Those of us who are endowed with a creative streak and love to bring their ideas to life often have the “problem of an innovator”.
There is this feeling that you are standing at the origins of something great, beautiful, that no one has ever done before you! Before you - open spaces for creativity, where everything can be done the way you see it! Well, how, brothers! ..
Only there is a nuance ... Most likely, someone still did something similar. And perhaps more than once. And, perhaps, even successfully (we recall the recent history with a “
unique dissertation ” on procrastination, dear colleagues).
Then somehow I immediately wanted to find differences from others, to reveal the unique features of my idea,
UTP and so on. And for some reason it seems that even if such an idea had already occurred to someone (so be it, we admit), then he certainly approached it wrongly, did everything wrong or in general ... so-so intellectual -
“otherwise why I still have not heard about it? ".The answer to this question is as follows:
- some - and especially highly specialized - knowledge is known only in narrow circles;
- data that is difficult for a beginner, based on many years of experience, is sometimes completely impossible to package in such a way that it corresponds to the format of a science teacher that would be available to a wide audience (if anyone ever guessed to set such a goal).
That is why.
Although there are indeed cases when your thought is very different from the mainstream - for example, if the traditions of approach to your topic have developed in some specific way in your country due to cultural and historical reasons. But this is impossible to understand without becoming acquainted with what has been done.
So:
- When it comes to scientific concepts, a literature review is your main resource. Even if your mentors are not completely alive, they may still be useful. Especially well, if they lived at another time - you can understand how the concepts you are studying are subject to change. depending on different social, political and other conditions. The picture becomes much fuller than the look of one person from the present moment, right?
- If you want to create a new one as a practice, try to find people with experience either clearly in the issues you are working on, or from those areas that require expertise in yours.
“More specifically, what can it give? Why do you turn to others? ”As stated in my grandfather’s diary: “The source cannot surmise where the river will eventually flow” - “the source cannot guess in which direction the river will flow”. What does it mean:
- The one who has taken more steps in the direction you need can help you assess the balance between the problem being solved and your skill level. And already on the basis of this, you can decide for yourself what to do next - to pump the expertise, look for a team or in any other way approach the task.
- The history of another may give you a better understanding of the overall picture of the situation: maybe this problem does not need to be addressed purposefully at all, maybe the ability to solve it requires a certain set of circumstances, etc.
- Even if the experience of the comrades was negative, knowledge of it insures you against the “ mistake of the survivor ” (a beautiful story of wartime pilots, I strongly advise!): Sometimes information about failed attempts is more useful than success stories. If someone came to the end in his case, it sometimes means that the obstacles in his path were not so critical that everything turned to dust. But the reverse situation can just show what errors are fatal or which paths lead to a dead end.
And the most important thing for you, as a professional, is that such an approach will help you avoid falling victim to
the Dunning-Kruger effect , in which it is common for a person to make bad decisions and not be aware of his mistakes due to, in fact, low qualifications - that In addition, it is often accompanied by bloated conceit (this is well written in
this study by the authors who described this effect).
Yes, of course, it may turn out that you came up with something truly worthwhile in some area - otherwise there would be no scientists and inventors in the world! However, no genius exists in a vacuum, and both imagination and engineering need inspiration from outside. Therefore, turning to the experience of others, we multiply our knowledge and expand our view of the world so that our dreams do not remain just dreams.
And in fact, what is the “creation of a new one” will be discussed in future posts.
PS And here I called it the “innovator problem”, and perhaps there is a separate term for this. Therefore, if you know him - share your experience!