We’ve been hearing for years about “T-shaped people” (with deep knowledge and competence in one or two areas, crossed with wide knowledge across many domains); Microsoft’s Bill Buxton recently wrote about “I-shaped people”:
These have their feet firmly planted in the mud of the practical world, and yet stretch far enough to stick their head in the clouds when they need to. Furthermore, they simultaneously span all of the space in between. [BusinessWeek]
The concept is well intentioned, but who wants to “firmly planted in the mud” when we’re talking about innovation?! Surely there are better letters — or how about numbers? — to use for a derivative analogy.
I’m a big fan of 8.
Rather than being stuck in the mud, let’s continuously circulate from Ground-Level to Blue-Sky — picking up insights at various places along the way, which feed back into the system, converging, colliding, mingling, and remixing in the middle.
Even 0 would be better than I.
The latter resembles a pedestal, calling to mind impressions of permanence and supposed perfection — precisely the wrong way to go.
Anything that suggests static existence has to be tossed out asap. We need images and metaphors that accommodate motion and growth.
Which makes me wonder, what shape are innovation gurus?
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