The observer effect for creativity

I wrote about one of my favorite routines for having ideas that consists in relaxing, abandoning myself to pleasures such as eating chocolate, smoking a cigarette (for smokers, I am not anymore) or drinking a glass of wine once I am aware of the details of an issue. And that's preferably better doing it in a familiar and private space; the bathroom if you can't find any place to stay alone. That's my theory of "Bathroom Thinking."

It's quite acceptable that to solve a problem or to get inspired for something, the mind needs to take a rest and get away from the very issue. James Webb Young wrote about it already in 1939:

Drop the whole subject and forget about it. Turn the whole problem to the unconscious mind and to what stimulate your emotions.

Out of nowhere the idea will appear. It will come to you when you are least expecting it - while shaving, or bathing or most often when are half awake, in the morning. It may wake you in the middle of the night.

So if you don't feel you are doing enough to solve your problem, if you believe that empty-mindedness will delay your creative process, then you are wrong. Actually you are on the right path. 

Salvador Dalí had his own technique described in "Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship" to generate ideas (and you won't say he was a conventional artist). According to him one should sleep comfortably sitting in an armchair and holding a heavy key between the fingers. When sleep come, consciousness is released and it's when mind starts creating, mixing and transforming. In that very moment the hand would release the key that falling into a plate would wake one up, thus enabling the subject to remember those inspiring ideas. This is what he called "Slumber with a key".

So once again: to produce ideas by looking constantly at the problem is not the most effective procedure to describe the situation and to have good inspiration. This is somehow what the "Observer Effect" states. As an example of it, to measure the temperature of a liquid by introducing a thermometer into it, liquid's temperature will change due to thermometer's mass. Or a psychologist trying to study a patient, will affect the result because of his social interaction. 

These are just examples to show that it's impossible to know the nature of a phenomenon with precision by looking at it. 

I think that looking constantly at a problem alters the perception of it, inhibits ideas generation and makes difficult for creative solutions to come out. Ideas will not appear naturally unless attention is driven away from the issue. Talking about measuring temperature, if we pretend not to measure it, it won't come to us. But with creative ideas we are luckier. Ideas use to pop spontaneously in our mind, we all have experimented our "Eureka" moment. Wouldn't you call this inefficiency at problem solving caused by obsessive trouble-shooting the "observer effect for creativity"?

Basics for problem solving. Look in front of your nose

I bought a second-hand Vespa in September 2008: summer was over, temperatures were gently dropping and hot nights were just a memory. I spent the whole autumn, winter and spring driving to and fro through Madrid. When summer was back again and I was going back from work one hot day in June, after around 7 Km and almost at home, the engine switched off while I was in the middle of the street. I got scared, I pushed the Vespa to the pavement and tried everything to kick start the engine. I had no success, then I put the helmet off and started reviewing the basics.

I know almost nothing of mechanics, but at least I know that the spark plug should receive electricity, you need gasoline, and besides gasoline, the oil tank must be full. My Vespa is vintage style, then it has a two-stroke engine. Maybe not everybody knows that two-stroke engine gets fuel from two deposits, one for gasoline and the other for oil. Maybe you have noticed those old motorcycles, mopeds or even one of the first scooters expel dense smog. Gasoline mixed to oil is the reason. That's obsolete and polluting technology, but things were this way.

I could not manage to find out where the problem was but after some minutes, ready to push the vehicle back home, I tried one last attempt to start the engine and by surprise that worked! I put the helmet on and quickly drove back home. Then, the same story every single day. Almost at home, at the damned Km 7, the engine switched off, and you know the rest of the story: wait minutes and the engine could start again. I tried everything to fix the problem but without any good result. Mechanics had no idea and neither did I.

• I had some electronic components replaced
• I reviewed petrol tank cap had the typical hole to let air through it and avoid vacuum effect (you know, pens have that small hole for the same reason, to enable ink flow)
• I replaced the spark plug
• I cleaned the carburetor and its oil and air filters
• Meanwhile, I replaced the whole engine for other reasons

The damn Vespa got stuck at Km 7. And during four years, from June to September I was condemned to switch the engine off whenever possible, for instance when waiting at traffic lights. I knew it was something related to hot temperature, but nobody could imagine how, having replaced almost everything of the original Vespa.

This was the routine until few weeks ago. From one day to another, my beloved Vespa started behaving fine and even with torrid climate I could drive home without any further problem. What had happened? I tried thinking of what I could have done, but nothing unusual, except refilling gasoline tank and ..Eureka! I had replaced the usual brand of oil, one of the cheapest for an expensive one!

The oil I had used to refill my Vespa until that day was cheap and low quality and when the moment to refill the tank arrived, it was temporarily out of stock at the shop. Then I was obliged to go for the expensive brand. The solution in front of my nose during four long years, but nobody could have imagined that when in Madrid it is so hot, you need quality and performing oil to have your engine survive.
This experience suggests me to make sure of the following when troubleshooting a problem. 

1. Split the problem into components (plugs, filters, gasoline, light bulb, oil..)
2. Find out components you have been interacting with recently (oil, wrong oil was my mistake)
3. Play with the component (that is: clean it, replace it or whatever comes to your mind)

Before studying complex and expensive solutions to your problem, look in front of your nose. Habits hide things efficiently and insidiously.

How to fold a pocket-handkerchief

If you happen to be like me, a convinced necktie hater, you probably have thought of some alternatives to be elegant and feel free at the same time. I understand that traditions, rituals and ceremonies require some standards to be followed, and I am not against who wear that beautiful silk necktie. At least you can express your taste by choosing the color and the pattern for the best match. But I really cannot cope with that suffocating feeling of oppression around my neck.

If I am allowed to choose, I would choose a pocket-handkerchief. That's why I took some pictures to show you how to fold it the standard way. Enjoy it!

Quality versus quantity, the eternal struggle

Few days ago at work I attended to an employee meeting. This kind of meeting is useful to communicate to the whole department last news on everything concerning our little world, such as new contracts, new employees, organizational changes and so on.

Besides this typical agenda, we were presented the results elaborated by some external auditors on our way of working, the state of our product, our organization and all kind of stuff meant to help us improve continuously. There were just some slides highlighting action points for us to improve our competitiveness.

Some of those results were known to many people in the department, some others suggested to improve certain inefficiencies among project management and between departments as well. I agreed on some of the points showed by that auditing. But I could not avoid hiding my disappointment when I read that after all, the product we are working on "was not that complex, being its size not so big". As this is the case of a software application, it traduces into few lines of software code. I guess the "not so big" factor must be quantified against the number of problems the software has, or the time spent on maintenance, or maybe the time to market to have new features integrated. I don't know what parameters were taken into account to assert this blasphemy.

This is just a camera

I think this judgement is quite unfair. Now it seems to me so naive to judge a product by a numeric quantifier establishing the size according to certain attributes. When talking of intellectual creations (every human creation, possibly), only dumb minds can see the final result and judge. What about creativity? And what about decision making behind it? Research and development? Architectural deployment, innovation and other invisible but not yet irrelevant processes?

E=mc2

Short formula, simple concept, but a whole world of competence and efforts hidden behind.
My dear auditors, go have a coffe next time.

Employee's power. How to obtain a salary raise

This story was told me some years ago by my cousin. He works in Milan for a company producing aluminium and surrogates. The thing is that they use a complex distributed software application to administrate productions, stock, sales and so on. They also have advanced management software that control the very production process, that is: fusion of metals, compounds purification, filtering and other technical operations on aluminium.

The fact is that everything is controlled and managed by machines. Without software management, strict synchronization between processes would not be possible, and as everyone knows, machines fail. The story is about this huge software and his main responsible, The Engineer.

The story tells that once upon a time this big piece of software broke down and left the whole company with no service at all during some hours. That meant: stop the production, switch machines off for safety reasons and try to fix the whole thing back as soon as possible. Kind of when telephonic network is out of order and you cannot even use your mobile phone, that same sense of anxiety.

So, everyone got at work rapidly to bring the machines back to life, The Engineer was there in the first line to understand what had happened and assistants there too. And when everything was back to the normal rhythm and probably a lot of money had been lost, the management called The Engineer and all his technicians to a meeting.

My cousin was there in the room, so he could tell me this funny story. The manager of the production department started screaming, red-faced and really altered after machines failure, and started accusing everyone. But above all, he reproached The Engineer for his lack of prevision of what had happened.

The Manager: "WE PAY YOU A LOT OF MONEY FOR WHAT? LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED. WE HAVE JUST LOST THOUSANDS OF EUROS FOR YOUR DISTRACTION. IN SUCH A COMPANY, THIS IS NOT TOLERABLE AND I CANNOT PASS OVER IT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING???"

The show went on some minutes, and The Engineer, facing the whole management staff on the other side of the desk, remained silent. He had spoken not a single word since the show had started. The management team was sitting and he was standing. My cousin reported it seemed like a jury deciding what would have been the future of The Engineer. And The Manager went on screaming at The Engineer in front of his team, and more people had got closer to watch the scene and to understand.

The Manager: "I DO NOT LIKE PEOPLE MAKING A FOOL OUT OF ME, THIS WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, I ASSURE YOU THIS WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN. AND ANSWER WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!"

The Engineer, who had remained silent the whole time, was standing firmly and waiting for his turn to speak. At last, he just opened his mouth and said.

The Engineer: "I quit"
The Manager: "WHAT???"
The Engineer: "You have heard it. I quit. Tell me where I have to sign. I'll quit right now, I'm leaving the company."

The Manager after some embarrassing seconds of silence, continued: "Wait a second you cannot quit"
The Engineer: "Yes, of course I can. I'll quit right now. I don't need to communicate you anything else"
The Manager, conscious of the vital importance of The Engineer and of the difficulty to substitute him with anybody else, slowed down: "Ok wait, let's stay calm and relaxed, let's see what can we do about it".

Maybe not everybody in that company knows the end of the story, but my cousin knows that not only his friend The Engineer remained in the company in the position of expert of the IT system, but moreover he received a considerable salary raise. And I'm sure that since that moment, people respect him a little bit more.
If you want to obtain a salary increase, firstly make sure your boss, your colleagues or whoever respect you and your job.