Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Imagination, Creativity and Related Subjects

A few weeks ago I read a very interesting online article: Why John Seely Brown Says We Should Look Beyond Creativity to Cultivate Imagination.  John Seely Brown, aka JSB, was chief scientist at Xerox and director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  He is now the independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge and a visiting scholar at USC.  We’ve been friends for over 20 years, and currently both serve on the Advisory Board of USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab. 

In his personal website, JSB calls himself Chief of Confusion, “helping people ask the right questions.”  The article, a conversation with journalist and New School professor Heather Chaplin, explores a few such questions, the most intriguing of which, I believe, is the distinction between creativity and imagination. 

“I think we’re way too focused on creativity,” he says.  “It’s misguided.  We should be focused on imagination. . . The real key is being able to imagine a new world.  Once I imagine something new, then answering how to get from here to there involves steps of creativity.  So I can be creative in solving today’s problems, but if I can’t imagine something new, then I’m stuck in the current situation. . .” 

“I think what’s happening in STEM education is a tragedy.  Art enables us to see the world in different ways.  I’m riveted by how Picasso saw the world.  How does being able to imagine and see things differently work hand-in-hand?  Art education, and probably music too, are more important than most things we teach.  Being great at math is not that critical for science, but being great at imagination and curiosity is critical.  Yet how are we training tomorrow’s scientists?  By boring the hell out of them in formulaic mathematics - and don’t forget I am trained as a theoretical mathematician.”

Cloud Computing: Lots of Progress; Lots to Do

In June of 2008 I participated in a conference on The Promise and Reality of Cloud Computing.  “There is a clear consensus that there is no real consensus on what cloud computing is,” said the conference organizer in his closing remarks. There was general agreement that something big and profound was going on out there, although we were not totally sure what it was yet. 

Along with a number of others, I struggled to define what cloud computing was all about.  I finally concluded that the reason we were both excited, but had trouble articulating what we were excited about was because cloud isn’t any one thing.  Rather, it’s a new model of computing, only the third such model in the history of the IT industry, centralized and client-server being the two previous ones.  There is no single dimension around which to define a computing model, which accounts for the variety of definitions. 

Cloud computing has continued to evolve and advance over the ensuing five years, and I think that 2013 will be viewed as the year when cloud truly took off.  An article on last April’s Cloud Connect conference pointed out that people are no longer starting their sessions by saying let’s define cloud computing.  “This is a clear indication that the industry has moved beyond elementary knowledge-gathering and onto the practicalities associated with cloud implementation and rollout.”

Big Data, Science and the Humanities

A few weeks ago I participated in an online debate sponsored by The Economist around the question: Are Smart Cities Empty Hype?.  I argued the case against the motion.  In my opening statement I said that I strongly believe that digital technologies and the many data services they are enabling will make cities smarter and help transform them over time.  Later, in my closing remarks, I pointed out that since the qualifier smart essentially means information-based or data-driven, the promise of smart cities is inexorably linked to the general promise of big data and data science, which some have felt are themselves being over-hyped.

Over the holidays, I learned about an intriguing debate that took place this past year in the New Republic.  Billed as Science vs the Humanities, it raised a number of important questions.  To what extent does the promise of data science apply to different kinds of disciplines, including the humanities?  Can big data tools and related methods help the humanities achieve a more scientific understanding of human nature?  Let me make some general comments before getting to the debate itself.

Scientific revolutions are launched when new tools lead to new measurements and observations.  Early in the 17th century, Galileo made major improvements to the recently invented telescope which enabled him to make discoveries that radically changed our view of the universe. Over the centuries we have seen that new tools, measurements and discoveries precede major scientific breakthroughs in physics, chemistry, biology and other natural sciences disciplines.  

Similar breakthroughs have been much harder to achieve beyond the natural sciences, especially when it comes to the study of human nature, that is, the way we feel and behave.  But, the situation has been rapidly changing in the past few decades.  First of all, advances in behavioral science, neuroscience, genomics, evolutionary biology and related disciplines have shed significant new light on such people-oriented studies. And then there is the advent of big data.

The Global Business Environment: Success or Struggle?

Deloitte’s Shift Index aims to understand the long term transformations in the global business environment by tracking 25 metrics over more than 40 years.  These metrics provide a comprehensive picture of the evolution and impact of advances in digital technologies and changes in public policy over that time span.  The first Shift Index report came out in 2009 and has been updated three times since.  

The 2013 version consists of five separate reports, each focused on a different topic.  A few weeks ago I wrote about one of them, The burdens of the past, which dealt with the growing gap between individuals and institutions in their adoption of knowledge-sharing technologies.  I now want to discuss another 2013 report, Success or Struggle?, which caught my attention with its provocative opening line: “Companies are broken and many don’t know.” 

“The news today paints an upbeat picture on many fronts.  Corporations report record profit levels. . . All aggregate signs point to positive outcomes for the time being,” notes the report, and then adds: “Yet, other metrics tell a different story, one of increasing pressures and stress for companies, executives, and employees.  An increasing topple rate indicates that US companies are struggling to maintain their leadership positions as revenues and market share prove vulnerable. . . These pressures are felt by executives charged with pursuing profitable growth and workers who must stay relevant as technology and business models change.” 

This contrarian report confirms my own anecdotal observations that many companies are feeling lots of pressures and stress despite their reasonably high profits and  stock valuations.  Fierce competitors keep appearing from all corners of the world.  Advances in technology are eroding the prevailing business models in industry after industry, - including IT, media, retail and banking.  Many of these companies have adopted a defensive posture in response to such unpredictable markets, - focusing on increased productivity and lower costs, which leaves little room for creativity and innovation.  It’s a jungle out there, might well be a fair description of our current business environment.

Can Things Still Get Done in Our Gridlocked Political System?

I just finished watching season 1 of the American version of House of Cards, having watched the BBC’s   British version a few years back.  The lead actors in each version, Kevin Spacey and Ian Richardson respectively, are excellent, as is the rest of the cast.  Both productions are quite dark, with strong overtones of Macbeth.  I highly recommend them.                   

The American House of Cards deals with political and personal intrigues at the highest levels in Washington. The dark mood of each episode resonates with us partly, I believe, because of the low esteem in which we currently hold most of our national political leaders.  At the end of the year, the President had an average job approval of 43%, while 53% disapproved.  For Congress, the figures were a startling 13% approval and 81% disapproval.  No wonder we’re so ready to believe that almost anything, short of Shakespearean witches, is possible in the dysfunctional culture of Washington. 

But, is the current Washington culture uniquely dysfunctional or just a more extreme version of the way things have generally worked since the Constitution went into effect in 1789?  Is it perhaps so difficult to get things done because that’s how our system of checks and balances was actually designed to work?  Despite the high disapproval numbers, how bad are things actually, especially when compared to just about any other country in the world?  And, is our system of government still adequate for dealing with our fast changing, highly complex world? 

I thought of these questions when reading Don’t Mistake this for Gridlock, a recent NY Times opinion article by George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, in which he articulates an intriguing, contrarian point of view.  While economic policy in the US is indeed ruled by gridlock, “the American political system allows for more change than its current reputation suggests,” he writes.