Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Creativity is a Way of Operating in Open Mode

The pattern that is most conducive to innovation is that of the open platform, says Steven Johnson in the concluding chapter of Where Good Ideas Come From, commercial entities can build upon it, and they have. Seeing patterns is dependent upon keeping opportunities open for the flow of information and ideas generated by networks of people. Innovation and creativity are often used interchangeably, yet there are distinctions between the two. While the first is the action of creating something new, the second is more akin to a way of operating. In Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative Ken... Read more →

All Happy Companies Are Different

“The most important thing of all is not to oppose the crowd, but to think for yourself.” [Peter Thiel] This statement alone should give us pause, “all happy companies are different.” Because the reliance on “best practices” has never been greater. At a time when opportunity increases due to the fast rate of change, so does risk. But we can put a price on risk and learn to appreciate that it is part of the very actions we take to create new opportunities. So understanding its nature should go hand in hand with understanding our own appetite or tolerance for... Read more →

Seeing Patterns and Keeping Opportunities Open for Innovation

Focus too closely on anything and we lose sight of its context. It becomes visible only when we look from a certain distance, and context contains more than that one thing, making patterns more apparent. What we lose in detail, we gain in perspective. So it is with innovation. In the concluding chapter of Where Good Ideas Come From Steven Johnson provides a framework to look at the general laws of innovation. Starting with the question he used to weave stories and data on how good ideas are born and get done, “what kind of environments make innovation possible in... Read more →

Reorienting Search Toward Meaning

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life -- daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” [Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning] On the day he was deported... Read more →