So true!

Margaret Lozano — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:49:14 -0600

What a great post! I remember when I was doing my BA my advisor told me that students are much more likely than profs to come up with new ways of looking at material because they aren't stuck in their ways yet. It's so true! I'm constantly amazed now at how students will read totally new ideas into books I've taught a half dozen times. I'm not sure how much we can do "shake up neural pathways," but at least we can try!

How refreshing

Virginia DeBolt — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:05:55 -0600

to see such enthusiastic responses to the idea of shaking up neural pathways.

I think that the general tendency in people is to defend their neural pathways, often resulting in arguments, rigidity, estrangements, even wars. That's why there's more progress and innovation when it's otherwise.

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Thank you

holly_jahangiri — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:32:00 -0600

for a refreshing, thought-provoking post. It seems to me I always seemed smarter, more innovative, and more creative when I knew little or nothing about what I was doing. I think some of that comes from the enthusiasm we feel before the novelty has worn off, but I hadn't really thought about "stuck in a rut" being literal as well as figurative.

---------------
Holly Jahangiri
http://jahangiri.us/blog

Yes. Great Post!

debra roby — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:21:25 -0600

Virginia,

I read your headline, said YES aloud, and settled in to check out the whole story. Thanks. Adding "Make to Stick" to my library list...

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Great Post!

Kalyn Denny — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:32:25 -0600

I loved that movie, and I think it's so important to keep challenging yourself to examine how your mind is controlling your ife.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

Do Your Neural Pathways Need a Shakeup?

Virginia DeBolt — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:12:10 -0600

Happy New Year! May you grow and thrive in 2008. Do you remember the movie from 2004 called "What the Bleep Do We Know?" It talked about quantum physics—normally not a very approachable topic—but it was highly watchable. The point of the film was that we build up neural pathways in our brains that shape the way we think. These pathways are like ruts in a dirt road—once you get in one, it's really hard to break your way out. Finding a new perspective or a new way of thinking once you've settled into your well-traveled and familar neural pathways is a challenge.

An article in the New York Times about innovative minds set me to thinking about that old movie. The Times article points out:

(O)nce you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated. When it’s time to accomplish a task — open a store, build a house, buy new cash registers, sell insurance — those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.

The article mentions two books that may help you find innovative ways of doing things when your thinking has gone stale. One is “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007). The other is "The Innovation Killer: How What We Know Limits What We Can Imagine... And What Smart Companies Are Doing About It" by Cynthia Rabe (AMACOM, 2006).

In a review of "Made to Stick," librarian Jill Hurst-Wahl had this to say:

What we need to do is to create "sticky messages." Sticky messages are not necessarily creative messages. In fact, there is formula that the brothers Heath have discovered that will help us to create sticky, memorable messages. That formula is:

S -- Simple
U -- Unexpected
C -- Concrete
C -- Credible
E -- Emotional
S -- Stories

At what if? imagine the possibilities Peg Kaplan commented on the NY Times article, saying,

Many among us tout an individual's credentials: degrees, experience and expertise are king. Yet, at times I have argued that the beginner, the neophyte among us, can sometimes produce more creative, radical and wildly successful concepts and results than our so-called "experts." The newcomer is not prejudiced by his years of education and "brainwashing." He can see what others have been taught to reject out of hand.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Susan Mernit commented on Susan Mernit's Blog with a quote from the NY Times article:

“Look for people with renaissance-thinker tendencies, who’ve done work in a related area but not in your specific field. Make it possible for someone who doesn’t report directly to that area to come in and say the emperor has no clothes.”

--Cynthia Barton Rabe, author of “Innovation Killer: How What We Know Limits What We Can Imagine — and What Smart Companies Are Doing About It,” quoted in a NY Times article on how relying on expertise leads to lack of questioning and familiar results.

Susan sez: This is a role consultants often fill, but one managers should build into their own planning, IMHO.

Deborah Barlow, at Slow Muse also commented on the topic. She calls it zero-gravity thinking.

That’s what the poets in my life are–my very own zero-gravity thinkers. They work in a related area but not in my specific field. They force me to look at the world differently.

Now the question I have is this: Can a visual artist do the same for them?