Thursday, August 31, 2017

NEWS POST: U.S. Clears Breakthrough Gene Therapy — The First ‘Living Drug’ — For Tough Childhood Leukemia

This undated image made available by Novartis on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2017 shows an IV bag of their drug Kymriah. (Novartis via AP)
Opening a new era in cancer care, U.S. health officials on Wednesday approved a breakthrough treatment that genetically engineers patients’ own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy childhood leukemia.

The Food and Drug Administration called the approval historic, the first gene therapy to hit the U.S. market. Made from scratch for every patient, it’s one of a wave of “living drugs” under development to fight additional blood cancers and other tumors, too.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals set the price for its one-time infusion of so-called “CAR-T cells” at US$475,000, but said there would be no charge for patients who didn’t show a response within a month.

“This is a brand new way of treating cancer,” said Dr. Stephan Grupp of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who treated the first child with CAR-T cell therapy — a girl who’d been near death but now is cancer-free for five years and counting. “That’s enormously exciting.”

CAR-T treatment uses gene therapy techniques not to fix disease-causing genes but to turbocharge T cells, immune system soldiers that cancer too often can evade. Researchers filter those cells from a patient’s blood, reprogram them to harbor a “chimeric antigen receptor” or CAR that zeroes in on cancer, and grow hundreds of millions of copies. Returned to the patient, the revved-up cells can continue multiplying to fight disease for months or years.

It’s a completely different way to harness the immune system than popular immunotherapy drugs called “checkpoint inhibitors” that treat a variety of cancers by helping the body’s natural T cells better spot tumors. CAR-T cell therapy gives patients stronger T cells to do that job.

“We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

The first CAR-T version, developed by Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania, is approved for use by several hundred patients a year who are desperately ill with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. It strikes more than 3,000 children and young adults in the U.S. each year and while most survive, about 15 percent relapse despite today’s best treatments.

This photo provided by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, taken in May 2017, shows Emily Whitehead five years after she became the first pediatric patient in the world to receive an experimental therapy at the hospital that has put her leukemia into long-term remission. Opening a new era in cancer care, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy childhood leukemia. (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia via AP)
In a key study of 63 advanced patients, 83 percent went into remission soon after receiving the CAR-T cells. Importantly, it’s not clear how long that benefit lasts: Some patients did relapse months later. The others still are being tracked to see how they fare long-term.

Still, “a far higher percentage of patients go into remission with this therapy than anything else we’ve seen to date with relapsed leukemia,” said Dr. Ted Laetsch of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, one of the study sites. “I wouldn’t say we know for sure how many will be cured yet by this therapy. There certainly is a hope” that some will be.

Most patients suffered side effects that can be grueling, even life-threatening. An immune overreaction called “cytokine release syndrome” can trigger high fevers, plummeting blood pressure and in severe cases organ damage, side effects that require sophisticated care to help patients without blocking the cancer attack. The FDA designated a treatment for those side effects Wednesday.

“This is remarkable technology,” said Dr. Mikkael Sekeres of the American Society of Hematology. But, he cautioned that CAR-T “isn’t a panacea.”

Among concerns, sometimes leukemia can develop resistance, and sometimes patients worsen while waiting for their new cells, said Sekeres, who directs the Cleveland Clinic’s leukemia program and wasn’t involved with CAR-T testing.

“Unfortunately leukemia grows so rapidly that it can evade even the smartest of our technologies,” he added.

To better ensure patient safety, the FDA is requiring Novartis to offer CAR-T therapy only through medical centers specially trained and certified to handle the complicated treatment. Novartis expects to have 32 centres around the country, mostly in large cities, running by year’s end, with the first 20 offering care within the next month.

Patients’ collected immune cells will be frozen and shipped to a Novartis factory in New Jersey that creates each dose, a process the company says should take about three weeks. The US$475,000 price tag doesn’t include the cost of needed hospitalizations, travel to a certified hospital and other expenses.

On a conference call Wednesday, Novartis executives said the company is working with the Medicaid program and private insurers and expects broad coverage, and will offer some financial assistance with such things as copay and travel costs. But they didn’t promise all patients would be able to get the therapy.

This photo provided by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, taken in May 2017, shows Dr. Stephan Grupp who led a key study of a newly approved treatment for childhood leukemia. Opening a new era in cancer care, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy cancer. (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia via AP)
For some patients, the new CAR-T therapy might replace bone marrow transplants that cost more than half a million dollars, noted Grupp, who led the Novartis study.

“I don’t want to be an apologist for high drug prices in the U.S.,” Grupp stressed. But if it’s the last treatment they need, “that’s a really significant one-time investment in their wellness, especially in kids who have a whole lifetime ahead of them.”

“This is a turning point in the fight” against ALL, said Penn’s Dr. Carl June, who pioneered the therapy.

But he and other researchers say thousands more patients eventually may benefit. Kite Pharma’s similar CAR-T brand, developed by the National Cancer Institute, is expected to win approval later this year to treat aggressive lymphoma, and Juno Therapeutics and other companies are studying their own versions against blood cancers including multiple myeloma.

Scientists around the country also are trying to make CAR-T therapies that could fight more common solid tumors such as brain, breast or pancreatic cancers — a harder next step.
“Although narrow in scope, today’s FDA ruling is a milestone,” said Dr. David Maloney of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, whose team has worked with Juno and is researching CAR-T in a variety of cancers. “Approvals are an important step, but they’re just the beginning.”

Originally published by ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

NEWS POST: TEDGlobal: The Computer That Can Smell Explosives

Oshi Agabi envisages airports that will need no visible security system allowing people to just walk on to planes TEDGLOBAL
Nigerian Oshi Agabi has unveiled a computer based not on silicon but on mice neurons at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.

The system has been trained to recognize the smell of explosives and could be used to replace traditional airport security, he said. Eventually the modem-sized device - dubbed Koniku Kore - could provide the brain for future robots. Experts said that making such systems mass-market was challenging.

All of the big tech firms, from Google to Microsoft, are rushing to create artificial intelligence modelled on the human brain. While computers are better than humans at complex mathematical equations, there are many cognitive functions where the brain is much better: training a computer to recognize smells would require colossal amounts of computational power and energy, for example.

Mr Agabi is attempting to reverse-engineer biology, which already accomplishes this function with a fraction of the power it would take a silicon-based processor. "Biology is technology. Bio is tech," he says. "Our deep learning networks are all copying the brain."

He launched his start-up Koniku over a year ago, has raised US$1m (£800,000) in funding and claims it is already making profits of US$10m in deals with the security industry. Koniku Kore is an amalgam of living neurons and silicon, with olfactory capabilities — basically sensors that can detect and recognize smells.

"You can give the neurons instructions about what to do - in our case we tell it to provide a receptor that can detect explosives."

He envisages a future where such devices can be discreetly used at various points in airports, eliminating the need for queues to get through airport security. As well as being used for bomb detection, the device could be used to detect illness by sensing markers of a disease in the air molecules that a patient gives off.

Oshiorenoya Agabi wants to create a brain-based computer system GETTY IMAGES
The prototype device shown off at TED - the pictures of which cannot yet be publicly revealed - has partially solved one of the biggest challenges of harnessing biological systems - keeping the neurons alive, said Mr Agabi.

In a video, he showed the device being taken out of the lab. "This device can live on a desk and we can keep them alive for a couple of months," he told the BBC.

Ultimately though he has much bigger ambitions. "We think that the processing power that is going to run the robots of the future will be synthetic biology-based and we are laying the foundations for that today."

The fusion of biology and technology gained headlines recently when Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and Space X, announced his latest venture - Neuralink - which aims to fuse the human brain with AI, using neural lace.

Advances in neuroscience, bioengineering and computer science means that much more is known about how the human brain works than ever before. This is fuelling the development of neuro-technology - devices that aim to mould the brain into computers. Much of the current work is aimed at improving brain function, particularly for those with brain-related injuries or diseases.

Prof John Donoghue, who heads up the Wyss Centre for bio and neuro-engineering in Geneva, has been at the forefront of work attempting to allow people with paralysis to move limbs using their brain waves. He believes the field is at a "tipping point" where biological and digital systems will come together.

The idea being pursued by Mr Agabi is interesting, he said. "Digital computers are fast and reliable but dumb, whereas neurons are slow but smart. But they are not so good in a little dish and the big problem will be keeping them alive and happy. That is going to be a big challenge," he added.

"Will we have a dish of neurons computing on our desk? I don't know."

But he added that scientists in Geneva were already able to "keep neurons in a dish and communicate with them for a year", adding that such systems were an "exciting tool to study brain circuitry".

Much of AI research is focused on mimicking the job of neurons GETTY IMAGES
Other scientists are developing silicon chips which mimic the way that neurons work and could ultimately prove more stable, he said. But Mr Agabi is not convinced such systems will win out over his. "The idea of mimicking silicon is very hard and we don't think it can be scaled," he told the BBC.

Originally published on BBC

Thursday, August 24, 2017

GUEST BLOG POST: Infrastructure For Innovation — Calestous Juma

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Kenya Railways-Standard Gauge Railway - China financed and built this structure without Kenyan engineers embedded and fully involved to build up the associated engineering and managerial capabilities as the project serving as a motherboard for innovation in Kenyan engineering 
Infrastructural development and technological innovation are both vital to Africa’s economic future. Policymakers are currently more focused on infrastructure; they should not forget its critical role in spurring innovation. 

Infrastructure is both the backbone for the economy but also the motherboard for technological innovation. Without adequate infrastructure, Africa’s economies cannot realize their full potential. The continent’s low economic performance and weak integration into the global economy is in part a result of inadequate infrastructure – mainly energy, transportation, telecommunications, water and sanitation, and irrigation.

Much of the policy concern over infrastructure focuses on issues such as rates of return on investment, impact on public finances, the formation of private-public partnerships, and identification of sources of funding. Other concerns, especially from civil society organizations, stress the environmental and social costs of large infrastructure projects.

While these concerns are legitimate and need to be addressed, they tend to overlook the role of infrastructure as a foundation for innovation. This point is clearly identified as key to the continent’s future in the 10-year Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024).

Although they may differ on implementation strategy, policy makers understand infrastructure investment’s role in stimulating economic growth. What are less appreciated are the strategic connections between infrastructure investments and technological innovation.

Infrastructure projects are inherently technological in nature. They represent bundles of scientific and technical knowledge embodied in both equipment and human capabilities. Taking full advantage of infrastructure’s technological potential requires a more sophisticated approach to policy, procurement practices, and project design. The first step is recognizing the magnitude of the challenge and the associated opportunities. The African Development Bank has estimated that Africa will need to invest US$93 billion annually over the next decade to meet its infrastructure needs. The estimate for Nigeria is US$15 billion a year. South Africa envisages investing nearly US$462 billion from 2012 to 2027.

Agriculture illustrates the importance of infrastructure. Africa suffers from low agricultural productivity levels, partly as a result of inadequate rural infrastructure, especially roads, energy supply and irrigation.

Without rural roads, farmers are condemned to growing crops close to their homes – or just enough to carry home. They can hardly provide adequate food for themselves, let alone having surpluses for local trade. On average, 60% of the rural people in middle-income countries live within two kilometres of an all-season road. The figures in Africa are much lower. In Kenya, for example, only about 32% of the rural people have the same level of access. The statistics for Angola and Malawi are 31% and 26% respectively. For Tanzania, it is 24%, 18% for Mali and 11% for Ethiopia. Agricultural development in these countries is heavily influenced by access to rural infrastructure.

A large part of this investment will come from overseas. Indeed, Africa’s growing trade with China includes building infrastructure projects. Most of this has been in transport. The recent creation of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will strengthen the country’s role as a source of funding not only for Africa but also for many other regions of the world, including in the industrialized countries.
FRUIT OF THE KOREAN RAIL RESEARCH INSTITUTE: High speed train at railway station, Korea Train Express, Seoul Station, Seoul, South Korea
Infrastructure as technology clusters
In addition to supporting economic activities and generating employment, infrastructure projects serve as bundles of technological stocks and reservoirs for engineering capabilities. The development of geothermal energy in Kenya, for example, has also resulted in the creation of a large pool of experts working in Kenya and other countries.

The development of such projects offers Africa a unique opportunity to build the engineering and managerial capabilities needed for designing, constructing, and maintaining infrastructure projects. In addition, the projects can also be used as a basis for designing new engineering courses and research activities.

High-speed rail in South Korea was designed to help the country build up the associated engineering and managerial capabilities. One of its outputs was the creation of the Korean Rail Research Institute, set up in 1996 to develop railway transportation and enhance competitiveness in the sector.

High-speed rail in South Korea was designed to help the country build up the associated engineering and managerial capabilities. One of its outputs was the creation of the Korean Rail Research Institute, set up in 1996 to develop railway transportation and enhance competitiveness in the sector.

The design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure projects involves considerable accumulation of knowledge and capabilities. Policymakers must recognize the potential to tap this knowledge to benefit the wider economy. Unfortunately, the design of such projects in Africa tends to focus most on awarding contracts to the lowest bidder, not seeking to maximize technological capacity.

Ironically, this vision existed in much of colonial Africa. When the British built the Kenya-Uganda rail in the late 19th century, they included a technical facility for repair and maintenance. Over the years, African infrastructure projects have increasingly been delinked from their technological content and are therefore underperforming.

Urban centres represent the highest concentration of infrastructure facilities. They are also the most creative and dynamic regions. They are generally not managed as sources of innovation and creativity. Fortunately, this is starting to change and cities such as Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Pretoria and Cairo now host a variety of activities seeking to promote innovation.

City planners, however, have yet to appreciate the critical role that infrastructure could play in fostering innovation. They have been slow, for example, to understand the urgency to extend broadband access. So far, only a few countries, such as Rwanda, have recognized the power of access to broadband as a driver for innovation. For most of Africa, this infrastructure is grossly underutilized.

Smart infrastructure design
Defining infrastructure as a foundation for innovation requires a coordinated approach driven by high-level executive offices. It is primarily a governance question that involves at least four important considerations. First, it requires countries and regions to focus on innovation as the most important driver of long-term economic transformation.

Second, high-level coordination is needed to ensure that all the diverse fields of infrastructure make the acquisition, domestication and local diffusion of technological capacities a key objective in addition to the provision of services.

Third, building local capabilities entails engaging local firms and experts in the stages of project implementation. This engagement helps to provide opportunities for local learning. One way to achieve this is to ensure the involvement of local universities and research institutes in infrastructure projects.

Finally, many of the procurement practices used around the world tend to focus on lowering the initial cost of project design and construction. Activities that involve building local capabilities tend to be excluded from the initial pricing and bidding practices. Smart procurement practices should incorporate the importance of technological factors from the outset. African countries lack this experience, but they can learn from their Asian counterparts that focus on technological learning as a critical element of project design and implementation.

Africa’s vision to become a dynamic and entrepreneurial region driven by innovation is within reach. Africa is right to keep its eyes focused on the frontiers of technological advancement. But its current infrastructure investments might be its Cinderella of innovation. 

Dr. Calestous Juma is a professor at Harvard Kennedy School specializing in technological innovation and entrepreneurship for development. Twitter @calestous

Originally published in NEW AFRICAN

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

NEWS POST: Plants 'Hijacked' To Make Polio Vaccine

A close relative of tobacco has been turned into a polio vaccine "factory" Image source: JOHN INNES CENTRE
Plants have been "hijacked" to make polio vaccine in a breakthrough with the potential to transform vaccine manufacture, say scientists. The team at the John Innes Centre, in Norfolk, says the process is cheap, easy and quick.

As well as helping eliminate polio, the scientists believe their approach could help the world react to unexpected threats such as Zika virus or Ebola.

Experts said the achievement was both impressive and important. The vaccine is an "authentic mimic" of poliovirus called a virus-like particle. Outwardly it looks almost identical to poliovirus but - like the difference between a mannequin and person - it is empty on the inside. It has all the features needed to train the immune system, but none of the weapons to cause an infection.

Leafy factory
The scientists hijacked a relative of the tobacco plant's metabolism to turn its leaves into polio-vaccine "factories".

First, they needed to create new instructions for the plant to follow. The starting material was the genetic code for making the outer surface of poliovirus. It was enhanced by combining it with material from viruses that naturally infect plants.

The new instructions were then put into soil bacteria, which were used to infect tobacco.

The infection took hold, the plants read the genetic instructions and started making the virus-like particles. Infected leaves were mixed with water, blended, and the polio vaccine was extracted. The virus-like particles prevented polio in animal experiments, and an analysis of their 3D structure showed they looked almost identical to poliovirus.

An image of the virus-like particle, made by Diamond Light Source's electron bio-imaging centre. Image source: DIAMOND LIFE SOURCE
Prof George Lomonossoff, from the John Innes Centre, told the BBC News website: "They are incredibly good mimics. It's a very promising technology, I would hope we get vaccines produced in plants in the not too distant future."

The research is funded by the World Health Organization, as part of efforts to find replacements for the polio vaccine. Polio - which can cause permanent paralysis - is a thing of the past for most of the world, but the infection has not been eradicated. And using weakened poliovirus in current vaccines poses a risk of the virus regaining some of its dangerous traits - called vaccine-derived poliovirus.

Dr Andrew Macadam, principal scientist at the UK's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, said: "Current vaccines for polio are produced from large amounts of live virus, which carries a threat of accidental escape and re-introduction. This study takes us a step closer to replacing current polio vaccines, providing us with a cheap and viable option for making virus-like particle-based vaccines."

Great potential
But this technology is not limited to polio or even just to vaccines. As long as researchers have the right sequence of genetic code, they can make a vaccine against most viruses. And they have also used plants to make antibodies like those being used in cancer therapy.

Plants are also being investigated as a new source for the winter flu jab. Currently, it is grown in chicken eggs and takes months to develop.

Prof Lomonossoff told the BBC: "In an experiment with a Canadian company, they showed you could actually identify a new strain of virus and produce a candidate vaccine in three to four weeks. It has potential for making vaccines against emerging epidemics, of course recently we had Zika and prior to that we had Ebola. It's highly responsive, and that's one of the great attractions of the technology."

The plants have the advantage of growing quickly and needing only sunlight, soil, water and carbon dioxide to grow. It means it could be a cheap and low-tech solution to vaccine development. But there are still issues to resolve, including making vaccine on a large scale.

Another issue is whether there is any risk from using plants to make the vaccine - does the tobacco-relative mean there is nicotine in the vaccine?

Dr Tarit Mukhopadhyay, a lecturer in vaccine development at University College London, said: "The initial results look impressive. "However, there are very few plant-based vaccine manufacturers and almost no licensed human vaccines that are currently produced in plants."

Denis Murphy, a professor of biotechnology at the University of South Wales, said: "This is an important achievement. The challenge is now to optimize the plant expression system and to move towards clinical trials of the new vaccine."

Culled from BBC HEALTH

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

THE JUXTAPOSITION: Creativity Is Overrated . . . Is Creativity Overrated?

Featured Image: Ivelin Radkov/Shutterstock
Creativity Is Overrated — Eliot Gattegno

Today’s creative workplaces work hard to obscure the uncreative labor that makes them run. While “creativity” is presented as the panacea for our overly cubicled society, this often leads to a narrow-minded focus on the stuff that dreams are made of — to the detriment of those keeping the company afloat.

Alas, our obsession shows no signs of stopping. In 2000, we read books promising that the “corporate winners of the next century” will be businesses that use “every scrap of creative talent they possess;” by 2013, we were breathlessly devouring articles about “12 weird things that tech companies do to encourage employee creativity;” and last year, we saw the launch of a perfume meant to inspire creativity itself.

But are we worshiping a false god? Much of what passes for “creative” in the workplace seems suspiciously surface-level (beanbag chairs at work, unlimited sushi lunches and the like.). Though it might change the floor plan of the office, it doesn’t seem to do much to change work, particularly from lower-level employees.

When employees actually sit down to their workstations (or tote a laptop to the conversation pit), are they really letting their imaginations run free? Or are they focusing on specific, concrete tasks necessary for the operation of the company? Usually it’s the latter: After all, someone has to debug code and manage spreadsheets. Smart managers and executives should recognize that no amount of creativity can replace the less glamorous (and sometimes rote) work it takes to make their companies function. Let’s start celebrating the non-creative, too.

Creativity is a serious investment
Take a look at some of the most incredibly “creative” products of our time and you’ll see that creativity isn’t so much a flash of lightning as it is a long, lonely trudge. Look at Pixar, whose films are consistently praised for their vision, humor and heart — not to mention their mind-blowing animation. But these clearly creative products take 4-7 years to complete, and the process is incredibly arduous, as each project must go from sketch, to storyboard, to modeling process, to layout process, to — you get the idea.

Almost any creative project has an incredible amount of training and effort behind it, no matter how instantaneous it may seem — from the master jazz musician improvising “in the moment” (something he couldn’t do without lifelong practice) to the radio show This American Life, which sounds like “friends swapping stories around a campfire” but takes months to bring each seemingly spontaneous conversation to life. This sort of time to create isn’t usually something that companies can afford to give their workers without significant investment. But investing in creatives is absolutely worth it, right? Not necessarily.

“Bohemians” don’t pay the bills
In an era where some companies are hiring splashy “internet kids” off of Reddit and Instagram, it has become trendy to consider “creativity” a credential in its own right. But the evidence simply doesn’t back this up. A study in Economic Geography found that workers’ education level, not their creativity, creates most of the productivity gains associated with the so-called “creative class.” “Bohemians” (as the researchers call creative people without a college education) actually contribute less than uncreative, but educated people on the whole. While exceptions clearly exist, it’s generally education, not creativity, that really makes the difference in performance.

Managers could have learned this lesson from the creatives themselves. The iconic author Haruki Murakami provides a great example of how important training is to the creative life. His memoir “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is essentially one long extended metaphor comparing long-distance running to writing novels. He  argues that for artists, “focus and endurance” are almost as important as talent — and far more achievable, “since they can be acquired and sharpened through training.” To Murakami, creativity is only a starting point — to bring his or her projects to fruition, the real creative needs training and an unstoppable work ethic.

The message is clear: Don’t let a potential hire’s impeccable Instagram profile overshadow his uninspired resume. For most jobs, employers need people who are qualified first and creative second, not the other way around. And be sure they’re willing to help implement their groundbreaking ideas with plenty of hard work.

Creativity requires control
Companies that want to encourage employee creativity over other useful qualities may face difficult trade-offs down the line. A study in the journal Accounting, Organizations and Society discovered that the more a company relies on employee creativity, the more control the company needs to exert over potential dysfunctional behavior. Otherwise, employees can become so focused on individual tasks that they lose sight of team and company goals. It’s no surprise that many companies limit “creativity” to beanbag chairs — dealing with hyper-focused creatives who aren’t meeting company deadlines is too much trouble.

Even at Google — the guiding light of the creativity-in-the-workplace movement — certain much-revered creative practices have apparently become unsustainable. Remember their mythical policy that employees can spend 20 percent of their time (an entire workday per week!) on a self-directed project — a policy that led to the invention of Gmail? Former Google employee and current Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer tore down the curtain when she declared, “I’ve got to tell you the dirty little secret of Google’s 20% time. It’s really 120% time.”

In recent years, Google has reportedly been moving away from the 20 percent time idea altogether and prioritizing top-down innovation instead — projects approved by managers, etc. Some have argued that this attempt to control innovation will damage Google’s much-praised culture of rag-tag, free-floating creativity. It’s a difficult dance, the one between magic and matter. Uncontrolled creativity can result in employees losing sight of company goals; controlled creativity, you could argue, is no creativity at all.

None of this is to say creativity has no value in the workplace at all. Someone has to dream up the next Gmail, just like someone has to manage spreadsheets and answer phones. But creativity shouldn’t be thought of as the be-all end-all, a fast and poetic track to success.

Today, when hiring, smart companies should be looking for diversity not just in age, gender and race, but also personality types — creative versus non-creative, introverts versus extroverts, flights-of-fancy innovators versus boots-on-the-ground implementors. Take Slack Technologies: An interesting mix of artistic types (a co-founder with a philosophy degree, for example) and engineers has contributed to the success of the company and its ubiquitous collaborative work software.

The trick is ensuring that all employees — not just the exciting, colorful thinkers — are valued, celebrated for what they contribute to the company, its products and its culture. Why even draw the line between creative and non-creative? Surface effects shouldn’t be valued over work like engineering — arguably some of the most exciting and creative work that our age has produced. By focusing too much on creativity, managers could very well find themselves with a workplace full of creative sound and fury, implementing nothing.

Eliot Gattegno is a Clinical Professor of Business and Arts at NYU Shanghai, where he teaches in the Program on Creativity and Innovation. Previously, he was the director and founder of the Center for Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and a professor at the CUHK Business School.

Image credit/source: Lidor Wyssocky/Seempli
Is Creativity Overrated? — Lidor Wyssocky 

Synopsis
Some argue that Creativity is overrated. If anything it is underrated. Here's why...

I must be honest with you. While I don't mind a good passionate discussion well just about any topic, I don't really like to argue with articles, or more accurately with their authors. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I like to see and hear whoever it is I talk with. But there are times when I can't just read an article and leave it as is. I find myself arguing with it inside my head. And sometimes, when that happens, I feel I have to respond. In a sense, Eliot Gattegno's article "Creativity is Overrated" is an excellent article, not because I agree with the author's opinions, but simply because it has driven me to respond.

So let's start with the bottom line of my view: Creativity is not overrated. If anything it is underrated. Here's why...

What is Creativity
To evaluate something or say that it is overrated, you must first define it. Unfortunately, Eliot Gattegno does not bother to define Creativity in his article, so I will go for the definition I use. It might seem like a simplistic definition at first, but I think that's exactly why it is so powerful.

Creativity is the ability to see things differently. The beauty in this broad definition is that it is so easy to apply it to almost any context. What Gattegno refers to as Creativity is, in fact, a very specific application or interpretation of creativity (judging from the examples he lists). It is merely a fraction of human creativity. And, dare I say, not necessarily the important fraction in the context of this discussion.

So, once we define Creativity as the ability to see things differently, we can move on to the first issue: Creativity is not just for a few "chosen ones."

Creativity for All
I must admit that when I first read the article, I felt a certain unease. The author's claim is basically that not everyone can be creative, so let's give all these valuable colleagues who simply "don't have it" a big hug and let them know they are important to the organization. Of course, they are! But why are we labeling anyone as "non-creative"?

If Creativity is all about seeing things differently, finding new ways to interpret or apply what seems to be very obvious and concrete, and imagining (yes! imagining!) a better-unexpected alternative, I've got news for you: Anyone can do it! And anyone should, for their personal benefit as well as for the benefit of the company.

We are all born with the ability to see things differently, imagine, and invent. We are practicing it fluently when we are young children. Unfortunately, for many of us, this ability quickly deteriorate with time because we are not expected to use it (in school, and later in work). But we can regain this ability, redevelop it, and master it with ongoing practice.

So instead of "celebrating the non-creative," let's set a clear goal: we can all be more creative. Just like we can all improve our physical fitness, even if only a few of us will make it to the Olympics.

And yes, I do expect the people who are debugging a piece of code or working on some Excel sheet to be creative. I do expect them to imagine (and then try to apply) new ways to do their tasks. Or redefine their tasks altogether. That is exactly how organizations improve, become more effective, and achieve their goals. Any company that doesn't expect its employees to do that is doomed. Doing the same things in the same methods is a sure recipe for becoming irrelevant.

And that is not the task of "the dreamers." It's everyone's task. Sure, the dreamers might come up with the big idea for a new never-done-this-before product. But that product will never reach its launch day if everyone else will just do the same thing they've been doing for years. Everyone needs to innovate in their scope and level.

And don't expect this to be easy!

Creativity is not Easy
Next, Gattegno claims that we are caught up in an illusion that creativity is easy while in fact, it takes huge effort and resources which you might not be able to afford.

Surprisingly, I agree! Of course, creativity is a serious investment, especially if you want it to be part of the company's DNA. And maybe some companies think they can't afford that. I'm willing to bet some companies think can't afford developing the skills of their employees. Some companies believe they can't afford investing in reasonable workstations. And the list goes on. The fact that developing and practicing Creativity is a serious investment does not suggest that it is not an essential one.

Investing in Creativity (at all levels) is probably the best investment there is, simply because it is an enabler for so many things. If you really invest in developing a culture of creativity and the skills that enable it, you are going to be ready to whatever your next challenge is. As simple as that.

Imagine a team of people who are masters in seeing things differently facing a problem. Imagine how they examine it, think of it, come up with surprising ideas from other domains. Now imagine a team of people who were expected to do the same thing using the same method for the past five years. Which team do you want with you for your next big challenge?

Creativity Enhances Productivity
Which bring us to the last argument in Gattegno's article: people with higher education contribute more to organizations than creative people. Wait, what? I have to admit I stared at this statement for quite some time trying to understand its logic: why are creativity and education being compared as if they are mutually exclusive?

Creativity does not come at the expense of education, skills, motivation or any other aspect you would normally take into account when hiring people. If anything, Creativity feeds by these aspects and enhances them at the same time.

Creativity is like the spice that makes the difference between a dull dish and an amazing one. No spice in the world can replace good ingredients. But great ingredients with zero spices are not likely to result in a dish you would remember.

When applied to all levels of the organization, Creativity enhances productivity. The idea that to get things done you have to put Creativity aside is a nothing less than dangerous. Are we destined to do more of the same to be productive? Can any company survive by doing more of the same for too long? I think the answers to these questions are clear.

But unfortunately, in many (if not most) organizations the answers to these questions are not that clear. Which brings me to the bottom line.

Bring Creativity to the Front
Creativity is definitely not overrated. Individuals and organizations will flourish when Creativity is applied at all levels. Anyone can develop and master Creativity. It is never an easy task. It sure does require serious investment, but almost anything with a significant long-term benefit does. Creativity does not contradict productivity. It enhances it.

But all these arguments are really not the key issue. Creativity is not overrated simply because in practice it is underrated!

Many companies talk about Creativity. Innovation is a great buzzword, and so it found its way to the mission statement of most organizations. But in practice, most companies still don't invest in Creativity on a daily basis. Most companies would still prefer short term results over long term investments in soft skills such as imagination. Many companies might nurture a few selected Creative employees but fail to develop a culture of Creativity throughout the organization. So how can one argue that Creativity is overrated?

The companies most likely to thrive are the ones with Creativity flowing in their organizational veins. These companies will not be affected by the argument that Creativity is overrated. If you are leading any other company, you can certainly use any of the arguments in Gattegno's article to reinforce your approach. That would be the easy thing to do.

Alternatively, you can stop for a moment and think. You can challenge these arguments and try doing something different. You can start investing in Creativity as if your company's life depends on it. If you do that seriously, with real intent, you won't need to read any article to know the value of Creativity. It won't be over- or under-rated. It will just be part of your DNA. And when this happens you will find out that anything is possible. Literally.

Lidor Wyssocky Column:The Creativity Game Igniting Creativity

Lidor Wyssocky is a fine-art photographer and the creator of seempli - a revolutionary platform for igniting creativity and imagination in everything you do. Lidor’s visual artworks, which are focused on the things hundreds and thousands of people pass by in the street every day, led him to create seempli to inspire people to practice creative observation on a daily basis.

Using seempli Lidor works with individuals, teams, and organizations seeking to develop, master, and apply creativity. Find out more at https://seempli.com

Originally published (POST 1) on TECHCRUNCH and (POST 2) on THE CREATIVITY POST