Day / October 5, 2007

by Roger Dennis

Inspiration in unexpected places

From an article in the FT (admittedly a while ago, but I’m playing catchup) comes this great little quote about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival:


Holidaying executives, hoping to recharge amid all this artistic experimentation, might not expect to pick up ideas to take back to work with them in September. But perhaps they shouldn’t switch off their business brains altogether. As William Taylor and Polly La Barre pointed out last year in their entertaining book, Mavericks at Work: “The Fringe is more than performance art. It is a colourful symbol of the performance of open-source innovation.”

by Roger Dennis

Humility

Slightly off topic, but worth noting an article in the recent issue of Technology Review. It’s an extract from the autobiography of James Watson.

Never be the brightest person in a room

Getting out of intellectual ruts more often than not requires unexpected intellectual jousts. Nothing can replace the company of others who have the background to catch errors in your reasoning or provide facts that may either prove or disprove your argument of the moment. And the sharper those around you, the sharper you will become. It’s contrary to human, and especially to human male, nature, but being the top dog in the pack can work against greater accomplishments.