Breaking out the Led
Many people have heard that there is no such thing as originality when it comes to creative work. Most great musicians and authors have been cited as saying that their creative efforts are deeply “inspired” or appropriated from a collection of other people’s creative efforts. Look at music for example….pretty much all of Led Zeppelin’s most famous songs were “inspired” by lyrics and melodies written by other musicians.
Even Mr. Jobs himself did not create the “easy to use” computer interface….he was “inspired” by the interfaces that Xerox had created for most of its equipment. After being inspired by Xerox, Jobs went on to create….well, you know the story.
So how does this apply to innovation? Well, let’s look at Edison….firstly, because he was a master of innovation, and secondly, because I have a man-crush on him, but that’s a trivial detail.
Thomas Edison was not the first person to invent the light bulb, even though many people believe he was. What he did do, however, was find a way to commercialize the first filament-burning light bulb. He was, therefore, inspired by an existing innovation to create a new innovation.
So what does this all mean? It really means that everything is, well, just a Remix. In fact, even this blog post isn’t that original. It is just a summary of my thoughts combined with the thoughts of Kirby Ferguson.
For more information….watch the 3-part series, titled Everything is a Remix.
