Bright Ideas
A high-tech pioneer argues that innovation springs from hard work, iteration, and tenacity rather than visionary sparks.
How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention,and Discovery
By Kevin Ashton
Doubleday. 2015, 336 pages.
Forget what you think you may know about flashes of inspiration and aha! moments. The myth of creative genius is just that, writes Kevin Ashton, co-founder of MIT’s RFID Auto-ID Center, in this nuanced study of innovators. While enormously talented, Mozart did not pull symphonies out of thin air or “write by magic.” As engineers know, creation takes time, craft, stops, starts, and setbacks. That holds true for brilliant composers as well as everyone else.
How to Fly a Horse, a reference to the Wright brothers’ quest, advances a simple but often ignored truth: “creativity is not magic but work.” Inventors from Michelangelo, Einstein, Curie, and Kandinsky to more obscure figures such as English chemist Rosalind Franklin and French colonial slave Edmond Albius pursued their ideas against tough odds. Some succeeded. Others could not overcome their own doubts, failures, or others’ rejection. Yet each drew upon previous knowledge, and none found instant success. Creative epiphany is a thrilling notion, but in reality “there are no tricks, shortcuts, or get-creative-quick schemes,” Ashton concludes. This, he argues, is positive, because it means everyone has the potential for genius. “Our purpose as a people and as individuals is to leave a legacy of new and improved art, science, and technology for future generations,” he reasons, “just as our two thousand generations of ancestors did before us.”
This book has a dual purpose: to debunk the rarity of genius and explore how to foster creativity. Edmond Albius enters the narrative as an example of both. This 12-year-old enslaved child working on a plantation in the French colony of Réunion lacked formal education. Yet through observation and experimentation, in 1841, he managed to solve a problem that had stumped Europeans for centuries: how to pollinate vanilla plants grown outside their native Mexico. Albius’s story stands out not because of his circumstances, Ashton believes, but because the plantation owner, Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont, listened to and learned from the boy, sending Albius to teach others his technique. Had he not done so, offshore vanilla production may never have been possible, let alone profitable. Bellier-Beaumont also publicly credited Albius, who was freed in 1848, for his discovery, despite disbelief and subsequent attempts to subvert the truth, arguing that France “owes him a debt for starting up a new industry with a fabulous product.”
Despite this inspiring story, innovators more typically are overlooked or intentionally suppressed, and Ashton explores those stories at length. He is unequivocal, for example, in damning James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for stealing the X-ray analyses of Rosalind Franklin and taking credit for determining DNA’s double helix structure. Racial, gender, and religious biases frequently factor into whether someone’s efforts and contributions get recognized. More surprisingly, we learn that creative individuals often are stymied by teachers, employers, and society.
The last three chapters inspect this cultural conundrum while offering approaches to encourage creative individuals and organizations. Perhaps most valuable is the author’s exhortation that innovators must expect resistance and be prepared to struggle to overcome it. He further demonstrates that creative work is best done alone, in concentrated, prolonged sessions. Studies of brainstorming reveal diminishing returns the larger the number of people involved; the most innovative results are generated solo or from small groups that talk through their problem-solving strategies. Moreover, Ashton emphasizes, people must jump in and try out solutions rather than waiting for inspiration or perfection. “Good writing is bad writing well edited; a good hypothesis is whatever is left after many experiments fail,” he notes.
Ashton’s study of creativity offers few ground-breaking insights, but his observations will resonate with engineers accustomed to the importance of hands-on experimentation, learning from failure, and studying past efforts. Of most value may be the book’s detailed and engaging case studies, which could be helpful in illustrating these issues for engineering students.
Review by Robin Tatu
Robin Tatu is Prism’s senior editorial consultant.
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