Collective Creativity

Brainstorming could be the worst thing you could do if innovation is the goal, suggests Janet Rae-Dupree in the New York Times (12/7/08). First introduced in 1948 by Alex Osborn, brainstorming "has been proved in a number of studies over the last 20 years to be far less effective than generally believed." Brainstorming is based on the "premise that to get good ideas, a group must generate a large list from which to cherry-pick."

A key problem with this, according to blogger, businessman and innovation maven Drew Boyd, is that people tend to clam up when it comes to shouting out their best ideas in public. The irony is that while invention may be better hatched in isolation, innovation requires teamwork. Pixar’s Ed Catmull concurs: "Creativity must be present at every level of every artistic and technical part of the organization." He calls this "collective creativity."

In addition, according to Drew, innovation is not about "identifying a problem and then seeking a solution." He says it’s really just the opposite — deconstructing "successful products and processes into separate components, then studying those parts to find other potential uses." Drew says this approach is based on a process called "systematic inventive thinking," developed by Genrich Altshuller, a Russian engineer and scientist. But he also agrees that "innovation is a team sport." ~ Tim Manners, editor.