斯坦福顶级创意课程揭秘

    只有三分之一的申请者最终能够如愿选修该课程，不过，有一本新书介绍了教室里发生的一切，以及它对现实世界中的企业有何启示。

    假设你身处于一屋子人当中，彼此之间此前都素昧平生，有人要求屋子里的人按照生日，即从1月1日到12月31日排成一队——过程中不许说话。怎么办？

    过去12年来，蒂娜•齐莉格教授一直在斯坦福大学（Stanford University）哈索•普拉特纳设计学院（Hasso Plattner Institute of Design，常被称为“D学院”）执教，开设一门关于创造与创新的课程，上述任务正是她给学生们出的难题之一。齐莉格还是斯坦福科技投资项目的执行总监。

    她在自己的新书《天才：创造力速成课程》（inGenius: A Crash Course in Creativity）中描述了学生们解决这一难题的常见做法——大多是靠某种临时想出来的手势语言，但很少能让大家按正确顺序排好队。

    其实有些解决方法高效得多，但是很少有人想起来去尝试一下，比如：每个人都把生日写在一张纸上（不说话并不意味着不能写字），然后按顺序排队；叫每个人都把自己的驾照拿出来，然后按上面印着的生日排队；或是在地板上画一条时间线，叫大家按顺序站上去。

    “不论听课者年龄多大，也不论他们的文化背景如何，这个简单测试的结果都非常容易预测……不幸的是，大多数人都满足于他们找到的第一种解决方案。”齐莉格写道，而它“往往会带来意料之中的平庸结果。”

    齐莉格指出，尽管如此，找出更好（乃至杰出）解决方案乃是人类与生俱来的本事。她说：“诺贝尔奖得主、神经生物学家埃里克•坎德尔说过，大脑是创意机器，天生为解决问题而存在。”她还补充说，书名中的“ingenious”一词源于拉丁语中的“ingenium”，意为天生的能力或固有的才能。

    那么，为什么众多企业觉得创新如此之难呢？很大程度上是因为：创造某种全新的东西意味着需要想出许许多多的点子，同时明知其中绝大多数都将归于失败。很少有企业作好了准备，可以容忍不可避免的失败，更不用说鼓励它们了。

    Facebook显然做到了。其顶级高管知道“平均说来，他们尝试的项目中有三分之一能成功，”齐莉格写道。“这意味着，要取得四次成功，他们就得做十二次实验。”Facebook每月举行一次长达12个小时的“黑客马拉松”（hack-a-thons），鼓励员工们花上一整晚进行关于新项目的头脑风暴，这带来了数以千计荒唐、不切实际、毫无商业价值的点子——但也不乏一些好创意，比如Facebook Chat聊天工具。

    《天才：创造力速成课程》对任何真正希望创造出良好的环境、适宜新点子成长的企业来说都是一份令人向往的蓝图，齐莉格的许多学生毫无疑问也深有体会。可惜，教室里最大的风险无非是成绩不佳，而绝大多数工作场所的情况并非如此，它们试验失败的风险实在太大了。

    译者:小宇

    Only about one in three applicants gets into the course, but a new book tells what goes on behind the classroom door, and how it applies to real-world companies.

    Let's say you're one of a roomful of people, none of whom have ever met each other before, and someone asks the group to line up according to birthdays, from January 1 to December 31 -- without talking. How would you manage that?

    This is one of the tasks professor Tina Seelig gives students in a course on creativity and innovation she has taught for the past 12 years at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (known as the "D-school") at Stanford University. Seelig is also executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.

    In her new book, inGenius: A Crash Course in Creativity, she describes how students usually approach the problem -- most often by using some kind of improvised sign language, which rarely gets people lined up in the right order.

    A few of the far more effective solutions that no one thinks to try: Writing everyone's birthday on a sheet of paper (no talking doesn't mean no writing) and organizing the line accordingly; or having everyone pull out their driver's licenses and then lining people up by the dates printed there; or drawing a timeline on the floor and having everybody stand on it.

    "The results of this simple exercise are surprisingly predictable across ages and cultures…. Unfortunately, most people are satisfied with the first solution they find," Selig writes, which "very often leads to predictable and mediocre results."

    That's in spite of the fact that, Seelig insists, the knack for finding better (even brilliant) solutions is hardwired in humans. "Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel says that the brain is a creativity machine, designed for problem-solving," she notes, adding that the word "ingenious" is derived from the Latin ingenium, which means natural ability or innate talent.

    So why do so many companies find innovation such a struggle? A big part of the answer is that trying to create something truly new means generating lots and lots of ideas, with the understanding that most of them are going to be flops. Few businesses are prepared to tolerate, much less encourage, the inevitable failures.

    Facebook is, apparently. Top management knows that "on average, about one-third of all projects they attempt will work out," Seelig writes. "That means that, in order to get four successes, they need to do a dozen experiments." Facebook's monthly 12-hour "hack-a-thons," where employees are encouraged to spend a night brainstorming new projects, have produced thousands of silly, impractical, unmarketable ideas -- but also some good ones, like Facebook Chat.

    inGenius is a fascinating blueprint for any company that's serious about creating an environment where new ideas can thrive, and many of Seelig's students doubtless go on to do precisely that. But in the vast majority of workplaces (unlike in, say, a classroom, where the biggest possible downside is a lousy grade), failed experiments are just too risky.