By Scott Berkun
Many of our popular stories of discovery
are portrayed as accidents or matters of luck. We love these stories as
they make creativity seem easy and fun, regardless of how misleading they are.
A recent NYTimes
opinion titled Cultivating The Art of Serendipity, by Pagan Kennedy, offered:
“A surprising number of the conveniences of modern life were invented when someone stumbled upon a discovery or capitalized on an accident: the microwave oven, safety glass, smoke detectors, artificial sweeteners, X-ray imaging.”
What’s overlooked is that these accidents
were earned. Each of these professionals committed themselves to years of work
chasing hard problems, and then, when an accident happened, they chose not to
ignore it, as most of us would. They chose to study the accident. Who among us
studies our accidents? We mostly run and hide from them. Being curious about our own mistakes is a far more interesting
attitude for life than someone who merely chases serendipity. Capitalizing on
‘accidents’ is an excellent notion that Kennedy mentions, however briefly, and
I wish it were the focus of the article.
A common pattern of the Myth of
Epiphany is creativity by accident. The very idea of the
Muse, forces that choose to grant ideas to us from above, externalizes
creativity, and accidents have similar appeal. Since we’re all often victims of
accidents, we’re compelled by stories that redeem accidents into
breakthroughs. Newton
watching an apple fall, an ordinary event anyone could
observe, is perhaps the greatest example of this kind of misleading
storytelling (it took him years of work to describe the mathematics of gravity
regardless of the apple’s disputed
epiphanistic potency).
Kennedy’s opening example continues the
myth’s stereotype:
In 2008, an inventor named Steve Hollinger lobbed a digital camera across his studio toward a pile of pillows. “I wasn’t trying to make an invention,” he said. “I was just playing.” As his camera flew, it recorded what most of us would call a bad photo. But when Mr. Hollinger peered at that blurry image, he saw new possibilities. Soon, he was building a throwable videocamera in the shape of a baseball, equipped with gyroscopes and sensors.”
A quick read of Hollinger’s own page about the
invention (called a Serveball)
reveals important facts that distinguish him from most of us readers. The
list includes:
He was a professional inventor and artist
(successful enough to be
profiled by Susan Orlean in The NewYorker in 2008)
o
He had a workshop for inventing things
o
He worked over the course of a year on
this project (which Kennedy refers to as ‘soon’)
o
He built elaborate rigs capable of hosting
multiple cameras
Hollinger stated “I was just playing” and I agree
that play is a fantastic use of time and helpful towards developing skills for
invention and creation for everyone. But it’s important to note that
Hollinger’s idea of play is likely different from ours. It’s serious play.
As the New Yorker described in 2008, this is no ordinary person:
He had spent the previous month mostly locked in his apartment, furiously teaching himself the principles of aerodynamics, the physics of hydrology, and the basics of how to operate a Singer sewing machine, and he was at last testing what he had been working on—a reimagined, reinvented umbrella, with gutters and airfoils and the elegant drift of a bird’s wing.
But Kennedy continues to emphasize accidents and
randomness:
A surprising number of the conveniences of modern life were invented when someone stumbled upon a discovery or capitalized on an accident: the microwave oven, safety glass, smoke detectors, artificial sweeteners, X-ray imaging. Many blockbuster drugs of the 20th century emerged because a lab worker picked up on the “wrong” information.
Care to guess about the context these stumbles
and accidents arrived in?
o
Microwave oven: In 1945 Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon,
discovered a candy bar that melted in his pocket near radar equipment. He chose
to do a series of experiments to isolate why this happened and discovered
microwaves. It would take ~20 years before the technology developed
sufficiently to reach consumers.
o
Safety Glass: In 1903 scientist Edouard Benedictus, while in his lab, did drop
a flask by accident, and to his surprise it did not break. He discovered the
flask held residual cellulose nitrate, creating a protective coating. It
would be more than a decade before it was used commercially in gas masks.
o
Artificial Sweeteners: Constantine Fahlberg, a German scientist, discovered
Saccharin, the first artificial sweetener, in 1879. Afterworking in his
lab he didn’t wash his hands, and at dinner discovered an exceptionally
sweet taste. He returned to his lab, tasting his various experiments, until
rediscovering the right one (literally risking his life in an attempt to
understand his accident).
o
Smoke Detector: Walter Jaeger was
trying to build a sensor to detect poison gas. It didn’t work, and as the
story goes, he lit a cigarette and the sensor went off. It could detect smoke
particles, but not gas. It took the work of other inventors to build on his
discovery to make commercial smoke detectors.
o
X-Rays: Wilhelm Roentgen was already working
on the effects of cathode rays during 1895, before he actually discovered
X-rays. On November 8, 1895, during an experiment, he noticed
crystals glowing unexpectedly. On investigation he isolated a
new type of light ray.
And how many accidents among similarly
talented and motivated people were dead ends? We are victims of survivorship bias in
our popularizing of breakthrough stories, giving attention only to successful
outcomes from accidents, while ignoring the vast majority of accidents and
mistakes that led absolutely nowhere.
To be more helpful, work is the essential element
in all finished creative projects and inventions. No matter how brilliant the
idea, or miraculous its discovery, work will be required to develop it to the
point of consumption by the rest of the world. And it’s effort, even if in
pursuit of pleasure, that provides the opportunity for serendipity to happen.
Every writer, artist and inventor is chasing something, even if it turns out to
be the wrong thing, on their way to their moments of insight. There is no way
to pursue only the insights themselves, anymore than you could harvest a garden
without planting seeds. The unknown cannot be predictable, and if creativity is
an act of discovery then uncertainty must come with the territory.
Curiosity is a far simpler concept than
serendipity and far more useful. People who are curious are more likely to
expend effort to answer a question on their mind. To be successful in creative
pursuits requires an active curiosity and a desire to do experiments and make
mistakes, having the sensibility that a mistake is a kind of insight, however
small, waiting to be revealed.
The Myths of
Innovation (the actual myths) will always be popular, which
means for any inspiring story of a breakthrough, we must ask:
1.
How much work did the creator do before the
accident/breakthrough happened?
2.
How much work did they do after the
accident/breakthrough to understand it?
3.
What did they sacrifice (time/money/reputation)
to convince others of the value of the discovery?
It’s answering these 3 questions about any
creativity story in the news, however accidental or deliberate, that reveals
habits to emulate if we want to follow in their footsteps.
Posted in Creative Thinking
Scott Berkun is
the author of five popular books on creativity, leadership,
philosophy and speaking.
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