Google Ideas SAVE conference

July 8th, 2011 by Charles Cameron

Jami Miscik who was Deputy Director for Intelligence at the time, caught my attention when she said in 2004, “Embrace the maverick”. Oddballs aka mavericks make the best contrarians, because they start from different premises / different assumption bases. Miscik accordingly invited science fiction and film writers to interact with her analysts at CIA, and found that when they did, they produced 80% already known ideas, 10% chaff, and 10% new and “valid” scenarios. But even then, “science fiction and screen writers” is a box…

Cross-fertilization, questioning of assumptions, passion, reverie, visualization, scenario planning, play – the number of strategies that could be employed to improve the chances of a successful new insight emerging are many and various – unkempt artists probably know some of them better than suits with high IQs and clearances, and Google clearly knows this, too…

But where?

I mean, what Google+ circles do any of us join, to join this global conversation? What twitter hashtag brings us together under one roof? When’s the follow up in my neck of the woods, or yours?

What’s the method for getting the conversation widespread, well-informed – and scaleable, so the best of the grass roots and local ideas can find their way to the influential and informed, and the best insights of the influential and informed can percolate through to the grass roots and local?

Lastly, I’d like to thank Google for getting a dialog going between those with a range of subjective experiences of radicalization, and those whose job it is to understand and thus be able to interdict it. Demonization never got the situation in Northern Ireland anywhere near peace – listening did.

And thank you too, Alix, for your own contribution. Let’s move the conversation onwards.

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12 comments on this post.

zen:

July 8th, 2011 at 3:37 am

Hi Charles,
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"they produced 80% already known ideas, 10% chaff, and 10% new and “valid” scenarios"
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A 10 % return is a pretty solid investment. In terms of creativity, I wager that the norm is more like 2-3 %
Lexington Green:

July 8th, 2011 at 4:35 am

“…listening did.” Exhaustion and an aging population with fewer young hoodlums and economic growth did it. Hard variables preceded and enabled soft ones.
jarret:

July 8th, 2011 at 4:20 pm

great piece, Zen-
zen:

July 8th, 2011 at 4:25 pm

Ah, thanks but this was the work of Charles, not me -but I am happy to claim credit for anything that makes me look smarter 🙂
Charles Cameron:

July 8th, 2011 at 6:05 pm

Hi Zen:
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I quoted the numbers Miscik gave, but (a) I’m sure they were a way of getting across her sense that some of the outsider input was old hat to her analysts, some was unworkable and some was pure dividend, and (b) in any case, from my POV the best creative inputs aren’t "measurable" any more than the best new ideas can be produced by following what our blog-friends the Eides would call "turkey" rules.
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Or as Dave Gray puts it in Gamestorming: Design Practices for Co-creation and Engagement:

If you are Nokia right now, and you need to make the iPhone-killer, the next generation — you know, you’re up against the iPhone, you need to come up with that next thing — there is no simple repeatable process, there’s no business process, there’s no linear process, step by step, there’s no set of rules that’s gonna get you there. And this is a problem in business, right? We have to be creative.

So the question isn’t so much, can science fiction writers suggest additional plausible scenarios to guard against? as who can see the situation from a strange enough angle to recognize previously invisible patterns?
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Because that’s what "connecting the dots" is really about… intuiting the deep patterning of things. As in, who can peer deeply enough into the unknown to see constellations, where others just see a jumble of stars?
Charles Cameron:

July 8th, 2011 at 6:13 pm

Hi Lex:
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I’m sure the resolution in N Ireland was multifactorial, and indeed, less than tidy… but I think you’re looking at a different "layer" of the process. Exhaustion, an aging population and economic good times may have had a lot to do with how they came about, but the withdrawal of demonization and willingness on both sides to listen, to talk, and to compromise were the keys to the opening of negotiations.
J.ScottShipman:

July 8th, 2011 at 7:20 pm

Hi Charles, You captured the crux with these two paragraphs

"So the question isn’t so much, can science fiction writers suggest additional plausible scenarios to guard against? as who can see the situation from a strange enough angle to recognize previously invisible patterns?
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Because that’s what "connecting the dots" is really about… intuiting the deep patterning of things. As in,who can peer deeply enough into the unknown to see constellations, where others just see a jumble of stars?"

Two things are at play: deep tacit knowledge and a willingness to "see" differently (requires courage). "Peering deeply" required a level of competence beyond the familiar and superficial. I don’t read science fiction, but I appreciate their craft—and the truly imaginative ones hold great potential—many of our present day gadgets were "seen" 40 years ago…and since these folks are already at the edge, their egos can endure the nattering nabobs of negativism.
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Great post! I may have move the second Margolis title to the top of the stack!
J.ScottShipman:

July 8th, 2011 at 7:25 pm

Of course, I’m all thumbs using the text editor; my apologies.
Charles Cameron:

July 8th, 2011 at 7:31 pm

Thanks, Scott:
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I hope I’ve fixed things for you.
J.ScottShipman:

July 8th, 2011 at 8:13 pm

Indeed, you did, sir! Thanks! I’ll eventually get the hang of this!
Bryan Alexander:

July 9th, 2011 at 1:45 am

It sounds like a fascinating event.
Answering your questions, Charles: sounds like a mega-conversation, discussions on top of discussions. The intentional framework you describe could carve out many such exchange domains.
Charles Cameron:

July 11th, 2011 at 8:07 pm

Well, Bryan, you’ve gotten me started in on a post about the types and formats of discourse that I think are badly needed, everywhere complex situations are addressed.
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The koan I am currently sitting with is about this, I think:

Yunyan asked Daowu, “How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Kannon) use so many hands and eyes?”
Daowu said, “It’s just like a person in the middle of the night reaching in search of a pillow.”
Yunyan said, “I understand.”
Daowu said, “How do you understand it?
Yunyan said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.”
Daowu said, “What you said is all right, but it’s only eighty percent of it.”
Yunyan said, “I’m like this, senior brother. How do you understand it?”
Daowu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”

As far as I can tell, the hand that reaches behind me to adjust my head and pillow in the night factors in a great many things — the softness of the pillow, support given by the mattress, angle of my skull to the spine, degree to which my spine is already in better or worse shape, state of my neck muscles, degree of relaxation possible in sleep, energy cost of movement of pillow, strength of hand grip, to name but the most obvious. And it pulls this multifactorial task off "effortlessly" — without even bothering to wake "me" up.
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If that’s how intelligent my hand is when I’m half-asleep, no wonder reverie was what procured the aha! of the benzene ring for Kekulé!