Slate Magazine: In 2012, with every 20th-century mode of public expression writing its living will, you might not expect the dowdy Broadway musical to have much to teach us about creativity in a networked world. Social scientists Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro say differently, and their research—thanks to its featured billing in Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker essay on brainstorming and his best-selling book Imagine: How Creativity Works—has now been cited everywhere as a window into the mysterious world of collaboration.
Friday, March 23, 2012
How creativity works: What Broadway musicals really teach us about collaboration.
Slate Magazine: In 2012, with every 20th-century mode of public expression writing its living will, you might not expect the dowdy Broadway musical to have much to teach us about creativity in a networked world. Social scientists Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro say differently, and their research—thanks to its featured billing in Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker essay on brainstorming and his best-selling book Imagine: How Creativity Works—has now been cited everywhere as a window into the mysterious world of collaboration.
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I had never thought about this issue explicitly, but the things the article says about an optimal 'Q' seem to fit perfectly and perhaps explain why designers, actors, managers, and directors at CMU are able to work well together: we all know each other pretty well, but we haven't necessarily worked on a creative team with everybody else; the line up gets shuffled enough to keep combinations fresh, preventing people from making the same work time and time again.
As for the average number of degrees of separation, this article says that on facebook it's 5 degrees and implies that it's more in theatre; but, certainly in New York theatre, I can't imagine it's more than an average of 3 or 4 degrees.
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