why it needs artistic sensibilities

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Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities Vince Kellen CIO, University of Kentucky November 5, 2010 Royalty, Lenora Clark Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2007

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Page 1: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Vince KellenCIO, University of Kentucky

November 5, 2010

Royalty, Lenora Clark Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2007

Page 2: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

What do we typically do in IT? Analyze

Explore cause & effect

Dissect

Examine parts

Decompose

Identify risk

Avoid surprises

Make things work

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Page 3: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Some assembly required We do build things

• But according to rules

We copy eagerly• Even if it is not quite right

We need an example• Before we start

We want the requirements• Written down

We hate not knowing• What to do

We seek competency• In repeatability

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Page 4: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Geekness

IT people speak in codes

About abstract concepts

That only those who study IT

Actually know

We cannot easily express

In other languages

This abstract knowledge

Even to our spouses

And we get used to it

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Page 5: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Stability Change is effortful and hard yet we often implement change

We then work to stabilize the change• To preserve the investment• Because everyone wants us to

Since tool and tool maker shape each other, we acquire a deep, bodily attachment to the tool and the product

Because some changes are spurious, or perceived as such• Changes are often treated with skepticism

Because we are the tool• Changes are sometimes consciously and non-consciously resisted

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Page 6: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

IT: We put the ‘No’ in Innovation

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Page 7: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

What the little art education I had has taught me

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Page 8: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

“That’s too visual. I can’t talk about it.”

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Wit, childlike, old, worn, organic, man-made, geometric, textured, nuanced, deep colors

Page 9: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Creativity Generate or recognize patterns, ideas, alternatives, possibilities

(strange)

Fusion: bringing together disparate parts in novel, surprising and appropriate solutions. Rethinking the parts. Synthesis.

While some of this may be explicit, it is usually implicit, non-conscious, but definitely influenced by experience, training and thought

Counterfactual thinking, thinking about what is NOT there, or thinking with relaxed rules of construction

Seeking to eliminate constraints to thoughts

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Page 10: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Ask a 14 year old…

How do you do it?• “I don’t know. I just look

inside myself.”

Do you copy?• “No!”

Does it take courage?• “Yes.”

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Page 11: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

IT and art share some things

Tool identification and a reluctance to shed the tool

Procedural skill: craftsmanship, knowledge of the materials

Public critiques of concrete, observable artifacts

Difficulty with personal re-invention

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Page 12: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Theorizing about future states Common

• Understand the goal• Understand the current constraints• Connect the dots around the constraints

Uncommon• In a constant cycle

– Invert, move or remove the current constraints– Experiment with designs– Understand and redefine the goal

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Page 13: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Mood and creativity Negative mood encourages externally driven, focused on threat

identification, aggressive searching of problem states/solutions (Outward-in, bottom-up)

Positive mood encourages application of more automatic, internal views of things to be applied to our actions (Inward-out, top-down)

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Page 14: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

What is happening today?

Lots of moving parts

Quick change

Unanticipated events

Fear

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Page 15: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Complexity of IT

One must fit many, substitutable, overlapping parts together:

While the parts are constantly changing and evolving

While the organization is learning and adapting to IT

While external pressures ‘force’ even more adoption

And internal forces are increasingly conflicted

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Page 16: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

What do we need? Novel ways of reframing constraints

Novel ways of reframing parts: IT, individual, organizational

Novel ways of reorganizing parts and constraints

Ability to detect our own and others’ dogma

Ability to inspect and unpack rules

Ability to communicate different concepts, methods

An openness to entertaining different concepts, methods

Suspension of disbelief

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Page 17: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

What makes the great great?

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Benefit

Cost

++

++0

Superior Solution

Team expertiseTeam creativity

Page 18: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

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Page 19: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

IT is quickly evolving from largely an analytic, solution-fitting skill to a rule-bending, integrative and creative skill

As more IT can be packaged and outsourced, we need people who can re-conceptualize more than just the technology parts

We need people who can re-imagine multiple future states across human-technical lines

Who can easily listen to and learn from others

Who can inspire others to participate in this dialog

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Page 20: Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities

Thank you! Questions?

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“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” A. Einstein