Good Idea, Boss!

And other things for the second half of summer

Sure, the hot streak was seasons 2-9, but The Simpsons is still better than almost anything else on TV.

Last month, I attended the Atlantic Progress Summit, which of course was a discussion of ideas, and the very first session covered whether great ideas are getting harder to find. And there was a pretty good argument made that this is the case. To begin with, you must know so much more to come up with something new, a phenomenon called the burden of knowledge. Benjamin Franklin didn’t have to know all THAT much about electricity to do his experiments. Thomas Edison knew a lot more about electricity than Franklin did. Anyone trying to innovate in electricity now needs more knowledge than Franklin or Edison did. The layers of material that an electrical engineer must master keep growing, and that alone makes innovation harder.

By the way, this matches research that has been done by economist Robert J. Gordon, who has argued that there is nothing inevitable about technological innovation. For example, Gordon says that air conditioning created more economic growth than the Internet because air conditioning made it much easier to work and play year-round in more places in the world. The Internet simply cut a lot of intermediaries and local businesses out of supply chains without creating much economic growth. Social media really hasn’t driven productivity.

The discussion then moved to the topic of career hot streaks, looking at the four to five years when people do their best work. This is a tricky one because it seems to occur randomly. It can come early on, right before retirement, or anywhere in between. The research shows that most people have a period of exploration before they start focused work that leads to a hot streak. There are two challenges: you don’t know if your hot streak is over or about to take place, and the myriad distractions of life make it harder to do either exploration or focused work. Again, social media really hasn’t driven productivity.

Here are some other things to check out:

Things to Read

• The creative process: If you’re interested in reading more about creativity, McKinsey & Co has an interview with Jony Ive, who used to run design for Apple. (McKinsey Quarterly)

• Career pivots: Careers are just an endless series of Plan Bs. Here’s advice for a late-stage career pivot. (Harvard Business Review)

• Foundlings: Consumer genetic testing is just one surprise after another, isn’t it? This is a story of two Canadian babies switched at birth, one raised by a Métis family living on a reserve and the other by successful farmers. (The New York Times)

Things to Hear

• Sinéad O’Connor: I talk to Ted Asregadoo about the late Irish singer’s effect on culture—and on the music industry. (Planet LP Podcast)

• Slide Around: I know I’m supposed to hate Chance the Rapper’s last album, but I really like this song. (YouTube)