FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
January 26, 2006
Survivor at Davos
In yesterday's post, I described a creativity face-off at Davos. Participants were asked to describe their vision of the keys to creativity, and the audience voted on those ideas until two finalists remained. As promised, here's the outcome.
Last to be voted off the island was Ideo's Tim Brown, who suggested that creativity is spurred by approaching problems with a beginner's mindset, and by exploring ideas through the use of rapid prototyping.
And the winner is: Google's Marissa Mayer, who argued for "a healthy disrespect for the impossible" combined with the virtues of constraints. In other words, aim high, but focus. Mayer described how an artist friend once told her that it was much easier to paint on a canvas that already had something on it--a mark or a line of some sort--than to begin with an entirely blank canvas. The existing mark is a constraint, something the artist has to think about and work around. And product developers at Ikea begin with a different sort of constraint, she said. They start with a price they have to meet--say $49--and then think about what they can make for that price.
Posted by Mark Vamos at January 26, 2006 10:10 AM | Category: davos 2006 |
6 Comments
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Wonderful thoughts from Davos - I guess the beautiful scenery helps to come up with these ideas ;-) Alex
Hope you get a chance to meet Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia in Davos. He started Nextel Corporation before going into public service. What he did in Virginia to innovate, and bring infrastructure, education and jobs into rural Southwestern Virginia was impressive. He is also a top tier candidate for the presidency in 2008.
http://www.bdtonline.com/editorials/local_story_012181800.html?keyword=topstory
Published: January 12, 2006 06:18 pm
A truly incredible journey ... Mark Warner leaves lasting impact on Virginia
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
During his final State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday night in Richmond, Gov. Mark Warner referred to his four-year term in office as “an incredible journey” and noted that “the moment I will cherish the most” came when he was able to merge his high-tech business savvy with his desire to see the educational needs of all of Virginia’s young people met.
In a very personable and direct way, Warner said his moment came last fall when he participated in an announcement in Lebanon, Va., concerning the CGI-AMS plans to create 300 software development jobs — “Jobs that any community anywhere in this country would love to have,” Warner said.
As state party chair and as an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate, Gov. Warner honed his networking skills, but when he was elected governor, he made it clear that he wanted to be a force for education as well as an advocate of developing the state’s high-tech economy. The CGI-AMS announcement in Russell County represented a combination of both of those components.
While that was Warner’s personal moment, historians may find something else about his stay in the governor’s mansion to represent his legacy. When he took the helm, the legislators of the General Assembly were at loggerheads as they tried to deal with former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s car tax elimination promise. The state’s economy was floundering even before 9/11 sent shock waves through the U.S. economy, and Gilmore’s unbending commitment to his car tax proposal left the state with some tall mountains to climb.
Warner took a systematic approach to addressing the two issues at hand. He brought stability to the state revenue flow by working for passage of a tax reformation plan that saved Virginia’s bond rating. But perhaps more importantly, he worked to break down the barriers that separated Republicans and Democrats and constantly urged them to work together to find bipartisan solutions to the problems facing the Commonwealth.
It will take time before the financial reforms and the bipartisan bridges of the Warner administration can be fully view against the backdrop of the special challenges facing the state, nation and world in the post 9/11 world, but Warner’s results-oriented approach and his consensus-building strategy seems to have paid a positive benefit for the Old Dominion.
daniel,
your comments would have more merit if you disclosed that you run the 'Mark Warner for President blog team'.
My comments are why I run the Warner for President blog. :-)
Hi Ann,
Since Warner is at Davos, I thought the poster might want to meet him.
Not sure why it would matter that I run a volunteer Warner for President blog. I think Warner would make a great future looking President. Just means I have courage to act on my conviction, what can be better in a democracy than that?
Daniel
Daniel,
Chances are the folks reading this come from the design field - our best work comes as a result of intellectual responsibility, integrty or just plain critical thinking - critical thinking trains us to be conscious of propaganda and bias, to look beyond writing that presupposes correctness - most folks don't make a living at deconstruction but this audience may be more in tune and perhaps her comment was meant to help - not only that, but yesterdays posts included comments from someone with commercial interests...think about it
On the topic of design.. I am glad that Tim remained on the Island (a tribute to his firms sincere work in the area of innnovation) although the idea of the survivor format, is me or was that condescending?