Top 17 Book on Innovative and Creativity Lists. Enjoy! Click HERE also if you want to read my TOP 20 Book on Personal Development Lists.

“Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth” (Abraham Maslow)

Christianity must be creative because first and foremost, we follow a creative God. There is nothing more needed in Christianity today than creativity. We don’t need more doctrinal precision and biblical knowledge, more conferences and programs. We don’t need more identical youth groups copied from the megachurch on TV. We don’t want to hear another worship song with the same beat, the same tempo, the same words, and the same three chords as every other worship song. We don’t need to follow Planet Shakers or Hillsongs or True Worshippers. We need to be original and contextualize! Thus, creativity is needed.

Best example of creative person and Lord is Jesus. The Scripture says, “He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make” (John 1:3) If you think that the universe is wonderful and it is an act of creative Being – think Jesus, the Author of the universe! We are also made in the image of Him, so we’re at some point – creative people.

There are people who are good at writing books on creativity. We should read it. Reading books on creativity doesn’t mean you will be creative instantaneously. You are God’s creation, you already creative. But to be more creative, you need to cultivate your creativity through reading and applications. Here are some of my books recommendation for you to consider reading with a cautious, prayer and wisdom (Why top 17 books? Because top 10 or 15 or 20 is so mainstream):

1)    You Are Creative: Let Your Creativity Bloom, 3^rd Edition by Dr. Yew Kam Keong

2)    A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger von Oech

3)    Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius by Michael Michalko

4)    How to Get Ideas, New Expended Edition by Jack Foster

5)    How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day by Michael J. Gelb

6)    How to Think Like Einstein: Simple Ways to Break the Rules and Discover Your Hidden Genius by Scott Thorpe

7)    Buzan's book of Genius: And How to Unleash Your Own by Tony Buzan and Raymond Keene

8)    Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward De Bono

9)    Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

10) How to Have a Beautiful Mind by Edward de Bono

11) The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought by Vincent R. Ruggiero

12) Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life by Fred Mandell

13) On Creativity: Awakening the Creative Mind by Leo Ann Mean

14) What Would Apple Do?: How You Can Learn from Apple and Make Money by Dirk Beckmann

15) Business Creativity: A Practical Guide by Jodie Newman

16) The Power of Innovative Thinking by Jim Wheeler

17) Creative Bible Study: A Manual for Training Bible Study Leaders by Ada Lum

If you want to read any of this books, but you can’t find it in bookstores near you (Poor thing!)
Then come and borrow the book from me ya. God bless you with creativity. Amen.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)