Monday, December 6, 2004

Individual Characteristics

What role does the type of brain functioning, personality or temperament play in an innovation commons?

2 comments:

  1. Interesting point Paul. I'd say the role is to be different in as many dimensions as possible. Contradict me, take me to a higher / different plane, enhance me, add weight to my point etc.

    No matter how much effort I put into thinking about a particular issue, I can guarantee that as soon as I start talking to someone else they will open up new lines of thought.

    The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon of finite resources, however we have the "problem" of infinite resources in innovation related opportunities - this is where I think we can add value to the innovation commons.

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  2. I believe the make up of the group is critical to its ultimate success or value to each participant. For example, if I have a fledgling idea to develop, there's no point in hearing from a bunch of people who think like me. The best solution or evolution will come from hearing from people with a different perspective or way of thinking than mine. So I believe it's critical to welcome a wide variety of people of different backgrounds and personalities to "the party" in order to get the most out of the process. That said, I also belive it's critical to weed out people who have an inability to listen well, or who cannot offer constructive feedback. Thinking of Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence, it would seem to me that strong "scoring" or development in that area would be far more important than specific academic, business, or level of intelligence details.

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