Imagine: How Creativity Works (33 page)

154 Every day at: Author visits to the Pixar studios, March 30 and 31, 2010.

156 “Creativity is so delicate”: Alex Osborn, Your Creative Power (New York: Broadway Books, 1948).

156 “Decades of research”: Keith Sawyer, Group Genius (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 61.

157 first empirical test: David Taylor, “Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking?” Administrative Science Quarterly 3 (1958).

157 Consider this clever: Charlan Nemeth et al., “The Liberating Role of Confl ict in Group Creativity,” European Journal of Social Psychology 34 (2004): 365–74.

160 To better understand: Charlan Nemeth and Margaret Ormiston, “Creative Idea Generation: Harmony Versus Stimulation,” European Journal of Social Psychology 37 (2007): 524–35.

163 “Yesterday we saw”: James Stewart, DisneyWar (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 408.

165 “John and I were”: Paik, To Infi nity and Beyond!, 212.

168 I met Wieden: Author visit to W+K headquarters, February 15, 2010.

7. Urban Friction

174 When I met: Author visit to SoHo studios on June 2, 2009.

177 Instead of dying out: World Urbanization Prospects, 2009 Revision, United Nations; http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Documents/WUP2009_Highlights_Final.pdf.

178 In an infl uential: Robert Lucas, “On the Mechanics of Economic Development,” Journal of Monetary Economics 22 (1988): 3–42.

178 While Lucas didn’t: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage, 1992).

179 “Look what”: Ibid., 4.

179 There was Mr. Lacey: Ibid., 66–68.

181 Look, for instance: Adam Jaffe, M. Trajtenberg, and Rebecca Henderson, “Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (1993): 577–98.

182 Geoffrey West doesn’t: Author visits to Santa Fe Institute, February 2, 2009, and April 4 to 6, 2009.

184 After two years: Luis Bettencourt et al., “Growth, Innovation, Scaling and the Pace of Life in Cities,” PNAS 104 (2007): 7301–6.

187 While West and Bettencourt: Marc Bornstein and Helen Bornstein, “The Pace of Life,” Nature 259 (1976): 557–59.

192 AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor: AnnaLee Saxenian, Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).

194 “Every year there”: Tom Wolfe, “The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce,” Esquire, December 1983.

195 “The machines were”: Steve Wozniak, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon (New York: Norton, 2007). See also http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php.

196 It’s four in: Yossi Vardi, interview with author, Tel Aviv, May 25, 2010.

197 In the last decade: For an excellent summary of the Israeli tech boom, see Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle (New York: Twelve, 2009).

198 Sergey Brin, the: Ibid., 202.

200 Martin Ruef, a sociologist: Martin Ruef, “Strong Ties, Weak Ties and Islands: Structural and Cultural Predictors of Organizational Innovation,” Industrial and Corporate Change 11 (2002): 427–49.

204 “Modern life has”: Edward Glaeser, telephone interview with the author, April 10, 2010.

205 As a result: Elena Rocco, “Trust Breaks Down in Electronic Contexts but Can Be Repaired by Some Initial Face-to-Face Contact,” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 496–502.

205 A similar lesson: K. Lee, J. Brownstein, R. Mills, and I. Kohane, “Does Collocation Inform the Impact of Collaboration?” PLoS ONE 5 (12): e14279.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014279.

207 In contrast, the: Arie de Geus and Peter Senge, The Living Company (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).

8. The Shakespeare Paradox

211 A few years ago: http://www.monad.com/sdg/Journal/genius.html.

212 When William Shakespeare: My recommended books on Shakespeare and his time: Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (New York: Norton, 2004); Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All (New York: Anchor, 2005); James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006); and Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (New York: Anchor, 2006).

220 In 1990, the economist: Paul Romer, “Endogenous Technological Change,” Journal of Political Economy 98 (1990): 71–102.

220 “The thing about”: Paul Romer, telephone interview with the author, March 25, 2010.

225 “The great ages”: T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays (1920; reprint New York: Dover, 2000), 36.

225 The New Orleans: Author visit to New Orleans, February 12 through 14, 2011.

228 Consider a recent: Erik Westby and V. L. Dawson, “Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?,” Creativity Research Journal 8 (1995): 1–10.

229 While NOCCA encourages: A. Diamond et al., “Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control,” Science 318 (2007): 1387–88.

230 In recent years: Angela Duckworth, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92 (2007): 1087–101.

232 “People act like”: Author visit to San Diego, February 22, 2011.

234 This was demonstrated: E. B. Bonawitz et al., “The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Teaching Limits Children’s Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery,” Cognition 120 (2011): 322–30.

236 Bill James, the pioneer: Bill James, “Shakespeare and Verlander,” Slate, March 30, 2011; http://www.slate.com/id/2289380/.

237 The numbers are: J. Hunt and M. Gauthier-Loiselle, “How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?,” NBER Working Paper no. 14312; http://www.nber.org/papers/w14312.

238 “What you see”: Robert Watson, telephone interview with the author, March 18, 2011.

241 A few years: P. Azoulay, J. Graff Zivin, and G. Manso, “Incentives and Creativity: Evidence from the Academic Life Science,” NBER Working Paper no. 15466; http://www.nber.org/papers/w15466.

244 Dylan, in Chronicles: Bob Dylan, Chronicles (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 240.

Coda

246 “I was definitely”: Teller, interview with the author, Las Vegas, January 8, 2009.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The cover of this book is a fib. You’ll find my name there but no one else’s, which makes it seem as if these words were written in splendid isolation or that I didn’t benefi t from the essential input of so many other people. But I did! This book would not exist without their time, generosity, and wisdom.

Let me begin with Amanda Cook. At this point, I’m running out of praise. Amanda has been my editor on all three of my books, and though she’s certainly tired of my plodding and swollen drafts, I’m sticking to her like glue. (Preferably one of those really strong 3M glues that hold together golf clubs.) Because Amanda doesn’t just fix my broken prose — she helps me think through ideas and stories, helps me figure out what, exactly, I want to say. She’s both encouraging and brutally honest, adept at inspiring me to keep on going even as she points out all the wrong places I’ve gone so far.

Every single page of this book has been dramatically improved by her red pen.

I’ve also benefited from the feedback of many friends and colleagues. Robert Krulwich has always been a hero of mine, but he’s also a great reader. After looking at an early draft, Robert wrote me an e-mail that was so full of insight, it kept me busy for six months. Nick Davies at Canongate made many important suggestions, both micro and macro. Paddy Harrington, Charles Yao, Mark Breitenberg, and Jad Abumrad also provided valuable comments. Mike Dudek at Bruce Mau Design did an incredible job creating the graphics. Tracy Roe, the best copyeditor in the world, fixed so many mistakes in the manuscript that, after first seeing her edit, I was rather mortified. (One day, Tracy, I’ll learn how to use apostrophes.) Sections of this book benefited from the expert fixes of editors at the various publications I’m lucky to write for.

A huge, huge thanks goes out to Mark Robinson and Adam Rogers at Wired, Leo Carey and Daniel Zalewski at the New Yorker, Mary Turner at Outside, and James Ryerson and Alex Star at the New York Times Magazine.

Various family members suffered through the slog of my rough prose. Ben Lehrer spent countless hours in a café with me helping me cut unnecessary sentences; Michael Lehrer was the source of much creative inspiration; David Lehrer flagged countless relevant studies; and Rachel Lehrer help me fix some of the hardest narrative problems. My mother, Ariella, has read different incarnations of this book too many times to count. Contra my teenage self, I’ve learned she’s just about always right, so I better listen.

My wonderful agents at the Wylie Agency have made this writing life possible. Sarah Chalfant encouraged me when this book was nothing but a half-baked conjecture, insisting that I keep going. She has suggested stories and connected me with characters — I’m so lucky to have her on my side. Andrew Wylie’s support has, at several crucial junctures, been essential. James Pullen has been a joy to work with.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

I’ve also been blessed to share the stories of all the people in this book. My eternal gratitude goes out to everyone who let me ask silly questions, whether it was in the lab or at the movie studio or on a beach in Maui. This book would not exist without their patience and brilliance. I’d like to especially thank all the scientists who conduct the research that allows my job to exist. One of my favorite quotes comes from W. H. Auden, who once said that when he found himself in a roomful of scientists, he felt like a “shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing-room full of dukes.” I live that feeling every day.

And then there’s my wife, Sarah. While writing this book, she put up with my negative moods, frequent reporting trips, and mis-cellaneous obsessions. I’m in awe of her kindness and smarts, her willingness to read bad drafts late at night (when she still has her own work to finish) and offer incisive comments on everything from my improper use of apostrophes to my interpretation of Highway 61 Revisited. She’s the best best friend ever.

Rosie! You arrived toward the end of the writing process, and that’s probably a good thing, since you’re the most lovely and ador-able distraction. I can’t wait to see what you become, although I’m already certain that you’re the best thing I’ll ever help create.

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INDEX

TK

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Table of Contents

Book design by Alex Camlin