All too often the human race becomes the victim of its own methods of measure. We become caged in ideas that, for better or worse, were largely created over a generation ago. And we protect those cages quite well.

New ideas are generally accepted based on who says them - not how worthy they are. Those of us who think through an idea presented find ourselves awash in people who are quite happy parroting the cerebral flatulence of someone else instead of risking their own cerebral flatulence being made public. And if the someone who said it was considered highly by other generations (not necessarily their own), then the idea becomes as much fact as the planet we are on... to us.

This is the resistance to change. It's not necessarily a bad thing - it filters out a lot of bad stuff too, like an idea to combine a razor with a toothbrush. Unfortunately, it makes us 'measure' everything within an imperfect rating system and build things with an accepted scaffolding that defines the shape of our ideas.

So many people are talking about innovation and creativity when our very systems of deciding what innovation and creativity are could use some...

Creativity is almost always identified by people as being exclusive of the traditional art community - painters, writers, musicians, dancers and all the shades in between. But creativity is much more than that. Creativity is daring to imagine what could be, and it's found in all facets of our world. Engineering has it. Economics has it. Even war has it - in fact as a species, we're more creative with war than peace. Creativity isn't something that belongs to people by virtue of a paintbrush or guitar.

The tools vary. Creativity doesn't. Creativity is taking science beyond our limits and constantly redefining it just as much as it's a painted brush crossing the limits of a canvas. Creativity is moving beyond what limits we have previously accepted. Imagination is what gets us there.

Imagination happens before. Creativity is the explanation afterward.

Everywhere I go, I see solutions. I see solutions because I see problems. Some of the solutions are good, some are bad, all are well intentioned and few reach fruition. A younger me tried to save the world, an older me tries to save what he can. An exercise in frustration most of the time.

But you can't stop the spirit. You just can't deny it. And when something happens right... well, Nikola Tesla said it best:

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

It is so true. To see something come alive is truly a wonderful thing. To see it fulfill a purpose, be it ever so small, brings a deep enjoyment that it seems few will know.

In software, it might be that perfect line of code.

In writing, it might be an idea congealed in words and paragraphs.

In engineering, it could be as simple as using only what is available to do something no one else has done, or fixing a complex problem with a simple solution.

In systems, it could be the use of a system in a new and imaginative way.

But with all of these things, there comes a deep seated sense of frustration. At the world. At what could be fixed so simply, but remains unfixed and will remain unfixed because of systems that cripple those that could. Those that would. And therefore, those that should. { Read more }

Many people think writing is not a lot of work. Writers may lounge around, drinking coffee or tea, and they may have a distant look in their eye. Rarely does one see a writer physically writing, but I wonder - where do people think all this writing comes from? It amuses me, as much as when I heard artists classify engineers as being unable to appreciate art. A funny thing, artists who typically don't like being classified or categorized doing the same to others.

But if you hand an artist a bunch of spare parts, they may make it into a form that represents something. Hand it to an engineer, you'll probably get something that does something. Are functional works like an engineer would create something that could be considered art? It must be, or Shakespeare would be an engineer. And, if Shakespeare was not an engineer, he probably would not have been interested in a poetic turn of phrase or a powerful metaphor. He probably would not have used them. And so, he probably would not have written anything... and so we probably would never have heard of him. But we have heard of him - so he must have been an artist. An artist who created functional works. { Read more }