Book Club The Nexus Part 7 How To Know If You Are Creative

disruptors and curious minds welcome to the thinking on paper book club chapter seven this week of the Nexus augmented thinking for complex world the new convergence of art technology and science by Julio Tino with Bruce Mau chapter seven my favorite chapter of the book will say that's big statement it's big statement it's big statement it's my favorite chapter it's my favorite chapter because essentially chapter seven breaks down creativity what makes creative person and obviously if you're building your dream team you want creatives in there left brain right brain but you want creative people in there the chapter it's so many incredible references you got Picasso Van go Munch margar Edison Tesla Russell Rodan Twain Hitchcock mean the list goes on of examples that he uses and why these particular people were so creative I'll start with quote from Herbert Simon which think I'm stealing because you going to use this in the last episode and I'm using it to this is one of my favorites this is Herbert Simon actually yeah this is good one fire well maybe you know off by Art in his 1983 penas which is what's that mean pen the Nobel prize in economics he said creative individuals possess one willingness to accept vaguely defined problem statements and gradually structure them two continual preoccupation with problems over considerable periods of time and three extensive background knowledge in relevant and potentially relevant areas so here's why this here's why this is interesting to me so ran across this or version of this long time ago in in another book called technique for producing ideas from James Webb young and he talks he was an ogal guy like early early like Mad Men like original advertising dude in the 50s or whatever and lot of this like lot of this comes out in in what he said about creativity long time ago and there's just to paraphrase there's this idea of like being okay living in the messy middle right middle of something that we don't know what we don't even know what the problem is that we're thinking about it's just an area that Sparks our curiosity right so feel that way like feel like can figure out or or can figure out where my curiosity is lit and kind of go to those places even though don't know why I'm doing it or what the outcome is going to be so think that is that's important to think about think continual preoccupation right so this is interesting this is this is this is an extension of like living with once that problem is identified living in that space of not being able to have the answer right and not getting frustrated with not having the answer so extended living in that unknowing is pretty powerful but like tucking it away in your subconscious little bit and just letting it live there and connect dots as you as you bring in new information right nice yeah what do you think of the potential relevant think that's quite key word in that isn't it the potentially relevant areas okay don't know how I'm going to try to do this but maybe you could look through some of the rules of creativity or what he thinks are the rules of cre creativity and how they might apply in the business world so maybe marketing brand manager maybe so the first one is like learn the craft and then set it aside and he uses some artwork that you know you start start here with the the rules the basics you know trying to get in the ground workor if you're an artist if you can't if you're listening to this is picture of man and then once you've learned that deconstruct it simplify it break the rules move away from the guidelines that got you your introduction to that and end up with just that wait Contex behind it but is reductionism coming into play in creativity now mean if you just looked at it that does look like reductionism doesn't it how about the one from Picasso then yeah let's look at the one from Picasso see if that is reductionism as well with the cow his famous cow where he starts with this and ends up here this mirrored cameras playing Havoc with my pointing yeah think think so going going back to the going back to the creativity piece that you mentioned referenced that first artist who started in one place and kind of went down to the black Square you know learn the rules learn the craft and then break the rules right so it's it's kind of like it's again surprising JY comes with another music reference but you know in order to like understand guitar you play the songs you want to learn on guitar the songs You Like on guitar and then you pick how those incorporate into the rules of music right and then once you become comfortable and proficient at doing those things then you push the boundaries right because you know the boundaries that can be pushed by learning it think that that's what take away from that that first piece of it learn it and then break the rules think it's good analogy for the the guitar If you for me personally learn song and then play it how you want but learn how to that's what Hendrick did isn't it didn't he just just break the rules all over the shop another reason why this is my favorite chapter of the book is Frank Lloyd Wright and the story of falling water and creativity and constraints and Julio says you know if you have constraints constraints can help your creativity deadlines are an obvious example and you know people say no don't work in constraints need time need you know to think about it and the story of falling water is incredible because basically Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to build this Millionaire's house and he spent nine months doing nothing and then one Saturday morning the guy called him and said I'm be there in couple of hours to see the designs and Frank Lloyd right hadn't done anything and he just know he had his breakfast and literally like the best alltime work of American architecture voted for by architect was done in two hours after breakfast because he was in rush which found just find the whole story so incredible well think think good inputs equal good outputs right and think about this in you know while he may not have been putting pen to paper and actually drawing anything he's certainly you know intaking bunch of information not related to that project even specifically maybe he was reading an amazing fiction story you know maybe he was learning about you know the method to to draw and shade and apple or whatever the heck it is right but somehow all of those things connected when the constraint was there to say hey you got to pull something off right now right wouldn't it be funny if he' just been reading some Pulp Fiction science fiction comic which just happened to have don't know water pouring out of UFO or something and they just that boom got it highly highly possible so bringing it back to the brand world right because there's lot of people who read in order to you know as as Julio Tino talks about augment their thinking right to improve their craft to translate it to better results as an individual and the the group they run and their company right so how is it possible for company to allow this room to breathe because think room to breathe in space to consider things and and have good inputs stew around in your subconscious because think there's subconscious processing that happens with Crea ity but brands are like business are like hey p&l I've got shareholder call tomorrow what have we done you know to to show value right how do companies balance that like according to what we've been reading in this book like what are some the principles could we pull out well listen to Donahue in episode with her who speaks exactly about this about Brands and companies finding SPAC for their employees for their teams to to to breathe to think to create and creativity without constraints as well it's like okay mean you're the expert on Bell Labs but essentially just Bell Labs were given time and space so we know we know it works we know that if you're given space and you're given time to be creative you can produce great things so how do Brands and companies mean it takes Nexus thing it takes leadership it takes courage and guts to you know to say to whoever it is you know okay take the week and go mad mean the harsh reality in this world is that not many companies and not many brands are going to do that no matter what lessons no matter how many times they're told that it works just because they're working on immediate returns aren't they so maybe changing the the Outlook of immediate returns like longterm don't know how you would do that so what's your how would you do it using these rules what's you know some Nexus thinking you're Nexus thinker Jeremy you're going into doesn't have to be but you know as in brand how you going to implement wouldn't do it wouldn't do it for by the way don't mean but like Yeah brand how would you do it yeah think think what what can be Quantified people are businesses are always looking to understand quantification of results to turn it into Data to show that something is happening in progress right is the way think about it so what can be Quantified in the early stage of ideation and exploration is the fact that you are just holding space to to to identify and explore right so the first thing would be like hey for the next three weeks Mark want you and your team on Mondays between 8 and noon want you to do nothing but explore list of of things that drive your curiosity that literally drive your curiosity and even maybe prior to that that having them build list of things they love to listen to they love to read they love to explore they wish they would have done right and then you can quantify those moments over the next three weeks and then you can have an output and have discussion and say hey what are some of the cool things that could come out of that but think the early quantification of just dedicating the time love that actionable and also you're obviously better Nexus think than am because said week or month you said few hours and few hours on Monday morning start the week with some IDE creation some creativity some free form business brand Jazz you know set you up for the week and get some ideas yeah short easily implementable ideas yeah yeah and then that could turn into whole Skunk Works team over time or bell lab te over time right but one thing so this goes back to the thread of converging don't converge too quickly right don't think you found the answer we referenced this in the last chapter it still is in this chapter as well but there was quote in here that found really interesting that that says can we take drastic action when something appears finished so like yes yes you can ABS yeah so when you write something Mark like when you when you've spent weeks writing the lore for video game that that you know that that you've turned over and you're ready to turn over have you ever gotten to the point where you're just like man what if just flip this character completely on its head he's not nice guy he's an now what does that do to the rest of the story have you ever done that it's hard to do right tell you with writing articles and blog posts and thought pieces is just get really callous editor and they do it for you they do it for you it's like okay no mark this is all just no no we'll start at the end and begin in the mid middle and you know take out half of it start again so yeah that that's the advice if you want to do that so that's cheat that's cheating to achieve complimentarity though right if you have complimentarity you're doing it yourself but it's nice to have nudge even though the nudge hurts sometimes right think with mean I'm not the person we need to get be ear on or somebody to talk about you know these big creative writers but as the journey as your story develops your ideas are going to change and then you're going to be forced to change big Parts at the end just because of how the story has evolved and how the characters have evolved that they dictate that okay now you need to make some changes like the beginning doesn't make sense because at the end they're doing this and I'm sure there must be some some process of that for almost every creative writer yeah about what about what about music do you ever do that do you ever just rip it up and start again absolutely yeah so use constraints when I'm writing music just for myself too I'm not writing it to you know go on tour or sell records or anything I'm just writing it to to to exercise the music muscle right so do these 90 minute song Sprints where you know just start and largely you know their their electronic instrument sometimes guitar or Bass and I'll spend 90 minutes on it and then I'll get out of it I'll just be like you know that's the rule 90 minutes quit messing with it and then have bunch of them in there that I'll go back to and I'll be like hey I'm gonna I'm gonna take the beat and completely flip this around and do things differently and it's easier to do that once you have the initial capture of something so absolutely do that and it's it's pretty fun I'm going to take what you just said and try to weave it into page 249 in in the Nexus one of the creativity guidelines be conscious of the Judgment of the times so I'm gonna say this one because you listened to Rick Rubin the other day and he was interviewing Trent resner now Rick Rubin is relevant here because in his book creativity he speaks about this you know right for the times you're going to write something and it's going to be right for that time and times are going to move on and what you created for that time is no longer relevant or important or it's lost it some of its charm because the times have changed which is what he speaks about here but and Trent resner speaks about the same thing but Trent resar also speaks about what you just did few probably about long time ago now he did an experiment where every day he'd create new piece of music Based On Photograph or quote or something and at the end of the day that was it it was over he had day per song and what he created in that time that was it and it went out into the world and good or bad things happened well you know what's really interesting creativity is look at it couple of ways number one it when you make something it's it's something captured in moment in time whether it's photograph whether it's Trent Reser's song whether it's something that you write whether it's journal page that write it's it's capture of what was happening right at that moment in time right so if you think about that as being an object okay whatever that thing is captured creativity in general is like this unique rearrangement of found things right like Court progressions it's you know 145 in in is still 145 and but there are millions of songs that are written in in that form right so taking these song bits that I've had and using them as new objects to create something entirely new it's really interesting when you start capturing stuff you can connect it in new ways as new jump off points too like it shall we how would you Summarize chapter seven Dy how would you summarize it from creativity perspective and from brand somebody if Brand's working how what can they take from this chapter think there's an interesting excess ability to the creative process as as he's out as he as he's outlined it especially especially for people that don't there are so many people that're like man don't have creative bone in my body I'm like call the biggest you know on that because like all of us are innately creative right and the narratives that we have in our head are you know well I'm not good at creating you don't have to be good at it you just have to do it right so seeing this Frame work in here maybe someone that has that mindset of you know I'm not creative they can look at this and be like well you know maybe am creative because I've done this and I've done that and maybe if can and take look at some things like for example one of the the the the one of the framework pieces right before be conscious of Judgment of the times is be ready to prepare the ground and think that is like that's one of the coolest ones here where someone someone looking at this can say well hey had great new idea and my business didn't like it and it's like okay well of that great idea because I've done this million time not million times I've done this lot come up with like hairbrained really inventive interesting ideas and Pitch them to somebody with such excitement that I've scared the out of them related to the idea right so preparing the ground is like okay well what if that person creating those ideas can think about how it connects to existing thinking think that is such an important piece because if you can frame it in the existing way of doing things then the light starts to turn on over time but it takes time so anyway long story short long long answer your question this is great Peak at at the creative process for those who don't think they're creative love it absolutely love it that's just you've just perfectly distilled chapter seven of the Nexus so nice work jery that's the end of book club for today we'll be back for chapter eight next week check out thinking onp paper. xyzxyz XYZ for more show notes and request if you like what you're listening to tell friend get involved and share the book club stay see you next time guys bye