How to Become a Technology Artist by TAG Community Guest Blogger Robert Siegel
Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs experimented with college, spiritual enlightenment, and even psychedelic drugs. He also Inundated his mind into his specialty, computers. Jimmy Wales, founder (or perhaps co-founder?) of Wikipedia “spent lots of hours pouring over the Britannicas and World Book Encyclopedias,” gaining a very broad education. Wales pursued, though did not complete his PhD in Finance, and engaged in work as widespread as teaching finance and developing what he described as a, “guy-oriented search engine.” Elon Musk, the Tesla, PayPal, and Space-X pioneer cleaned out grain bins at a wheat farm, boilers at a lumber mill, and later studied the interesting combination of business and physics. Google’s Marissa Mayer originally studied biology and chemistry.
Each of these people would eventually bring incredible creativity to their tech jobs. Therefore, each of them is truly a technology artist.
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art.
In my last TagThink article I explained how The Ideative Process can help you generate great creative thinking by focusing your thinking on four easy to remember activities that form the acronym, IDEA: Inundate, Deviate, Enhance, Assemble.
You Inundate your brain into your field of specialty by cramming so much information into your brain that the subject literally follows you into your dreams at night. You Deviate from your routines by Routinely breaking your routines, and Enhance each of the blocks of Experiences and Knowledge that you gather by fully engaging your senses and emotions. You Assemble your Ideas by attaching blocks of your Experiences and Knowledge to each other, looking for Ideas, and pulling the blocks apart and repeatedly retrying until you build the Idea(s) you need.
The child often plays with a variety of items including blocks and other stuff of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of the blocks have connectors that do not match the other blocks. Some items are not blocks, and other items are not toys at all. From this collection of stuff, the child Assembles their world of play. Similarly, the Ideative person Assembles Ideas from the collection of the stuff that are their Experiences and Knowledge.
The four technology artists from above share several characteristics with the great painters, scientists, inventors, writers, and other innovators and creative geniuses. Each is an expert in their primary field and each one also Deviated beyond their primary field, becoming a specialist or even an expert in a different and often unrelated field.
Each of these technology artists has significant Experience and Knowledge in areas outside their specialty.
Steve Jobs’ spiritual enlightenment has little to do with computers (extreme Mac lovers may take exception). Jimmy Wales teaching Finance is indirectly related to his creating a free encyclopedia, and I think you would have a hard time relating Elon Musk’s successes with Tesla, PayPal, and Space-X to the Experience and Knowledge he gained cleaning grain bins and boilers, but he has that Experience and Knowledge.
So what is going on here? Is there a connection between the works of these great technology artists to their work in areas unrelated to their work?
Yes. A very strong relationship.
Why? Because great creative thinking, whether in the fine arts or technology, is the result of Assembling blocks of your Experiences and Knowledge into unique configurations. Assembly of unique configurations occurs because some of your blocks of Experience and Knowledge that you Assemble into the Idea are unique to that type of challenge. The result: Creativity.
Note the key point here: You are assembling bits of information, Experiences and Knowledge, that are in your brain. Whether you gathered the information – Learned the information – for your Idea long ago or the instant before generating the Idea, you had to have each block of information in your brain in order to combine it into an Idea.
Deviating from your routines by having stimulating outside interests enables you to gain the Experiences and Knowledge that generate great breakthrough creativity.
If you’re dedicated to your profession than you can become a technology artist by remembering that there is more to your life and to your career than you can gain working in a professional silo. Deviate beyond your routines to stimulate the technology artist that is in you and your career as a technology artist will soar.
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Robert Siegel is the creator of The Ideative Process, founder of Ideative Consulting a senior vice president of Resultrek. He spent 15 years in Marketing, Product Development, and Product Management, at BellSouth and EarthLink in roles specializing in innovation, new product development, and idea creation. Robert worked among engineers, project managers, financial specialists, attorneys, and other analytical thinkers and is himself an analytical thinker. Yet he is an analytical thinker with a creative streak for idea development that led him to be a catalyst for new ideas among his colleagues. You can contact Robert at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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Thanks for sharing.
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