Michael T. Bee [ IT Professional ]: 2012

This is a worthwhile read. Author is an evangelist of collaboration.

Part 3 takes you inside some of todays most innovative companies and shows that they succeed by designing their organizations to maximize collaboration.

Me: Does anyone besides me find it ironic? This book is listed under 'Personal Development' at Safari. I guess.

Introduction: Beyond The Lone Genius

me: companies - what makes them sicken and die? I'm thinking Microsoft/Apple. In their case board collaboration or (simply boredom) caused them to lose the edge.

In Part 3, I move into the real world of earth-shattering innovation. I argue that most of what weve heard about famous inventions is wrong because its based on the myth of the lone genius.

me: Again, "lone wolf" might be a mis-nomer
me: Roman history: in the beginning it's about the collaborations - later the betrayals.

3. Introduction: Beyond The Lone Genius

In Part 2, I share the results of exciting new research on the collaborative nature of the mind. Youll have fun doing creativity games yourself the same ones that top researchers use in their laboratories, games that tap into the brain processes that drive creative insight. Ill walk you through some classic insight problems, those that require an Aha! experience to be solved. And youll see that even though insight often feels like a solitary, private event, its roots are in collaboration.

me: We are Borg(not Bjork)! How is collaboration different from assimilation?

4. Introduction: Beyond The Lone Genius

me: Cooperation is not collaboration
me:Same direction, focus, but, different strengths, insights, (and delivery)

By the end of Part 1, I hope to have convinced you of the creative power of collaboration.

5. Introduction: Beyond The Lone Genius

In recent years, I took this new perspective on collaboration and used it to better understand todays networked economyfor example, analyzing the way new ideas such as Google Earths mash-ups emerged from Googles collaborative, improvisational culture, or how Ciscos innovative network technology brought its employees together electronically, dramatically expanding opportunities for collaboration. Everything I observed told me that each business success was based on collaborationnot only in trendy Silicon Valley companies such as the IDEO design firm or Apple Computer, but also in manufacturing firms such as 3M and W. L. Gore, and at highly technical research labs. The more I observed creativity in action the more I realized that the most radical breakthroughsincluding television, the airplane, e-mail, and even the board game Monopolyemerged from a collaborative web that cant be contained within any one companys walls.

me: Whose @ the head of "think different"? ...and Who watches the watchers?
me: Early IT innovators were a collaboration of individuals and teams - but, they often had a "watcher" who stepped (or stomped) in at key points

6. The Five Key Features of Collaborative Webs

me: Insights from the TARDIS & Marcus Aurelius

Looking backward should allow innovators more valuable lessons. But the ultimate ends should also be considered. The Daleks always survive somehow (maybe it's just a plot device). The Doctor always loses his companions.

Marcus Aurelius: Examine into the quality of the form of an object, and detach it altogether from its material part, and then contemplate it; then determine the time, the longest which a thing of this peculiar form is naturally made to endure.

4. In Collaborative Webs, Multiple Discovery Is Common 7.Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration > The Five Key Features of Collaborative Webs

Me: Limits to collaboration

Ambrose Bierce: Logic n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore — Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

http://dd.pangyre.org/l/logic.html

3. In Collaborative Webs, There Is Frequent Interaction Among Teams

8. The Five Key Features of Collaborative Webs

1. Each Innovation Builds Incrementally on a Long History of Prior Innovations

me: Not so much long as intermittant.
me: The innovation comes and goes it stays around when someone recognizes it as something worth promoting. Also, people speak the same language and that language recognizes the problem and your product as the solution.

2. A Successful Innovation Is a Combination of Many Small Sparks

me: Better metaphor might be drops of water

Water seeks it's own level. It flows in a direction. Fire does too - but is powered by two forces wind and combustibles. These combine to makes it indiscriminate and destructive in what it consumes. Another reason to consider water: it combines with other drops to make a force and isn't destroyed at the end. It comes out somewhere.

10.Newcomen engine had been in use throughout the world long before Watts birth.

me:Interesting note about: Watts
me:He was part of a number of creative individuals that met around the time of the full moon. They'd eat discuss new ideas and then find their way home by the light of the full moon.

http://bit.ly/GSearch_The_Lunar_Men

11. Aspects of Monopoly that we think of as central today emerged at different times and from different people, including the Go to Jail space and even the idea of grouping properties into a monopoly. Its the synergy of all of these ideas together that resulted in the best-selling board game of all time.

me: So what make's it "marketable"?
me: Use & feedback + packaging = product

12. At Hewlett-Packard, it was company policy to move engineers between projects every few years rather than have each project manager hire and fire individually.

me: Still water stinketh

13. But without multiple efforts and frequent failure, theres no innovation.

me: Balance
me: Failure not for failure sake but for the end goal: the finish line (for this race).

14. The lesson for managers is to position the company within a web for maximum innovation. To be successful, first know the lay of the land; learn everything you can about the web you want to participate in; then, identify its unoccupied niches. The success of eBay created a niche: strip-mall stores where you can take something you want to sell and have them sell it for you on eBay for a small fee.

Me: Sun TZu(1.8)! 8 EARTH comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death. # http://suntzusaid.com/book/1

15. Successful companies still invest heavily in R&D, but they increasingly collaborate with others in collaborative websparticularly with small companies and venture-capital start-ups.

me: Alliances not domination

Companies sometimes equate acquisition with loyalty. When asked about the new name after the Daimer - Chrysler merger a Daimer official was quoted as saying: in pronouncing the "Chrysler" is silent.