Imagine a computer program that could randomly change shapes, colour and positioning. You feed in some basic elements. For example, you feed in two circles, a square and one line. The program randomly generates sizes and relative sizes, positions and colours. You just sit and watch as all the different configurations come and go. Then, if a particular combination appeals to your aesthetic judgment, you halt the program and capture that image. You now have a work of abstract art.
The above process is no different from "found art". A stone, a piece of driftwood, a broken plate may all provide something of aesthetic value. The artistic effort is not in generating the shape, but in sensing its aesthetic and communication value. Which is the more important: the generation process or the judgment process? The answer is that both are important. But the mind experiment suggested above indicates that there can be times when only the judgment process is required.
IDEA CREATIVITY
With idea creativity, it is usually assumed that the creator has the idea, evaluates the idea, and then seeks to persuade others of its value. Others see their role as caution. They set their minds to see the faults and why the new idea will not work. This is natural because it is assumed that the creator is on the side of the idea and therefore rather oblivious to the shortcomings of that idea. Someone has to be cautious.
But perhaps there needs to be a third role. This is a role between the "green hat" creator (using my Six Hats terminology) and the "black hat" caution. Perhaps there is a specific role for a "yellow hat" function which is separate from the creator function.
This third role would be tuned to value sensitivity. The originator of the idea comes up with the idea and sees some value in addition to mere novelty. The idea is then taken to the "value enhancer" who assesses the value in the idea and even modifies it to get greater value. Only at this stage is the idea taken to the caution (and practicality) stage.
This model is very similar to the aesthetic model at the beginning of this piece. Instead of the computer randomly generating ideas, the creator originates the idea. Instead of the artist who recognises value, there is the deliberate yellow hat role. Note that this artistic model lacks the black hat role.
VALUE SENSITIVITY
I have touched on the huge importance of value sensitivity in a previous article and so will not dwell upon this at length. I have sat in on creative meetings where good ideas have been generated but the people present have been unable to see value in the ideas. By definition, creativity involves breaking out of conventional patterns and concepts. What about the acceptance of the new idea?
Does the acceptance have to use the old patterns? When the acceptance uses standard, old patterns there is the "ah ha" or "eureka" moment'. The new idea makes obvious sense to everyone. While this may be the ultimate aim of practical creativity, there are other situations. Looked at with the old patterns of acceptance, the new idea may not make sense. The patterns of acceptance may themselves need to be changed. How do we assess the value of this idea?
When the French champagne industry objected to the term Spanish champagne and won its legal case, the result was unexpected. While Spanish "champagne" was put in the same bracket as French, it was perceived as a cheaper and inferior version. When the Spanish were forced to change the name, they came up with "cava", which could now exist on its own and not as a French imitator. It was now seen as an excellent, but much cheaper sparkling wine. Sales soared.
HINDSIGHT
When the market proves the value of an idea, it is not difficult, in hindsight, to rationalise why the idea had this value in the first place. But at the time of assessing the idea in the first place such hindsight obviousness is not available. That is why the evaluation process also needs creativity when the standard patterns are not sufficient to make sense of the idea. When McDonald's set out to serve breakfasts there was an obvious logic to the idea. The premises were available and unused. The brand image was available and powerful. Yet for four years the new idea lost money, even though the value seemed so obvious. Then the idea caught on and it became the most profitable part of the whole operation.
In hindsight it is easy to see that it took a while to educate people to have breakfast outside the home and on the way to work. The time factor in the evaluation of an idea is critical. There may need to be a change in culture. An idea may only work if enough copycats help to develop the market. There may be a need to wait until trend-setters start to promote the idea. There may be a need for several other factors to fall into place. A drop in price arising from volume use may be needed. There may be a series of "ifs" before the true value of an idea is apparent. I have written about the "action channels" and "if boxes" as a way of mapping out the future of an idea.
ASYMMETRY
It is obvious that education must essentially be about caution. There is a right way to do things. This way is accepted and used and has survived for ages. So it cannot be wrong or dangerous. It is important for students to be aware of the right way. Engineers have to know the right way to build a bridge. So the caution mode is finely tuned...This does not fit...This is not right...This is not the usual way, etc.
A new idea has none of the tested advantages of an old idea. So a new idea has to be subjected to fierce caution scrutiny. Does the new idea even deserve to be tested in reality? There may be lots of new ideas, and it would be expensive and unrealistic to test them all. History tells us what works. History cannot tell us what "might" work. So there is no natural place where value sensitivity is either taught or used. Education is not about design or new ideas, because there is so much of "what is" to transfer that "what can be" gets left out.
In connection with my new website, to be found at www.edwarddebono.com, I am setting up another site called www.valuedesignlab.com which will be looking at the creation of value. Progress is not going to come from more and more technology, but from the way technology is used to deliver value. It has become a matter of designing value first and then finding the technology to deliver that value.
I see the roles of value design and value finding as key ones in the creative process. In my experience, the creators of ideas are not always the best people to see the full value of the idea. The creator has a design purpose, which may be to solve a problem or to carry out a task. Because attention is too tightly focused on this design purpose it can be difficult to see other values, which may be even more important.
I have often said that one of the new professions needed in society is that of "value designer". Architects are "space designers", so there is nothing bizarre about value design. The difficulty is to see how such designers would get paid. They would not want to set up a business to make commercial sense of every value design they originated. Such matters will be discussed on my website.
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