I experience it in my engineering work, more intensely as I approach the sixth decade of life. "The young will invent this, because they do not know that it is impossible", we sometimes joke at work, but there is a deep truth in it: you may be a better engineer, an applier of cumulated knowledge, at the older age, but younger people are more versatile inventors.
Peter, I love this post. You have my head spinning with speculation about other areas where play was the possible starting block. I wonder how if our early ancestors’ play with different combinations of foods and flavors led to engineering advances in measurement, chemistry, or even heat transfer. (I have always marveled at the flavor transformation that occurs to cheese when it is melted on a piece of toast)
Polish Prof. Stefan Banach (1892-1945), a true mathematical genius, developed the fundamental concepts and theorems of functional analysis, and terms such as Banach space are known to every mathematician in the world. Banach's individuality was also expressed in specific methods of creative exploration and friendly cooperation. He liked working with friends who were mathematicians in a café atmosphere, where the noise and music did not disturb him in concentrating his thoughts. He sat for hours at the famous Scottish Cafe, writing the tabletop with proofs of theorems. In order to avoid losses caused by the clean-up intervention of waiters wiping the entries, Banach bought a large notebook in which problems that needed solving were noted down, with each author's name and date listed. There was space on the back of the card for a possible description of the solution. The "Scotch Book" was available to any mathematician who asked for it, and as an incentive for solving certain problems, prizes were provided, sometimes quite strange ones, such as a live goose.
"At first only juveniles played this way. Adults neither invented such behaviors nor imitated the young."
The more time I've spent with young people, the more I believe that adults should imitate the young. I think it is good for the body, mind, and soul.
"However, younger juveniles imitated older ones in stone play, and stone players continued to play with stones when they themselves became adults."
This sounds like a good utilitarian argument for folks who question the value of unlimited free play for children: "your kid may be more innovative as an adult."
It's interesting to think about things this way, and it makes a lot of sense. Our current system often prioritizes the product, meaning we need to create a product to solve a problem.
Shows like Shark Tank highlight this approach, focusing on how to make or design a solution. However, if we shift our focus to creativity instead of just inventing, we prioritize the process before the product.
When creativity or the initial idea is flawed, the resulting product is often flawed or just a copy of something that already exists, meaning it won't be effective. If there are issues with the engineering, we can fix them through redesign. So, getting the creative process right is essential. Unfortunately, the school system tends to emphasize the final product rather than the creative process that leads to it. However Self Directed learning focuses on the creativity or play in ideas.
Interesting Peter, play is the mother of a great lifelong skill (more like a mindset) that combines many important skills, emotional self-awareness, and social skills. However, the context and culture in which play occurs are either motivators or inhibitors of potential benefits crystallized into new ideas or innovations. But this goes far beyond a purely utilitarian point of view.
Having worked in Silicon Valley during the 1990s and early 2000s, I noted that it became gospel that every company had to have a play area for adult workers. Foosball, ping pong, video games, climbing walls, bowling alleys, etc. The mentality was that play led to creative innovation.
But I have never seen a study that examined whether corporate playrooms had a positive, direct impact on anything, not even worker stress or creativity. In fact, it seems that not only did a few companies shut down these areas, but employees started avoiding them, returning to the stigma that the folks in the play room were just wasting time and you didn't want to be associated with time-wasters if you wanted to keep your job.
So, what are the real facts here? And why did the once-vaunted corporate playroom go from hero to zero?
No thoughts or studies on this? I would think something would have to exists that looks at the effectiveness of corporate playrooms on innovation and creativity that translates into positive business outcomes.
It occurs to me to wonder then if the addition of an iron band around the wooden cart wheel served not only to tighten the wheel’s wooden parts and hold them together, increase the wheel’s useful life by protecting the wood of the wheel from wear as it rolled along the roadway, but did physics make the iron bound wheel “rounder” than the simple wooden wheel?
It does make sense that you could shape an iron band into something more circular than you could do with just wood. Of course, the first wheels and carts were developed well before the iron age, so they had to make do just with wood. Unlike the picture I shown here, the first wheels on carts were probably solid wood, no spokes. Boards would have been fastened together and then tooled to make the wheel round.
I experience it in my engineering work, more intensely as I approach the sixth decade of life. "The young will invent this, because they do not know that it is impossible", we sometimes joke at work, but there is a deep truth in it: you may be a better engineer, an applier of cumulated knowledge, at the older age, but younger people are more versatile inventors.
Peter, I love this post. You have my head spinning with speculation about other areas where play was the possible starting block. I wonder how if our early ancestors’ play with different combinations of foods and flavors led to engineering advances in measurement, chemistry, or even heat transfer. (I have always marveled at the flavor transformation that occurs to cheese when it is melted on a piece of toast)
Polish Prof. Stefan Banach (1892-1945), a true mathematical genius, developed the fundamental concepts and theorems of functional analysis, and terms such as Banach space are known to every mathematician in the world. Banach's individuality was also expressed in specific methods of creative exploration and friendly cooperation. He liked working with friends who were mathematicians in a café atmosphere, where the noise and music did not disturb him in concentrating his thoughts. He sat for hours at the famous Scottish Cafe, writing the tabletop with proofs of theorems. In order to avoid losses caused by the clean-up intervention of waiters wiping the entries, Banach bought a large notebook in which problems that needed solving were noted down, with each author's name and date listed. There was space on the back of the card for a possible description of the solution. The "Scotch Book" was available to any mathematician who asked for it, and as an incentive for solving certain problems, prizes were provided, sometimes quite strange ones, such as a live goose.
"At first only juveniles played this way. Adults neither invented such behaviors nor imitated the young."
The more time I've spent with young people, the more I believe that adults should imitate the young. I think it is good for the body, mind, and soul.
"However, younger juveniles imitated older ones in stone play, and stone players continued to play with stones when they themselves became adults."
This sounds like a good utilitarian argument for folks who question the value of unlimited free play for children: "your kid may be more innovative as an adult."
It's interesting to think about things this way, and it makes a lot of sense. Our current system often prioritizes the product, meaning we need to create a product to solve a problem.
Shows like Shark Tank highlight this approach, focusing on how to make or design a solution. However, if we shift our focus to creativity instead of just inventing, we prioritize the process before the product.
When creativity or the initial idea is flawed, the resulting product is often flawed or just a copy of something that already exists, meaning it won't be effective. If there are issues with the engineering, we can fix them through redesign. So, getting the creative process right is essential. Unfortunately, the school system tends to emphasize the final product rather than the creative process that leads to it. However Self Directed learning focuses on the creativity or play in ideas.
Interesting Peter, play is the mother of a great lifelong skill (more like a mindset) that combines many important skills, emotional self-awareness, and social skills. However, the context and culture in which play occurs are either motivators or inhibitors of potential benefits crystallized into new ideas or innovations. But this goes far beyond a purely utilitarian point of view.
Having worked in Silicon Valley during the 1990s and early 2000s, I noted that it became gospel that every company had to have a play area for adult workers. Foosball, ping pong, video games, climbing walls, bowling alleys, etc. The mentality was that play led to creative innovation.
But I have never seen a study that examined whether corporate playrooms had a positive, direct impact on anything, not even worker stress or creativity. In fact, it seems that not only did a few companies shut down these areas, but employees started avoiding them, returning to the stigma that the folks in the play room were just wasting time and you didn't want to be associated with time-wasters if you wanted to keep your job.
So, what are the real facts here? And why did the once-vaunted corporate playroom go from hero to zero?
No thoughts or studies on this? I would think something would have to exists that looks at the effectiveness of corporate playrooms on innovation and creativity that translates into positive business outcomes.
I don't think this is the right way to apply the insight of play leading to creative innovation.
If "corporate playrooms" are not correlated with positive effects in workers, that doesn't mean that play doesn't cause creative innovation.
It occurs to me to wonder then if the addition of an iron band around the wooden cart wheel served not only to tighten the wheel’s wooden parts and hold them together, increase the wheel’s useful life by protecting the wood of the wheel from wear as it rolled along the roadway, but did physics make the iron bound wheel “rounder” than the simple wooden wheel?
It does make sense that you could shape an iron band into something more circular than you could do with just wood. Of course, the first wheels and carts were developed well before the iron age, so they had to make do just with wood. Unlike the picture I shown here, the first wheels on carts were probably solid wood, no spokes. Boards would have been fastened together and then tooled to make the wheel round.
And before the wheel there were logs used as rollers