An ingenious offer to my readers

April 5, 2011 by
Filed under: The RSA 

I have a splendid new RSA publication in my desk. It is called ‘How to be Ingenious’ and behind it there is a story.

The pamphlet’s author, Jamie Young, and the director of his team, Julian Thompson, came to see me about a year ago saying they wanted to explore the idea of ingenuity. Trying – as is my wont – to combine encouragement with challenge I said it was a great idea but they would find it very difficult to distinguish ingenuity from other (over-used) concepts such as creativity or innovation.

Since then we have been round the block at least five times. Jamie has written drafts.  I have said ‘I like it but I’m still not convinced’.  Jamie and Julian organised a seminar with some of the world’s leading exponents of the specificity of ingenuity as a concept. I enjoyed the seminar and liked the speakers but, still, I wasn’t sure. I’ve tried the idea on other people to discover whether it has an intuitive appeal. Yes, it does, but not quite a light bulb moment.

Then a few weeks ago a new draft appeared and this time I was hooked. I think maybe it’s the brilliant idea of looking at ingenuity through the lens of three very different examples; an engineer, a survivalist and an improvisational comedian. I now subscribe with (almost) total confidence to the idea of ingenuity being a distinct, powerful and timely concept.

The pamphlet says ingenuity has three distinct characteristics:

• It uses the resources at hand
• It involves surprising combinations
• It solves a pre-existing practical problem.

The example given by a speaker in the ingenuity seminar was the way his dad rigged up a pulley system so that as a child he and his sister could sit in the back of their Vauxhall Viva ‘rowing’ the windscreen wipers after they broke down on a drive to London during a rain storm.

Not only are ingenuous solutions clever but by being frugal they are particularly suited to challenges such as austerity and sustainability. But most of all they have a power to fascinate and delight us which goes way beyond the latest new gizmo from Apple or product from Tesco.

Another famous example is the way Ed Smylie and his team improvised to create a new air filter system to get the crew of the crippled Apollo 13 safely back to earth.

There is nothing as evangelical as a cynic converted. I have a limited number of really rather beautiful pamphlets available (they aren’t even released to the world until Monday). I will send a copy (signed by the author, and even me if you insist) to anyone who promises to tweet or blog about it (nicely of course).

And when you’ve finished reading it and sharing it with your friends I will, of course, expect you to find an ingenious use for the pamphlet and tell me about that too.

(PS: Barbara, here.  On behalf of Matthew, thanks for your responses and interest – if you would like a copy, and prefer not to be put your address out into the public domain, you can email me on barbara.corbett@rsa.org.uk.  Thanks)

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27 Comments on An ingenious offer to my readers

  1. loulouk on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 3:50 pm

    2. I’ll write about it but not the pamphlet though of course that would be wonderful but what you’re talking about is what my boyfriend is and that’s very different from being an innovator. I agree so much with the concept that being able to ‘jury rig’ something is a separate skill set to the ability to tilt ones head and see through someone elses eyes.

  2. Nick D on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 3:55 pm

    3. Hello Matthew

    I will blog about.

    This reminds me a bit of a story about someone who worked for Henry Kissinger. When he started this guy wrote a policy paper for Kissinger and handed it to him. The next day Henry said “Is that your best effort?”. The policy wonk took the paper away and re-wrote it, then gave it to Kissinger again. The next day Henry said “Is that your best effort?” Exasperated the guy spent the whole of the weekend redoing the paper before handing it to Henry on Monday. The next day Henry said “Is that your best effort?” The policy wonk let out an angry/painful “Yes”. As he waited to be sacked Kissinger said, “Great, I will read it then.”

    Ps, I’m not recommending this as a new management technique.

    Nick

  3. Alex C on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 3:56 pm

    4. Sounds great! I will gladly blog and tweet about it. Email me ac at alexcaps dot com.

  4. Noel Kelly on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 3:59 pm

    5. Hi Matthew,

    I would very much like to receive a copy. VAI is active in looking at parallel forms of thinking, and this area of ingenuity is one that we would appear to find comfortable. But, in that idea of comfort there is always that opposite feeling that perhaps we are mistaking in for complacency. As a quid pro quo… once I have read it I will pass it to our publications manager to see if it is suitable for a review in our Visual Artists News Sheet, or/and our website (which is linked to our twitter and facebook profiles) and who knows… it may even find its way into us asking Jamie and/or Julian to join us for a discussion group in Dublin. If you’re up for it then our postal address is

    Visual Artists Ireland
    37 North Great Georges Street
    Dublin 1
    Ireland

    Many thanks

    Noel Kelly FRSA

  5. Roman Rackwitz on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 4:00 pm

    6. Hi, I would love to get one copy and of course I’ll blog about it. Even more: I’ll tell the students at the International School of Management, Munich, Germany about it and perhaps I can get an extra class to tell about it.

    Would it be possible that you send me a copy, signed by the author and you, to Germany? Would be amazing.

    International School of Management
    Roman Rackwitz
    Karlstr. 35
    80333 München
    Germany

    Thanks a lot for all these other amazing content. I’m telling a lot of people here in Germany about The RSA. Thx.
    Roman

  6. Kyle Baker on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 4:01 pm

    7. Definitely in (and sign away!).

    Kyle Baker
    Institute for Excellence & Ethics
    PO Box 185
    LaFayette, NY
    13084

  7. SueP on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 4:08 pm

    8. I hereby promise to both tweet and blog about it (and possibly review it for the Action Learning Journal, for which I am Reviews Ed)…
    And I need it to help me save my farm… now there’s a story….

  8. Chris edwards on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 4:11 pm

    9. Happy to review, blog and tweet the pamphlet on ingenuity. Be interested to see if it lives up to the build up you have given it .
    Chris

  9. Victoria C on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 4:18 pm

    10. I tweeted this:
    Ingenuity-a solution when austerity demands much and delivers little-apply it and you have repurposing of limited resources with amusement.

  10. Carl Allen on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 5:53 pm

    11. I am game.

    Will compare with ideas of TRIZ and other problem solving.

  11. mike ashwell on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 7:16 pm

    12. The three rules of ingenuity rule!

  12. Noel on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 7:59 pm

    13. Love how @rsamatthew uses ingenous way of incentivising people to spread word on new fellow-powerd @thersaorg pamphlet http://bit.ly/fI9i8b (actually that’s what my tweet says).

    In all seriousness, this is one of the best examples of how St John Adam Street can support the Fellows’ passions – being supportive, challenging and valuing contributions!

  13. Boubacar Dembele on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 9:07 pm

    14. I would love a copy as well contact at readingschool dot info
    @Nick D – Great story, easy to guess the end but always a great reminder :-)

  14. Ben Bennetts on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 10:06 pm

    15. Matthew, I hope that the limited number of pamphlets in your possession is a very large one… Fantastic stuff.

  15. Mike Crowl on Tue, 5th Apr 2011 10:17 pm

    16. Will definitely blog about it….I’m not the most ingenious person on the planet – my wife is superior in this department to me by far – but occasionally I’ll come up with a solution to some difficulty that surprises even me.
    So I’d love a copy of the booklet.

  16. Peter Bretscher on Wed, 6th Apr 2011 9:34 am

    17. As an engineer I’d very much like to know what’s ingenuity in the view of Jamie Young. The three characteristics sound good and helpful to get beyond the naive rationalism of the top-down thinking in traditional organizations.
    My interest is to overcome the obstacles that hinder clever solutions to grow and “take off” in economic systems.
    I’d love to receive an early copy of the publication.

  17. phil korbel on Wed, 6th Apr 2011 2:10 pm

    18. Ties in nicely to ideas around local resilience/sustainability in times of ‘austerity’ – It’s also a nice word that people on the street can relate to…v keen to read and plug…

  18. Hilary Sutcliffe on Wed, 6th Apr 2011 3:14 pm

    19. I would be interested in the pamphlet. I would certainly tweet it, but would like to incorporate the thinking into our work on new and emerging technologies, innovation and social benefit. Not sure where or if it will fit in yet, but i like the idea of ingenuity as a more cost effective creative way of doing thing for social benefit rather than just chucking money at stuff and whinging when it doesn’t come.

    It fits with the thinking of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship I attended last week with fantastic ingenuous solutions to serious problems from some of the world’s social entrepreneurs.

    Ideally actually a pdf is best for me, so don’t send me the pamphlet and do send me a pdf I can send to people!

    hilary@matterforall.org is the email address!

    Good idea. PS love the Henry Kissinger analogy, I am just reading a paper by a colleague and will bear that in mind in spirit!

  19. Charles van der Haegen on Wed, 6th Apr 2011 3:38 pm

    20. I am following you since some time now, and have full confidence, reading you explaining the origin of this pamphlet, that it will cover the subject in a very “original” manner.
    So please sned it to me, I’ll blog and tweet it through my network, well beyond Britain.

    Charles (Address follows through Barbara)

  20. Livy on Wed, 6th Apr 2011 9:15 pm

    21. I used to smuggle booze in an emptied out bottle of Listerine mouthwash. I’d just fill it with vodka and green food dye. Does that count?

    Otherwise I can’t help. Besides, I don’t do the whole social media thing. I’m just too ancient to get it. I just got myself a twatter account which I don’t know how to use. I follow 25 people – and they’re the only ones I want to follow.

    Would help if I could MT.

    Livy

  21. Ahmed on Thu, 7th Apr 2011 10:54 am

    22. Something troubled me after my attempts to use twitter to get a greasy paw on a limited edition (until they are released) pamphlet on ingenuity (apologies to @startupbritain, although they did help spread the message and it will have been of benefit to some starting up).

    Can ingenious ideas be used to generate ill gotten gains? Cuts by the back door, perhaps?

    Grant Shapps has announced a ‘tenant cashback’ scheme to encourage people to look after their socially rented own homes. It sounds great to be getting some cash to do DIY on your house or flat. You can even pocket the difference on any savings you make.

    But the emphasis is to save on admin costs on providing a general maintenance service. This ingenious idea could be seen as a way to make cuts by the back door. Someone, somewhere will be losing a job or two from this new initiative (which I am broadly in favour of because it give people more control over their lives).

    Should the ingenious prize be going to the Cabinet for finding new ways to make cuts that people cheer or sound plausibly good for the majority?

  22. Stephen Brunt on Sat, 9th Apr 2011 10:15 am

    23. I’d be really grateful to receive a copy. I love the idea of an art of ingenuity. I think it’s generally acknowledged that there’s nothing like hard times to bring out the ingenuity in people, so I suppose that’s one thing the voluntary and social sectors can take from our time.

    I’m not sure much the same requirements and definitions aren’t made of creativity, though, so I look forward to seeing how the pamphlet satisfied your own doubts on that score. Sounds like a good read. Thanks as ever for your highly engaging and thought-provoking posts.

  23. Chris Smith on Tue, 19th Apr 2011 10:57 am

    24. Might I suggest that the RSA consider the humble allotment as rich vein of research in this area? A while back I had an allotment set next to a lovely park in Dulwich. It was one of the things that kept me sane in London. I used to write from there, work from there, we even drank a bottle of champagne on my wedding day down there. Don’t ask. One of the aspects I found most pleasurable was the communal culture of the place and the pride that everyone found in developing ingenious and often very weird uses for things that would have otherwise been chucked. The allotment was crammed with Heath-Robinson type devices and to my mind, rather ingenious solutions to problems. Old guttering used for growing peas, fizzy drinks bottles used as mini greenhouses, old carpet to kill weeds, old CDs and drinks cans strung up to deter birds. Slug killing provoked the most vibrant debate and a plethora of solutions – coffee grains, crushed eggshells, beer wells, upturned oranges – all of which do or don’t work to varying degrees. It wasn’t that allotment owners couldn’t afford to buy the latest gardening gadgets, rather, that they enjoyed the challenge of reusing other people’s rubbish to create something new. Whilst some of these solutions were more elegant than others, I found it oddly satisfying and engaging to be around.

  24. Tom Brookes on Sun, 24th Apr 2011 1:33 pm

    25. The ingenuity pamphlet made for thought-provoking reading. Thank you.

    I’ll post a summary on my website shortly & get it ‘tweeted’, though my website & twitter feed aren’t hugely popular this is a message worth spreading…

    The key points I took from the pamphlet were:

    1. We’re generally capable of being much more ingenious than we think we are (the hammer doorstop picture made me smile at the miniature globe & small bronze cobra wedging my doors open, though I don’t think I’m particularly ingenious!)

    2. The best approach to finding an ingenious solution to a problem is to step outside the normal parameters of the problem – I suppose people call this lateral thinking, but in day to day life I don’t think we use it enough – we’re often too slavishly devoted to processes and traditional ways of doing things, which often don’t stand up to examination as to how they might be made better. The known ‘right’ way to do something and the ‘best’ way are not always the same – case in point a TED talk I watched recently on changing burn victim’s bandages; the accepted ‘right’ way is to remove the bandages quickly, short sharp pain, like when you pull off a plaster stuck to your arm hair; makes sense, right? Wrong. Slowly and gently works best for the burn patients, with breaks, starting where it’s most painful so it slowly diminishes. Ingenious, but changing the nurse’s minds was a challenge – great talk by the way: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
    3. The implications for government and policy making are far-ranging. So many areas of governance and policy, based on this principal, could stand for reevaluation. How often do you hear the phrase ‘that’s how it’s done’? There ought to be two automatic respondent question to this statement, if ingenuity is to be encouraged: ‘what’s it for’? & ‘how could it be done better?’.

  25. Tom Brookes on Sun, 24th Apr 2011 3:14 pm

    26. Hi again, in an effort to spread the word on ingenuity I’ve put together a summary of the ideas and concepts on my website:

    http://www.mypoliticsdegree.co.uk/Follow_My_Politics_Degree…/RSA.html

    Thoughts and comments appreciated! :)

  26. Clarissa Balan on Tue, 3rd May 2011 12:40 pm

    27. Thank you for embarking on the Ingenuity Project- a project which I think is very relevant- as well as the pamphlet, which I very much appreciated. I am now fulfilling my side of the bargain by offering two thoughts:

    The definition of ingenuity makes very clear the link between ingenuity, ecology and sustainability and that being the case, you have brought out an essential element of what it means to be ecological and this, I think is one of the most important insights I have gained from reading the pamphlet.

    The next point I’d like to suggest is that one’s ingenuity comes out in times of great challenge and great need. When I think of the word, I think of the poor communities in India, the Philippines and elsewhere where people survive, make do and sometimes even flourish with very little. As RSA goes deeper in its examination of the concept and how this idea could be translated into a value, a methodology, a policy, it might be worthwhile to investigate, document and analyze what is happening in many impoverished communities and discover how they are surviving through pure ingenuity.

    I hope this was helpful!

  27. Kevin J Ruth on Tue, 3rd May 2011 7:11 pm

    28. Received the pamphlet about one week ago in the post. In a word, brilliant.

    In particular, the From Theory to Practice section’s piece on Ingenious Education spoke to me. I work in the education field, in an independent school in the US, and this idea for a project form ingenious schools is something with which I’d like to be involved. I’d especially welcome connections within the RSA network (I’ve just applied for the Fellowship), to see whether we might embark on a small portfolio of projects that meet this “call.”

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