This is full of great wisdom that’s probably not new to this crowd, BUT IT’S JOHN CLEESE. John Cleese is another brilliant person that just happens to be a comedian. Interestingly, the last couple things he says sound like they came right from Ackoff.
However, compare the main point Cleese has, about creating an uninterrupted environment for creative thought, to the point Steven Johnson made in the last post. They are two sides of the same coin, and perhaps Cleese is a bit shortsighted to leave this out. Heavy interaction with people is a great source of ideas and validation of your ideas, just as quiet contemplation is also a great source of ideas and validation of other people’s ideas.
It reminds me of my post sharing Visualizing the Creative Process because it’s sort of trying to say the same thing. It’s a two sided process that many people think is one sided. It’s an iterative process. It’s about synthesis and analysis.
The other day I couldn’t stop people from linking me to this talk. Mostly because it reminds them of what SuperHappyDevHouse and Hacker Dojo are about, as it talks about socializing ideas and the coffee houses of the Enlightenment. This is also the explanation of what makes the Silicon Valley so far ahead of the game. It’s open and connected. I’ve started to describe the essence of the Valley as a growing social network that continually collapses onto itself, not only creating a small world effect (everybody knows everybody around here), but consolidates the collective growth of knowledge.
I hope the idea of this talk spreads so we can start to minimize the focus on independent eureka moments, and start putting the spotlight on creating social environments for exchanging and cultivating ideas.
I recently visited a friend, game maker Alec Holowka, who introduced me to Dan Dennett. He was brought up for his book, Consciousness Explained. Here he talks about memes, but memes as parasites. They infect hosts, get them to spread the meme, and continue to live on.
The most interesting part of this talk was his reference to Guns, Germs, and Steel. In the past, we’ve unintentionally killed off civilizations by bringing to them our local germs. Today we’re doing it again, but with memes. The ideas of our culture have certain “germs” we’re accustomed to that if brought to a very different culture could threaten their livelihood.
