The Past and The New

We somehow have developed the belief that in order to be "innovative" something must be "new." As a consequence, many of us never look at the past.

David Trott, British advertising elder said this about that in his blog:

New is just the ground claimed by people who aren’t good enough to win by being better. New is just a justification for dull being done in a different way.

In the end, that approach has creative consequences.

What makes our business more trivial than any other form of creativity is that we aren’t trying to build on what went before. We’re just anxious to get to the latest technological gimmick before anyone else. I think this attitude cheapens what we do. We confuse being first with creativity. We confuse ‘new’ with ‘better’.

How do you use the past as a source of innovative ideas?

Hat tip: Piers Fawkes and the folks at Marktd.

Comments

[Paula Thornton]

One of the challenges (reality) I see is that the collective 'we' has been so used to not being 'connected' that everyone operates instinctively from the 'create anew' perspective. There are many (most of them not operating on these channels) who are practitioners in their own fields who do not look for or connect to the others doing the same things.

Clearly, I've been out of the practice of Data Warehousing for many years and yet, over a decade later, the questions are still the same and it appears that relatively little progress has been made to embrace the things that were postulated years ago.

The phenomenon I'm beginning to see, but don't have evidence of -- is that far too many people just 'do' their work. They really have no interest in the 'quality' of their involvement in the work as a true 'craftsman' or 'practitioner'. It's all just a job to them -- tell me what to do and how I will be measured. This 'success' model is reinforced by the cultures in which we operate.

We need to break some of these models to release the human potential that is festering below the surface.

[Paula Thornton]

Often wish there were an 'edit' feature in these threads so that the obvious typos we find after we see our posts could be 'fixed' (esp. "has" = "have"). *sigh*

[Mark David Gerson]

"...far too many people just 'do' their work. They really have no interest in the 'quality' of their involvement in the work as a true 'craftsman' or 'practitioner. '"

Really good point, Paula. But don't you think the reason for that is that so many people are slotted into work totally unrelated to their deeper interests/passions, work they feel they must do in order to support themselves?

The question for me is: How do we connect people not only with their (often hidden) passion but with the empowering effects of that passion -- in all aspects of their lives, including the financial?

- Mark David