Interesting bit on Fast Company Now about a talk by Blink and The Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell on two types of creativity. Great popularizer of obscure ideas that he is, Gladwell latches on to an idea from a book by David Galeson to explain how two artistic masters — the cubist Picasso and impressionist Cezanne — embody two types of creativity/innovation.
As FC Now puts it:
Picasso, a conceptual innovator, pretty much knew what he was going to create even before he created it, and came up with new ideas at a rapid pace early in his career. Cezanne, by contrast, was an experimental innovator, slowly rehashing and improving on a particular concept until he nailed it. … Consequently, his greatest works–or at least the ones most valued by collectors–didn’t come until later in his life.
What troubles Gladwell is that so many companies today favor “precocious innovation [of the Picasso kind] and have lost patience with innovation that takes a long time to mature [a la Cezanne].” In order to be successful, he argues, you need both.
Seems this idea might extend to educational institutions as well.
The post points out that so many businesses go for the quick fix because “It’s a lot less riskier.”
The conceptualists, says Gladwell, can approach a company’s board and say, We’re going to solve this problem, and this is how we’re going to do it. Experimentalists, on the other hand, don’t necessarily know where their research is going to lead them, will probably take longer, and have a tougher time articulating their plan of action. With limited budgets and patience, it’s the former that get funded. But increasingly, Gladwell says, we’re encountering problems that can only be solved through extended trial and error.
Sounds like most faculty would side with Cezanne, while many administrators — and marketing types — would favor Picasso.