Pixiq

My husband, an amazing writer and editor, is obsessed with the echelon of word play as creation. He is addicted to The New Yorker. I am passionate about all things scientific and creative. We make an uncommon pair. Knowing how much I love Malcolm Gladwell’s quirky research on all things atypical, he suggested that I read his latest story in the May 16, 2011 issue called Creation Myth. In sum, the article is about Steve Jobs, the birth of the mouse, George Starkweather, a former giant in laser printing from Xerox and how business often misses the boat by ignoring the necessity for enveloping creativity.

But the reason the article peeked my interest is because it reminded me of my dear neighbor, colleague and friend, John Neel, a contributor to this pixiq.com blog. John was my neighbor for over 20 years and at one point worked at Kodak. For a period of time, John was paid to play with his ‘digital crayons’ at Kodak Park in Rochester, NY. He was so far ahead of the curve, that like George Starkweather of Xerox, his brilliant ideas were often overlooked and scorned while under Kodak's employ. But similar to Starkweather, John kept working, even when his boss at Kodak reprimanded him for doing so. Fortunately, John continued to hack away at his ideas and while Kodak now owns numerous patents of his ideas, thankfully, through great luck and synchronicity, he now is about to publish a lifetime of his wonderful ideas in Rethinking Digital: Making & Using Traditional & Contemporary Photo Tools. Originally, John and I were co-authoring a book for pixiq.com but editing guru, Marti Saltzman, had the perspicacity to pull our work apart and separate his work from mine, Digital Image Transfer: Creating Art With Your Photography. This was a gift and Marti’s decision displayed enormous courage and foresight.

In the words of Nathan Myhrvold, formerly a senior executive at Microsoft states in Gladwell’s article, “Innovation is an unruly thing. There will be some ideas that don’t get caught in your cup. But that’s not what the game is about. The game is what you catch, not what you spill.”

I work for the mother lode of creativity: the ultimate think tank, higher education. I have been fortunate to be paid to think. I just wish that all business operated within that same venue. Play always leads to creativity. I just wish that big business honchos heeded the idea behind this article and would ‘grok’ what artists have been saying ad infinitum: creativity often leads to great discovery, scientific breakthroughs, and ever art.  MIT’s think tank gets it. If only big business would.

Well, maybe a few of those corporate leaders might just read this article and re-discover themselves in the process. One can hope. As always, light on.