“This idea - that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice - surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours.”

You can read an excerpt of the book, Outliers: The Story Of Success - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm-gladwell-outliers-extract

Offering prizes for scientific achievements is hardly new.”It has been around for centuries,”said Karim R. Lakhani, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied InnoCentive. One early example was the work of John Harrison, the 18th-century clockmaker who, in response to a prize offered by the British Parliament, solved the problem of determining longitude at sea by inventing a clock that would keep good time even in heavy weather.

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“People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them.”

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TO combat overload, we also need to look to our environments. That’s why a few pioneering companies are creating places or times for uninterrupted, focused creative thought. I.B.M. employees practice “Think Fridays” worldwide, avoiding or cutting back on e-mail, meetings and interruptions. Other firms are setting aside unwired, quiet rooms.

“Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology research. Long ago, he identified the foremost challenge of our time: how to allocate our attention. And now, we’re beginning to discover what he foretold: that living distracted just isn’t smart.

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Accidents lead to innovations. So, how do you create more accidents?
By ROBERT D. AUSTIN, LEE DEVIN AND ERIN SULLIVAN
July 7, 2008; Page R6

Accidents happen. And, sometimes, innovation follows.

In fact, although we often don’t like to admit it, some of the most important innovations have happened by accident. Over the centuries, researchers have stumbled over hosts of big ideas and inventions while searching for something entirely different — or not searching for anything at all.

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There is great prestige attached to the word “creative.” Creative people apparently magic up ideas” wonderful solutions to the most complex problems” with the ease of a skilled magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The gathered crowd goes wild. What skill. How do they do it?

Well, I’m afraid I’m here to shatter that illusion. It’s not magic. These people are no different from you and I. They just have a different way of looking at problems and solving them. The good news is, they use tools that anyone can use.

The article suggests a process for coming up with new ideas (an idea brief at the start of a project) and some ways of coming up with new ideas - revolution, re-expression, related worlds, and random connections - Read more ….

The contributors include:
John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Hamptom Press, 2002).

Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist’s Way (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet.

Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editors for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

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