Guest AuthorPavan Soni
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Inflexion Point, May 2022

By | Dr Pavan Soni | IIM-B Innovation Evangelist

Hope you are doing well. 

In this edition of Inflexion Point, we look at how procrastination fuels creativity, means of memory formation in the brain, what criminals can teach us about creativity, why Airbnb is disruptive innovation and Uber is not, and a case of reading fiction. 
The novelist  Agatha Christie notes, “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness.” A lot of creative people report that ideas often spring when least expected. Psychologists propose that creative insights are much more likely to occur after a period of “incubation” – in which you focus on something entirely different from the job at hand, while your brain works away behind the scenes. Taking a walk, a shower, or doing something irrelevant to the problem may help you to widen your mental focus so that you can make connections and come back to the problem with a new perspective. Provided the task you are doing while being distracted is an easy one. In summary, for creativity, what you really need is looser, less focused thinking – and that seems to come with slight engagement in an undemanding task. (Source: BBC)
 
In a first of a kind experiment, scientists at the University of Southern California were able to visualize memories forming in the brains of laboratory fish. They observed that brain works much like a solid-state device, in a way that while the brain records some types of memories in a volatile, easily erasable form, fear-ridden memories may be stored more robustly, which could help to explain why years later, some people can recall a memory as if reliving it. During memory formation there’s a lot of pruning and synaptic reorganization as a result of experience during development in different parts of the brain, which is not the same as merely addition and deletion of synapses, as previously hypothesized. (Source: Wired)
 
What motivates criminals towards creativity is scarcity. One criminal observes, “Look around this room. There are about 100 weapons in here. I could kick in that sink and make a knife. I could melt the plastic on that chair and make a razor. The pipe work in this building is an arsenal of weapons.” That’s improvisation at best. The crime world is fueled by the ingenuity and hustle of those who operate in the underground. The hustle to see things for more than what they seem at first glance–to be opportunistic, resourceful and alert to every little detail around you. What can startups learn from upstarts, would be incisive. More in the book, The Misfit Economy: Lessons in Creativity From Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs. (Source: Time)
 
Disruptive innovation is one of the overused, often misused, phrases and this article offers a clear explanation of what really qualifies as a disruptive class. Unlike the sustaining innovations, those in the disruptive class go after non-consumers that are priced out of the market and are inferior to today’s products in some dimension that’s important to today’s customers – allowing them to safely go under the radar of existing players. Without competing with the Marriotts of the world Airbnb offers a low-cost solution to a low-value customer. On the other hand Uber is a sustaining innovation that started at the top of the market, competing directly with existing and worked its way down, making it accessible to most. The author offers a checklist of whether your innovation is truly disruptive. One of the items is: Will your future competitors write you off as low-quality? (Source: Inc.)


In this HBR piece, researcher and author Christine Seifert contends that reading literary fiction helps people develop empathy, theory of mind, and critical thinking. While reading nonfiction might certainly be valuable for collecting knowledge, it does little to develop EQ, a far more elusive goal. On the other hand reading fiction predicts increased social acuity and a sharper ability to comprehend other people’s motivations. Fiction helps the brain’s ability to keep an open mind while processing information, a necessary skill for effective decision-making. It doesn’t reduce the world to binary and that’s a valuable life skill. So, invest in yourself, by reading more, also the work of fiction (Source: HBR)
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