[00:00.77]1994 Passage5

[00:03.29]Discoveries in science and technology

[00:06.22]are thought by "untaught minds"

[00:08.74]to come in blinding flashes

[00:11.06]or as the result of dramatic accidents.

[00:14.29]Sir Alexander Fleming did not,

[00:16.72]as legend would have it,

[00:18.53]look at the mold on a piece of cheese

[00:20.85]and get the idea for penicillin there and then.

[00:24.88]He experimented with antibacterial substances

[00:27.91]for nine years before he made his discovery.

[00:31.84]Inventions and innovations almost always come out

[00:35.22]of laborious trial and error.

[00:38.05]Innovation is like soccer;

[00:40.36]even the best players miss the goal

[00:42.59]and have their shots blocked much more frequently

[00:45.61]than they score.

[00:47.62]The point is that the players

[00:49.36]who score most are the ones

[00:51.18]who take the most shots at the goal

[00:54.00]--and so it goes with innovation in any field of activity.

[00:58.54]The prime difference between innovators

[01:01.06]and others is one of approach.

[01:03.98]Everybody gets ideas,

[01:05.50]but innovators work consciously on theirs,

[01:08.73]and they follow them through

[01:10.45]until they prove practicable or otherwise.

[01:14.18]What ordinary people see as fanciful abstractions,

[01:17.90]professional innovators see as solid possibilities.

[01:22.54]"Creative thinking may mean simply the realization

[01:25.77]that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way

[01:28.80]they have always been done,"

[01:30.71]wrote Rudolph Flesch, a language authority.

[01:34.34]This accounts for our reaction to seemingly simple innovations

[01:37.98]like plastic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels

[01:42.21]that make life more convenient:

[01:44.82]"How come nobody thought of that before?"

[01:48.34]The creative approach begins with the proposition

[01:51.58]that nothing is as it appears.

[01:53.99]Innovators will not accept

[01:55.70]that there is only one way to do anything.

[01:58.83]Faced with getting from A to B,

[02:01.14]the average person will automatically set out

[02:03.87]on the best-known and apparently simplest route.

[02:07.71]The innovator will search for alternate courses,

[02:10.74]which may prove easier in the long run

[02:13.06]and are bound to be more interesting

[02:14.97]and challenging even if they lead to dead ends.

[02:19.30]Highly creative individuals really do march to

[02:22.52]a different drummer.