5 ms·

There's an interesting book on the topic discussed in these emails, entitled "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned": http://amzn.to/2CtIrRR http://amzn.to/2CtIrRR

There's an interesting book on the topic discussed in these emails, entitled "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned": http://amzn.to/2CtIrRR http://amzn.to/2CtIrRR There's a YouTube talk by the author on the subject here: https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI The rough idea is this: - creativity often arises by stumbling around in a problem space, or in operating "randomly" under an artificially-imposed constraint - modern life is obsessed with metrics and goal-setting, and this has extended into creative pursuits including science, research, and business - sometimes, short-term focus on the goal defeats the goal-given aims (see e.g. shareholder value focus) - the authors point out that when they were researching artificial intelligence, they discovered that systems that focused too much on an explicitly-coded "objective" would end up producing lackluster results, but systems that did more "playful" exploration within a problem space produced more creative results - using this backdrop, the authors suggest perhaps innovation is not driven by narrowly focused heroic effort and is instead driven by serendipitous discovery and playful creativity I found the ideas compelling, as I do find Kay's description of the "art" behind research.

mathattack 9y ago
This is the difference between Research(which Kay excelled at) and Development and Commercialization (which he didn’t). Both are important. The latter requires focus, discipline and deadlines.
- pbowyer 9y ago
  Have you any references to the Development and Commercialization he didn't excel at? I know of Kay by name, but not his life story.
  - username223 9y ago
    He was a Xerox PARC guy back in the Smalltalk days, when they developed incredibly expensive systems that never really sold. In the 2000s, he was still griping about how everything was worse than PARC in the 1970s. I haven't paid much attention to him since then.
  - pixelrevision 9y ago
    See Apple. They took a lot of the inventions there and brought them to market.
  - noblethrasher 9y ago
    Well, in a few of his presentations, he talks about the difference between invention, which is what PARC did, and innovation, which is what companies like Apple do.
tacon 9y ago
That book was written by computer scientists, and they demonstrate how the optimal search algorithm is often to pick the most unusual thing to try that you haven't tried yet. I'd like to see more discussion about this as an approach to personal development. Many people advise students and new graduates to sample the search space broadly, without detailed goals, just to see what's out there. It almost becomes the "do something every day that scares you" maxim. There is an old saying about "Everything you want in life is waiting just outside your comfort zone."
- maroonblazer 9y ago
  I've not watched the video nor read the book but I take it slightly differently. Reinertsen, in "Managing the Design Factory", describes the need for companies to generate high value information as efficiently as possible. Using Shannon's theory of information, he argues that low-information events are those events where the likelihood of either success or failure is high. Out of this comes the fact that you maximize the information output when the probability of failure is 50%. How many of us take risks - professionally or personally - where the probability of failure is 50%?
pvg 9y ago
"Erasmus Darwin had a theory that once in a while one should perform a damn-fool experiment. It almost always fails but when it does come off, it is terrific. Darwin played the trombone to his tulips. The result of this particular experiment was negative"
j_s 9y ago
Off-topic: always interesting to see how referral links fare here. I personally am not opposed if disclosed, since AFAIK (documented as of 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156414) this gives access to other items purchased in the same time frame (whether the specific item is purchased or not) and analytics for links with no orders.
phodo 9y ago
There is a related book, Strategic Intuition [1], by William Duggan, which speaks to the nature of creativity. Highly recommended read if you are interested in this topic. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Intuition-Creative-Achievement-Publishing/dp/0231142692/ https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Intuition-Creative-Achievem...
arca_vorago 9y ago
- the authors point out that when they were researching artificial intelligence, they discovered that systems that focused too much on an explicitly-coded "objective" would end up producing lackluster results, but systems that did more "playful" exploration within a problem space produced more creative results A comment of mine from a year ago: "I think the way forward for AI will be in simulating human conciousness processes, including whatever limitations computationally that come with that. In this sense, I feel that the kind of AI that will break barriers first is going to be in a game, and not on a factory floor."
bewe42 9y ago
I'm coming here from the hackerbooks newsletter where I saw this book mentioned. Just wanted to chime in how compelling I find the ideas. Though the book is slightly repetitive, what stuck with me is the idea of a "stepping stone approach". In order to discover something new or interesting, all we need to do is to find the next stepping stone to jump to. The rest is not is not in our hands. I tell this to myself whenever I think I have to have this "grand vision", which I never have so I don't do anything. I'm happy I stumbled upon it.

mathattack 9y ago

This is the difference between Research(which Kay excelled at) and Development and Commercialization (which he didn’t). Both are important. The latter requires focus, discipline and deadlines.

pbowyer 9y ago
Have you any references to the Development and Commercialization he didn't excel at? I know of Kay by name, but not his life story.
- username223 9y ago
  He was a Xerox PARC guy back in the Smalltalk days, when they developed incredibly expensive systems that never really sold. In the 2000s, he was still griping about how everything was worse than PARC in the 1970s. I haven't paid much attention to him since then.
- pixelrevision 9y ago
  See Apple. They took a lot of the inventions there and brought them to market.
- noblethrasher 9y ago
  Well, in a few of his presentations, he talks about the difference between invention, which is what PARC did, and innovation, which is what companies like Apple do.

tacon 9y ago

That book was written by computer scientists, and they demonstrate how the optimal search algorithm is often to pick the most unusual thing to try that you haven't tried yet. I'd like to see more discussion about this as an approach to personal development. Many people advise students and new graduates to sample the search space broadly, without detailed goals, just to see what's out there. It almost becomes the "do something every day that scares you" maxim. There is an old saying about "Everything you want in life is waiting just outside your comfort zone."

maroonblazer 9y ago
I've not watched the video nor read the book but I take it slightly differently. Reinertsen, in "Managing the Design Factory", describes the need for companies to generate high value information as efficiently as possible. Using Shannon's theory of information, he argues that low-information events are those events where the likelihood of either success or failure is high. Out of this comes the fact that you maximize the information output when the probability of failure is 50%. How many of us take risks - professionally or personally - where the probability of failure is 50%?

pvg 9y ago

"Erasmus Darwin had a theory that once in a while one should perform a damn-fool experiment. It almost always fails but when it does come off, it is terrific. Darwin played the trombone to his tulips. The result of this particular experiment was negative"

j_s 9y ago

Off-topic: always interesting to see how referral links fare here. I personally am not opposed if disclosed, since AFAIK (documented as of 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156414) this gives access to other items purchased in the same time frame (whether the specific item is purchased or not) and analytics for links with no orders.

phodo 9y ago

There is a related book, Strategic Intuition [1], by William Duggan, which speaks to the nature of creativity. Highly recommended read if you are interested in this topic. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Intuition-Creative-Achievement-Publishing/dp/0231142692/ https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Intuition-Creative-Achievem...

arca_vorago 9y ago

- the authors point out that when they were researching artificial intelligence, they discovered that systems that focused too much on an explicitly-coded "objective" would end up producing lackluster results, but systems that did more "playful" exploration within a problem space produced more creative results A comment of mine from a year ago: "I think the way forward for AI will be in simulating human conciousness processes, including whatever limitations computationally that come with that. In this sense, I feel that the kind of AI that will break barriers first is going to be in a game, and not on a factory floor."

bewe42 9y ago

I'm coming here from the hackerbooks newsletter where I saw this book mentioned. Just wanted to chime in how compelling I find the ideas. Though the book is slightly repetitive, what stuck with me is the idea of a "stepping stone approach". In order to discover something new or interesting, all we need to do is to find the next stepping stone to jump to. The rest is not is not in our hands. I tell this to myself whenever I think I have to have this "grand vision", which I never have so I don't do anything. I'm happy I stumbled upon it.