The Medici Effect: Chapter 7-8

In chapter seven, Johansson (2006) states that creative people are characterized by having a lot of ideas. He really leans on this idea, giving several examples and argues that quantity and quality correlate, so that a person cannot have quality ideas if they do not also have quantity. Good ideas are also unpredictable. People who have them can have them at any time in their life. He also describes how intersections have the potential for exponentially more ideas.

In chapter eight, Johansson describes how to capture this explosion, giving three steps: strike a balance between breadth and depth, actively generate many ideas, and allow time for evaluation. In this chapter, he discusses brainstorming and notes that brainstorming actually works better for individuals than it does for most groups. He also debunks the idea that pressure makes people more creative and describes optimum timing for developing good ideas. 

My reaction to Johansson's description of the mass of ideas creative people have was tiredness. I wondered, "Isn't it possible that these people aren't just creative, but brilliant?" Johansson has this way of implying anyone can do it with just three easy steps. My own life experience does not suggest that.  Don't get me wrong, I do know what it means to have a lot of ideas, but the productivity of some of the people he mentions is daunting. Most of my ideas flow through my head and into either my journal or into oblivion--and I love to think about things. Not everyone has that kind of energy. On the other side of it, I really struggle to realize many of my ideas, which the examples he describes don't seem to do. I really wish that Johansson would go through and rewrite this book with a strengths perspective. 

I do think what he had to say about the number of ideas at intersections was pretty cool. I also think it is true from my own experience. When one's associative barriers are low, ideas are everywhere. In my cohort, people have talked about not being able to find anything to research, and I think, "Are you kidding?" I can think of maybe ten different topics that I could probably spend my life digging into in about a half an hour. In fact, I brought those ten topics with me to our first week of intensives and sat down with Alex and picked the topic I'm working on now. Finding ideas to research is like picking up pebbles off the beach... so many pebbles... so little time. Developing the idea is just so intensely time and energy consuming. That is where the bottleneck is for me. 

I have been having this experience lately, reading these books, where I predict something or react a certain way and then find the book echoing my thoughts. That was what happened this time when I started to read about brainstorming. Johansson quoted an author who said, "The average person can think of twice as many ideas when working with a group than when working alone." When I read that, I thought, "Well then I must not be average because that is not where I do my best thinking." And sure enough, it turns out that some scientists tested this statement and found out that no, people actually are more creative when they brainstorm alone--mostly because turn-taking rules in a group stifle people's ideas and then they forget about them. I think in my case, I also just have a very quirky way of thinking about things that some people find a little hard to accept. 

Social Justice and Diversity

So I don't think these chapters had a lot to say about social justice beyond the fact that most of Johansson's examples are old white guys who are good at technical innovation. I think it would be nice if he expanded his concept a little in those areas. At the end of chapter eight, Johansson suggests that there is more to innovation than having good ideas. He says, "You must make those ideas happen." I'll admit, that is my weak point. I think there were be more to say about social justice in those chapters because they have more to do with our relationship to each other.