Comments on: “Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them” http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them Marketing Skunkworks - new models around technology, entertainment and brands Mon, 21 May 2012 10:44:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: John Cantrell / Blog Archive / Gever Tulley & Jane McGonigal – TEDx Atlanta http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-5176 John Cantrell / Blog Archive / Gever Tulley & Jane McGonigal – TEDx Atlanta Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:07:24 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-5176 [...] Bucky Fuller right about being “de-genius-fied” as you grow [...] [...] Bucky Fuller right about being “de-genius-fied” as you grow [...]

]]> By: TEDx Atlanta * Gever Tulley & Jane McGonigal | Life at HOK http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-3405 TEDx Atlanta * Gever Tulley & Jane McGonigal | Life at HOK Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:48:04 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-3405 [...] Bucky Fuller right about being “de-genius-fied” as you grow [...] [...] Bucky Fuller right about being “de-genius-fied” as you grow [...]

]]> By: uberVU - social comments http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-1967 uberVU - social comments Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:42:46 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-1967 <strong>Social comments and analytics for this post...</strong> This post was mentioned on Twitter by BBHLabs: Yup @adamcl, reminded me of this: "Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them" - http://j.mp/iKcij... Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by BBHLabs: Yup @adamcl, reminded me of this: “Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them” – http://j.mp/iKcij...

]]> By: Ben Malbon http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-534 Ben Malbon Thu, 21 May 2009 16:03:24 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-534 Thanks for the comments Brad. Absolutely agree on the gulf between saying and doing. As you say, we're hardwired to want to spend time with people like us. We have to fight our instincts not to do that. Ben Thanks for the comments Brad. Absolutely agree on the gulf between saying and doing. As you say, we’re hardwired to want to spend time with people like us. We have to fight our instincts not to do that. Ben

]]> By: Brad Gutting http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-532 Brad Gutting Thu, 21 May 2009 15:05:23 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-532 Lots of people talk about embracing the mavericks and the outsiders, but in practice they rarely do. Typically--and this applies to everyone from banks to advertising agencies--the people in organizations wind up hiring and consulting and associating with people who already fit into their network, which is often signaled by where they went to school, who they know, where they've worked, and so on. That's understandable, but if everyone's the same, you can't very well call them "different" and hope it means your network is diverse. Of course, as we've figured out by now, people like what they know and almost instinctively (and perhaps unconsciously) gravitate towards it. So in order to do what you propose, everyone would have to make an effort to disrupt their thinking. Not easy, but totally possible. And ultimately, pretty simple. The hardest part is sustaining the change... Lots of people talk about embracing the mavericks and the outsiders, but in practice they rarely do. Typically–and this applies to everyone from banks to advertising agencies–the people in organizations wind up hiring and consulting and associating with people who already fit into their network, which is often signaled by where they went to school, who they know, where they’ve worked, and so on. That’s understandable, but if everyone’s the same, you can’t very well call them “different” and hope it means your network is diverse.

Of course, as we’ve figured out by now, people like what they know and almost instinctively (and perhaps unconsciously) gravitate towards it. So in order to do what you propose, everyone would have to make an effort to disrupt their thinking.

Not easy, but totally possible. And ultimately, pretty simple. The hardest part is sustaining the change…

]]> By: victorseo http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-489 victorseo Thu, 07 May 2009 00:33:11 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-489 When I was a kid, my small, upper middle class community was full of Mensa kids. Divorce struck many of those families, when those kids were tweens. Over the years I checked in with many of them. Those whose lives became inundated with stress while in their tweens all failed to reach the potential we were supposed to have..... I believe several were bonified geniuses. What a loss to the world's collective thought When I was a kid, my small, upper middle class community was full of Mensa kids. Divorce struck many of those families, when those kids were tweens. Over the years I checked in with many of them. Those whose lives became inundated with stress while in their tweens all failed to reach the potential we were supposed to have….. I believe several were bonified geniuses. What a loss to the world’s collective thought

]]> By: Scott Karambis http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-488 Scott Karambis Wed, 06 May 2009 21:02:11 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-488 Talk about sloppy creativity: that posted before I intended. Apologize for the typos and screwed up links. Talk about sloppy creativity: that posted before I intended. Apologize for the typos and screwed up links.

]]> By: Scott Karambis http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-487 Scott Karambis Wed, 06 May 2009 20:45:46 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-487 Interesting, provocative post. Fuller's line is great In my darker frames of mind, I prefer Beckett's grim outsider fortitude ("We can't go on. We must go on. We'll go on" or Kafka's bleak optimism ("Of course there's hope. Just not for us.") And I cite those two example for a reason; lots, many, if not most great artists and thinkers are unrecognized or even scorned during their lives. Germany didn't got over failing to appreciate Mozart, until they had bigger things to be ashamed of. Truly original artists and thinkers tend to challenge the status quo. Not within the systeem--doing a viral campaign rather than a TV effort--but by absolutely refusing to work in the system at all. Justice Souter comes to mind. How many men or women would hav the balls to tell the Supreme Court to screw themselves, describing his seasonal time on the supreme court as his yearly "intellectual lobotomy"? Most of us love the rewards and satisfactions collegial respect, success, money, etc.(myself in included) too much to gamble everything on our kooky personal visions. And these guys and gals tend not to be very good "team players," as they say in the trade. It's a deep structural problem which your post calls calls attention to, reflected in our culture of commentary and constant recycling. And it's one that all creative industries (basically all industries now) are facing: How do we balance the needs of organizational efficiency and structure with the freedom to include really loopy geniuses (who are very hard to distinguish from the merely loopy anyway). My own sense is that real outsider thinkers (Fuller, Gould, Pynchon) will never play along or play for long enough to help a business achieve its goals without causing all kinds of collateral damage. That's why we love them right? As the post above says: we want to be inspired by them; but do we want to work with thim. Google's famous 20% time model is one way but not someone like Fuller would show up at the office one week. But great thought provoking post. Thanks Interesting, provocative post. Fuller’s line is great In my darker frames of mind, I prefer Beckett’s grim outsider fortitude (“We can’t go on. We must go on. We’ll go on” or Kafka’s bleak optimism (“Of course there’s hope. Just not for us.”) And I cite those two example for a reason; lots, many, if not most great artists and thinkers are unrecognized or even scorned during their lives. Germany didn’t got over failing to appreciate Mozart, until they had bigger things to be ashamed of. Truly original artists and thinkers tend to challenge the status quo. Not within the systeem–doing a viral campaign rather than a TV effort–but by absolutely refusing to work in the system at all. Justice Souter comes to mind. How many men or women would hav the balls to tell the Supreme Court to screw themselves, describing his seasonal time on the supreme court as his yearly “intellectual lobotomy”? Most of us love the rewards and satisfactions collegial respect, success, money, etc.(myself in included) too much to gamble everything on our kooky personal visions. And these guys and gals tend not to be very good “team players,” as they say in the trade. It’s a deep structural problem which your post calls calls attention to, reflected in our culture of commentary and constant recycling. And it’s one that all creative industries (basically all industries now) are facing: How do we balance the needs of organizational efficiency and structure with the freedom to include really loopy geniuses (who are very hard to distinguish from the merely loopy anyway). My own sense is that real outsider thinkers (Fuller, Gould, Pynchon) will never play along or play for long enough to help a business achieve its goals without causing all kinds of collateral damage. That’s why we love them right? As the post above says: we want to be inspired by them; but do we want to work with thim. Google’s famous 20% time model is one way but not someone like Fuller would show up at the office one week. But great thought provoking post. Thanks

]]> By: elrolio http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-486 elrolio Wed, 06 May 2009 19:57:44 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-486 well, in direct response to the article, I second the link by Martyn with the Ken Robinson presentation. Still an all-time fav TED talk. Furthermore, Mr. Brooks wrote an interesting piece the other day over at the Times that basically surmised that the way "left-field thinkers" aren't so much what to search for, but rather we should activate talent and passion early, providing an environment and example of what these young geniuses can one day become. Basically we need role models - and this links back to all the talk about cherishing and rewarding good teachers and programmes that allow young minds to flourish (as spoken about by Robinson, Obama, etc) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Anyway, a tangent if I may: I think the "sharing of everything, all the time, with everyone, combined with the sheer volume of stimulus that assaults us" actually can help move forward new concepts quicker and better. Its like distributed computing (SETI@Home stuff), but with brain processing power. What I mean is, you see these big time columnists putting forth thoughts (as you do here) and using powerful thoughts from reader comments to improve and revise ideas. Now, in the old days of newspapers it was pretty much one way communication, maybe an editor was there on staff to help, but now we are beginning to see op-eds turn into running dialogues; indeed they are evolving ideas. Anyway, what I'm saying is I'm not sure the evolution of average is happening with this realtime spread and access to information as we feared it happened with TV and movies (content that eventually started to cater to the LOOOOOWEST common denominator). But rather, its opening up pockets of intellect that could never have been accessed before, not to mention at this speed. Distributed computing power of our brains, connected by the net, through common interest points. Except most of us keep much more eclectic areas of interest than ever before, rather than the more generic groups of interest we were involved in before. /ramble well, in direct response to the article, I second the link by Martyn with the Ken Robinson presentation. Still an all-time fav TED talk. Furthermore, Mr. Brooks wrote an interesting piece the other day over at the Times that basically surmised that the way “left-field thinkers” aren’t so much what to search for, but rather we should activate talent and passion early, providing an environment and example of what these young geniuses can one day become. Basically we need role models – and this links back to all the talk about cherishing and rewarding good teachers and programmes that allow young minds to flourish (as spoken about by Robinson, Obama, etc)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Anyway, a tangent if I may:
I think the “sharing of everything, all the time, with everyone, combined with the sheer volume of stimulus that assaults us” actually can help move forward new concepts quicker and better. Its like distributed computing (SETI@Home stuff), but with brain processing power. What I mean is, you see these big time columnists putting forth thoughts (as you do here) and using powerful thoughts from reader comments to improve and revise ideas.
Now, in the old days of newspapers it was pretty much one way communication, maybe an editor was there on staff to help, but now we are beginning to see op-eds turn into running dialogues; indeed they are evolving ideas.
Anyway, what I’m saying is I’m not sure the evolution of average is happening with this realtime spread and access to information as we feared it happened with TV and movies (content that eventually started to cater to the LOOOOOWEST common denominator). But rather, its opening up pockets of intellect that could never have been accessed before, not to mention at this speed. Distributed computing power of our brains, connected by the net, through common interest points. Except most of us keep much more eclectic areas of interest than ever before, rather than the more generic groups of interest we were involved in before.

/ramble

]]> By: Martyn http://bbh-labs.com/everyone-is-born-a-genius-but-the-process-of-living-de-geniuses-them/comment-page-1#comment-481 Martyn Wed, 06 May 2009 05:46:18 +0000 http://bbh-labs.com/?p=1878#comment-481 I think Ken Robinsons talk at last years TED covers this nicely. How in general we all have "creativity" taught out of us by the school system, not de geniused, but more de-created...A prime example is kids who mark make/graffiti etc.. instead of being encouraged and directed into art, they're demonised, criminalised and made to feel what they do is generally worthless.. yet it's used to sell everything from cars to property. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY I think Ken Robinsons talk at last years TED covers this nicely. How in general we all have “creativity” taught out of us by the school system, not de geniused, but more de-created…A prime example is kids who mark make/graffiti etc.. instead of being encouraged and directed into art, they’re demonised, criminalised and made to feel what they do is generally worthless.. yet it’s used to sell everything from cars to property.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

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