Formal Creativity: Artists vs. Researchers
December 14th, 2005
What a great article about a systematic process for creativity. What would an artist say?
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” - Paul Dirac
Formal creativity–two words that most would agree do not go together. Jacob Goldenberg, Roni Horowitz, Amnon Levav, and David Mazursky, authors of the Harvard Business Review article “Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot”, attempt to smash this apparent oxymoron. I’d like to see these guys in a room with some artists and psychologists to really get at the bottom of where creativity comes from.
Starting from research on “systematic inventive thinking” by Russian engineer Genrich Altshuller, the authors identify five “innovation patterns” in creativity that can be used as a template for developing new products.
The patterns are Subtraction (removing features), Multiplication (exaggerating one feature), Division (splitting a product into a couple of products), Task Unification (combine the window defroster and antennae in a car) and Attribute Dependency Change (relate product to its environment). Read the article if you’d like to see what they are about.
I took a class in college on human sexuality (which as you’d expect was very popular). When we got to the chapter on love, the professor made a comment that frankly offended me. “Artists know nothing about love. We need to go to scientists to really understand it.” Mind you I was studying art at the time, and challenged him on every argument. But he made an interesting point, one that Paul Dirac’s comments on art and science illustrate: both disciplines address different human needs.
I’d still love to see a good debate on it though.