Unchained Mentality

The frustrations of limitations enable us to "think in a more holistic and creative fashion," according to a study led by Janina Marguc of the University of Amsterdam. The study involved a series of experiments in which subjects were subjected to various obstacles while trying to solve problems.

For example, they worked on "anagram puzzles while a distracting voice played the role of obstacle," and were then given "sensory tests to measure their ability to reason without becoming enmeshed in detail."

The result was that those who endured the "distracting voice" demonstrated greater "perceptual scope," while "those who hadn't dealt with the hindrance lagged behind."

In another test, subjects saddled with an obstacle showed greater ability to associate loosely related concepts -- like telephones and furniture, for instance.

The lesson "is that the brain is a neural tangle of near-infinite possibility, which means that it spends a lot of time and energy choosing what not to notice. As a result, creativity is traded away for efficiency."

Poets, among other artists, live by the creative potential of limitations; as they "need to find a rhyming word with exactly three syllables or an adjective that fits the iambic scheme, they end up uncovering all sorts of unexpected associations." Or, as the writer G.K. Chesterton said: "The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."

[Source: Jonah Lehrer, The Wall Street Journal, 11/26/11]

Jumbo Innovation

Addison L. Lawrence is applying a philosophy of simplicity to help reduce America's reliance on imported shrimp. "Anything that is really good and patentable is as simple as can be," explains Addison, a scientist at the Texas AgriLife Research Mariculture Laboratory.

The problem with traditional shrimp farms is that they use tubs filled with three to five feet of water, "laid out side to side." It's not cost-effective "because only so many tubs can fit into a confined space." Addison figured that stacking the tubs would solve for this, but the tubs were too heavy for that.

So, he consulted with engineers and found that the maximum allowable water depth for stacking tubs was twelve inches. After determining that shrimp could grow in as little as four inches of water, he continued to test and now has a patent pending for a system involving tubs "filled with six to eight inches of water and stacked seven high."

John Maeda, author of The Laws of Simplicity, endorses Addison's approach. "It's everyone's instinct to want more," he says. "At the point of desire you want more, but at the point of daily use, you want less."

For those who want more shrimp, Addison's innovation will produce "up to one million pounds annually per acre of water, compared with 20,000 pounds produced by natural ponds, and the 50,000 pounds" produced without stacking. "And all I did was reduce the water depth," says Addison. "Now is that complicated?"

[Source: Nicole LaPorte, The New York Times, 11/6/11]

Creativity Costs

A funny thing about the most innovative companies: they spend relatively little on research-and-development. This insight is based on a Booz & Co report that "identified 1,000 companies with the biggest 2010 research-and-development budgets and invited 600 executives from those companies to rate which ones they deemed most innovative."

No surprise: Apple came in first as being the most innovative. However, in terms of its research-and-development spending, Apple was 70th. Google, which ranked second in innovation in the Booz study, was not among the top 20 in R&D spending, either.

3M came in third on innovation, but was 86th in R&D. 3M is instead known to "allow employees to spend 15 percent of their time exploring side projects" while also offering "seed grants" to employees to encourage innovation.

On the flipside, four of the top five R&D spenders were health-care companies, but none of them was ranked among the top-ten most innovative companies.

[Source: Melissa Korn, The Wall Street Journal, 10/24/11]