Chance Favours The Connected Mind

Slideshow by Rebecca Gorinski

Chance:1. possibility[uncountable and countable] how possible or likely it is that something will happen, especially something you want…

Definition from Longman English Dictionary Onlinehttp://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/chance_1

Before continuing, I suggest (if you have not already) watching “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson.The video should appear after this slide…

Steven Johnson’s video promotes the idea that there aren’t as many “Eureka” moments as people think, and what really happens is a collision of hunches…

So….let’s look at the environmental factors that can increase the chance of these great ideas coming together….

Steven found a pattern that was repeated again and again. What was it?

Steven found the pattern of the slow hunch…Where ideas often are only one part of two, or many more, in a final solution.

All these hunches must start out on their own, with time to incubate over at least 2, or even maybe up to or more than 10 or 20 years!!! (eg. the internet).

This incubation time ensures the idea will become successful or useful.

As ideas usually come from the collision of at least 2 hunches, it makes sense that we need to:

“find a way to create systems that allow these hunches to come together and form something bigger than the sum of their parts”. (Jonhson, 2010).

Great examples from the past are the coffee houses in the age of enlightenment and the parisian salons of modernism. They were very popular with creative minds.

With increasing ways to connect, there is a better chance of finding the other hunch you need to finish or enhance the idea you are working on.These days there is more of a trend of connecting using the internet, which while sometimes has been viewed as a hinderance, is actually a very fruitful resource. The internet is one way you might be able to find that other hunch.

A practical example….

Imagine I divided a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle between a class of 20 students. Each student would end up with 5 pieces. Think of these ideas as hunches.

There is a chance that one person alone would be able to connect at least two of there pieces (“Eureka!”)……however, it is much more likely that each student would have to connect with many other students to be able to find matches for their own pieces. (slow hunch).

There is also a possibility that if a student did not connect with every other student in the class, some pieces would go without being matched up…Imagine all the creations or innovations that haven’t been achieved because they haven’t been connected enough? Because they haven’t met their match…?

Real life examples….I’m sure you have all heard of Steve Jobs, yes – the Apple man.

But did you know, Jobs dropped out of college due to the expense….however, he stayed on campus, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s dorm room.While he was there, Jobs started dropping in on some creative classes. One of these classes was calligraphy.

Where did this lead?

+

= Computer fonts!!

Steve Jobs himself said:

"If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.“ (Jobs, 2005).

Just to recap…

• Eureka moments are possible, but less likely…• Slow hunches are more common, where an idea may lay dormant for

years, until it collides with another hunch that combines the hunch into something much bigger than its individual parts..

• So, connecting is the key!! Allowing ideas to mingle, swap and create new forms.

• The internet is a big part of connecting with others.• WHEN YOU ARE CONNECTED, YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE CREATIVE AS

YOUR HUNCHES CAN MEET OTHER HUNCHES AND GROW INTO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED, UNPLANNED, AND EXCEPTIONAL!!!!

Want to be creative?

Want better ideas?

Get connected!!!

Because chance favours the connected mind!

References

Jobs, S. 2005. “'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says”.http://archive.is/20120711235417/http://news-

service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs- 061505.html

Johnson, S. 2010. “Where Good Ideas Come From”.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU

Longman English Dictionary Onlinehttp://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/chance_1