Conversations and creativity

I think I may have found a new role for myself as an “On-Line Vicarious Expediter and Responder”, an OLIVER – though I’m not sure I want to be a bit of software. The concept of the “Oliver” was developed by J.C.R.Licklider, who as well as being one of the early instigators of the internet, also “..foresaw knowbots and intelligent agents as he describe each network user having what he called an “Oliver.” The Oliver would be a set of programs that learns about its user, finds information on the networks for the user, and does various on-line chores.”
I came across this idea by accident in a vanity search – who would have thought there are so many Richard Olivers in the world – in a piece that had nothing to do with me or any other Richard Oliver. What made me read it was because I have long been interested Licklider, who is one of those people who have had an immense influence on our world, but is little known outside a small circle of people who are interested in such things.
The bit about “Olivers” amused me for obvious reasons. What I found still more interesting was an idea earlier in the essay where the author, Dr. Kenneth L. Hacker describes how Licklider, “… provided an early sociocognitive view of human communication which describes how each communicator in social interaction has mental models of conversation topics. Licklider noted that communication works best when the models become more similar. More importantly, he articulated a definition of communication as “cooperative modeling,” meaning that communication involves coordination and coactive building of a model that is shared and exists simultaneously with the individual communicators’ mental models.”

This reminded me of an entry I read in Douglas Rushkoff’s blog some time ago. In an entry for October, 15 2003 he describes giving five talks in the UK about his Demos book, Open Source Democracy. What struck him was that, “instead of engaging in conversation, most of these folks played high school debate. This sort of banter looks fun when it’s people playing “Parliament” on TV, but it’s not so very productive.”
This echoed my own feeling that the long tradition of debate, which is essentially adversarial, with winners and losers, is a very limited way of exploring new ideas and may even be a way of perpetuating out-of-date ones.
I guess the problem with debate is that as a form of “cooperative modelling” the room for change and learning is limited, by its adversarial nature. The idea is supposed to be that the best arguments win. But the for or against nature of debate limits room for exploration and the possibilities for reframing what is being discussed.
Hence Rushkoff’s sense of frustration. As he said, “The majority of government ministers with whom I spoke seemed bent on finding ways to prevent themselves from considering new ideas – as if even wrapping their minds around a new concept for a even a moment would wreck the sanctity of their current established methodology.” And that would seem to apply to his other audiences here too.
What I have found more encouraging is the way that the idea of conversation is taking hold. I wrote a bit about this in my entry “Purposive Drift” where I linked to an article by Steve Bowbrick where he talked about the way that many of the best blogs were conversational in tone. As he said, “Conversation is a softer, less hard-edged and “goal-oriented” form of interaction than most of the highly-functional encounters we have in daily life, especially at work, but it needn’t be wishy-washy. Theodore Zeldin, who’s written a book about conversation, says that conversation only works if you’re ready to be changed in the process, if you’re ready to ask and be asked hard questions.”
Gordon Pask, the cybernetician, who developed a whole theory of learning based on the idea of conversation, “.. warned about confusing mere “communication” (exchanging messages containing what is already known) with “conversation” (a generative activity that gives identity to participants and leads to what is new).”
Personally I think that we have to accept that the vast bulk of conversation is probably phatic – speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas – but none-the-less valueable for that. For even phatic conversation creates the framework and possibility for more creative interactions.
Max Perutz, the Nobel Prize winner, also achieved a high reputation as a manager of scientists (his lab produced a number of Nobel Prize winners). In an essay on how to manage and plan a research lab he included the advice, “Discussion thrives at mealtime. We have a roof canteen where people congregate for lunch and for coffee and tea breaks, and argue as long as they like. “
Now I suspect that many, if not the majority of the conversations in his canteen were phatic, but a vitally important minority were the ones that provide the spark for the big breakthroughs.
Perutz later quotes another Nobel Prize winner Sir Nevill Mott writing about Niels Bohr, ?We were in and out of each others? rooms all day, and so was Bohr. Nobody dreamt of keeping an idea to himself; our joy in life was to tell it to other people to get it criticized and if possible accepted. Bohr himself, if he had a new idea, would … tell it to the first person he could find… I learned [from Bohr] Bobri what physics was all about, that it was a social activity and that a teacher should be with his students.?
We are living in strange days where sometimes the old rules work and sometimes they don’t. If there was ever a time when creative thinking was an imperative, that time is now. But to repeat what Rushkoff said, “The majority of government ministers with whom I spoke seemed bent on finding ways to prevent themselves from considering new ideas – as if even wrapping their minds around a new concept for a even a moment would wreck the sanctity of their current established methodology.” And that reluctance to engage in conversation and to fall back on debate is all too common.
My friend, Alex McKie, wrote a paper for the Work Foundation, “Virtual value: Conversations, ideas and the creative economy”. In it, among other things, she proposed two simple things. First, if an organisation feels the need to be more creative they need to define what it is they want people to create? Ideas? Profit? Value? Relationships? And, second that a quick and simple way of doing this is through encouraging “creative conversations.”
As she goes on to say, What does ‘creative conversation’ mean? Simply that conversation is at the root of all ideas and creativity. This is where to start. Develop a culture and structure which supports people in listening and talking. See what happens when they felt able to create, express and share ideas. Give people time and space to talk with each other.”

This was what Perutz and Bohr seemed capable of doing. If this can help produce Nobel Prize winners, perhaps we should think about where else it can be applied.