Creativity young and old

University of Chicago economic historian, David Galenson has done some of the very best work on the life-cycle of creativity. His basic thesis outlined in his 2005 book is that there are two types of creative people: conceptual innovators with bold new ideas who strike young, and experimental innovators who tinker and improve ideas over their life-course doing their most impressive work later in life. His website contains a wealth of information.  His papers are terrific. Dan Pink has a nice piece on his work here. And Malcolm Gladwell gives a fascinating speech utilizing his framework to compare everything from Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles to models of business innovation. And there's a even website devoted to helping you figure out what kind of innovator you are.

Comments

[Colin Stewart]

The "Which type of innovator are you?" quiz at http://www.artsofinnovation.com/quiz.html is definitely a work in progress. Readers are warmly invited to try it out and submit a comment on whether it's at all helpful, plus any suggestions for improvements.

-- Colin Stewart
www.artsofinnovation.com

[KT Connor]

The descriptions of the conceptual and experimental innovators makes sense. I'd add a third: the intuitive. My work has indicated that this is different from either of the others. In measuring how people make decisions we find three main types of thinking: intuitive, pragmatic (akin to experimental) and conceptual. Everyone seems to be a unique blend of one or more of these. Wayne Carpenter has devised a systematic way to measure these based on his axiometrics, or the measurement of valuing/decision-making. I've used his methodology for the past 16 years and find it uncannily revealing, especially since it doesn't ask people to describe themselves, but just to do a mental task. If you'd like to see how it works, let me know and I'll send a Password. I'd also be happy to elaborate on these three types if you wish, but don't want to clog the blog!

Happy New Year.