A nice little read during the holidays was Rich Gold book: The Plenitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) . It got me thinking about quite a few issues, of which I would like to share one with you: the four hats of creativity.

Usually the focus of software development is on the engineering part. Wearing the hat of the engineer, and expecting others to do the same, makes it very hard to make optimal use of our creativity. We all have heard a lot on the goings-on at Apple as a side-effect of Steve Jobs' death, and one of the things we should be aware of is the prominent position of the designer at Apple. In fact, the lead positions with Apple are taken by designers. Not engineers. Not project managers.

The other two hats are not less important either. The hats of the artist and scientist have something in common, that the engineer and designer, with their focus on "customer satisfaction", lack: a certain wilfulness, or obstinacy, the drive to pursue a venue just because it is there and fills your dreams, the vision that is larger than you are.

Build a team, and try to incorporate something of these four hats, to create a balance that nurtures creativity. I sometimes use inspiration from other sources to think about team member characteristics, which I want to share with you here.

One is from Marinus Knoope. Unfortunately I know not of an English translation of his work. He is a Dutch physicist gone psychological, and his book "De Creatiespiraal" (English: The Creation Spiral) is a nice additional view on the subject of creativity that Rich Gold talkes about, and his book provides very practical guidelines for applying this concept on teams and organisations.

Another source of inspiration is the Medicine Wheel from the native American traditions, which uses the four directions of the compass and links these with basic psychological attributes (in this case for example wisdom, justice, courage and temperance). There are many other possible sources: the wheel of astrology is one I also use often.

All of these models, or thinking matrices, have something in common. They describe a "wholeness", and attempt to achieve "whole-sightedness" (see Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean ). This is something we not only should attempt to accomplish in our organisation, but also in our products. It functions as an antidote of ant-sightedness, which is endemic in society as well as in software development. I often talk about the importance of realising that there is not so much difference between the way you should organise your product or the team that produces that product. These sources helped me through the holidays, and set a nice tone for me in the coming year.

Happy and creative 2012!

Een groeiende ergernis bij het aanhoren van nieuws- en weerberichten is de gewoonte om de volgende soort uitspraken te doen:

"De temperatuur morgen is 17 graden, ca. 7 graden meer dan normaal." (nadruk van mij)

Wat is in hemelsnaam normaal? Is het normaal dat de temperatuur altijd gemiddeld is? Is iemand met een IQ van 140 abnormaal? (gezien het feit dat een IQ van 100 een standaard definitie is van de gemiddelde intelligentie). Zou het "normaal" zijn als iedereen een IQ van 100 had?

Er zijn taalontwikkelingen waar ik soms met moeite echt kritiek op kan hebben. Een voorbeeld is het verschil tussen "hen" en "hun". Maar het gebruik van het woord "normaal" waar "gemiddeld" bedoeld is, is doodgewoon fout.

Het gemiddelde is niet "normaal". Ook bij een Normaalverdeling is het niet normaal als alle waarden rond de piek zouden zitten - het zou dan immers geen normaalverdeling meer zijn maar een Uniforme distributie met slechts één waarde. Hoewel theoretisch een normaalverdeling met een variantie van 0 daarmee zou overeenkomen...

At 200, Darwin Evolves Beyond Evolution | Wired Science from Wired.com

People who have heard me talk know that I try to take a different approach to the theory of evolution. Especially the popularised version that circulates among the populace. Since this is the year of Darwin, many articles appear on the subject.

What bothers me about these articles is that they as a rule remain on the main road, the popularised version. In that myth evolution is the result of the battle for survival, and solely engineered through the ministrations of genes. I hold a quite different view, and actually modern biology has gone much further than the myth - but for some reason biologists don''t speak up. Maybe they think "normal" people are not equipped to understand, I do not know. But this blog on Wired made at least an attempt to broaden the scope and I recommend reading it (including the links).

(btw: notice the iPod wires coming from young Darwins vest ;-)