Comments on: Innovation Lessons from Malcolm Gladwell

By: Neil Gaiman on Connecting « Book Riffs « Innovation Leadership Network

Neil Gaiman on Connecting « Book Riffs « Innovation Leadership Network — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 10:39:18 +0000

[...] How can we make it easier to do this ourselves? There are two ways. One is to build expertise in an area. This makes it easier for you to make these connections. They look like a bolt of lightning-type insight, but these are built on hard work. [...]

By: Innovation Lessons from Charles Leadbeater « Innovation « Innovation Leadership Network

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:48:58 +0000

[...] week I talked about how I use Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk in my innovation courses. Another one that I use to illustrate how the innovation process is [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:23:43 +0000

I think that’s a terrific insight Scott – thanks for sharing it!

By: createpei

createpei — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:51:51 +0000

Tim;

My key take away from this and in some other case’s I’ve read about is that there is possible quite a bit of value in having the time and the space to digest, process and filter the information. That by having this time allows the subconsious mind the ability to play with data and think of crazy alternatives. Further I think the “space” allows the innovation to perculate to the surface.

Moskowitz’s flash of brillance (per Gladwell) and Gould’s similar laser focus came later at an unrelated time and often while doing something else.

Much of Google’s success has also come during their “downtime” (“20-percent time”) alloted for engineers to work on their own projects (http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html&about=eng)
3M is another company that uses this approach.

So I would build on your earlier statement and propose that chance favours the mind that has been given the space to prepare.

Just some thoughts I’ve had.

Sincerely from Canada,
Scott Wilson