Overview

As you have seen from the initial blogs on Imagineering, it is a subject that is rather complicated.  It has very many parts.  Each part itself may not be terribly difficult, but the problem is there are so many of them.  That is what makes teams so valuable to Imagineering.  The literature on Innovation does not recognize this as well as it should.  That is because that literature concentrates on creativity and creativity does not require as much team-work as the other aspects of Imagineering, even though even creativity can benefit greatly from teamwork.

Significant Benefits of Teamwork to Creativity

It does not seem to require a very large team to come up with important ideas.  Quite often a team of two is sufficient for creation of the key idea or ideas that start an innovation.  But teams of two seem to be much more effective at this than individuals.  A large number of the famous companies in Silicon Valley were started by teams of two.  Somehow the interaction of two brains talking to each other produces more and better results than one brain talking to itself.  That is not surprising when you think about it.

Highly Significant Benefits of Teamwork to Completivity

Teams tend to be extremely important to completivity.  That is the case because when an idea is realized that usually involves many elements besides the element defined by the key idea.  All of these elements have to be made to work, and then made to work together.  Some of the elements may involve creativity and some may not but it can be very hard to create them all, put them together, and make them work, without a team.

Significant Benefits of Teamwork to STEM

The imagineer leading the innovation process may be quite expert in his or her particular area of STEM.  But the usual complexity of a complete innovation almost always extends beyond the capability of one individual.  It is always helpful, and often absolutely necessary to have some other STEM capabilities available.  If these capabilities can come from your team that will provide the most convenient help.

The Tangled Web of Imagineering

Overview

As you work your way toward being an Imagineer, it will be helpful to begin to understand how Imagineering works.  For obvious reasons Imagineering is somewhat more complicated and somewhat less predictable than standard engineering.  These characteristics show up quite well in what I call the Tangled Web of Imagineering.

How Does a New Idea Come Into Being?

One thing is for sure.  What goes on in the world of real invention is significantly different from the highly over-simplified “lightbulb” explanations that we often get in everyday discussions of the invention process.  Let’s take a look at the possibilities.  Click on the number boxes down below.

Consider the Implications of the Tangled Web – No. 5

That Tangled Web shows a lot about how Imagineering really works.  There are the people and ideas that have come before you.  The prior ideas and innovators always contribute a lot to the current innovation.  Then there are your current team members.  And there are almost always current competitors as well.  It is not unusual to have competitors within your team as well as outside.  You may converse with competitors.  You may try to steal ideas from competitors and they may try to steal ideas from you.

You are working on an innovation which almost always has many unknown factors.  That causes the connections and conversations to go in many different directions.  Some of persons involved in the interactions are not involved in the innovation process but are simply decision makers.  And some of the interactions may even be accidental.  All of this tends to produce a very tangled web of innovation, and the better you understand this web the more likely you are to be successful.

Overview

It is very easy to assume that Imagineers are born and not made.  But that is not actually true.  Imagineers are primarily made and only slightly born.  So becoming an Imagineer is not as hard as you might think, and is primarily up to you.

High Imagineering Not Based on High Intelligence Quotient

As you first think about it, it seems logical to assume that to be an outstanding Imagineer you would have to have a very high IQ.  However, this does not turn out to be the case.  Michael Michalko, a highly acclaimed creativity expert, has written an interesting set of notes on this subject titled How Geniuses Think.  In that story he notes that Marilyn vos Savant, with the world’s highest IQ of 228, has contributed very little to science or art, whereas Richard Feynman, considered to be the greatest scientist since Leonardo da Vinci, came up with an IQ of only 122.  Your IQ is not a very important number and in particular it has very little effect on your potential for high success in Imagineering.

Achievement of Imagineering is Primarily Made not Born

A large number of groups have studied the question of whether the top innovators tend to be born or made.  They all conclude that imagineering is primarily something that we develop rather than being born with.  The ratio of what we have to develop versus what we are born with is some-where between three-quarters and two-thirds.

The Elements in Imagineering are a Blessing, Not a Curse

There is a very large number of elements in what it takes to be an Imagineer, both in regard to creativity and in regard to completivity.  That might seem to make Imagineering very difficult.  However, realize that these elements are for the most part small and quite easy to learn.  To be a good Imagineer does take some work, but the steps are mostly small and not that difficult. Imagineering comes in small pieces.

You Have to Want to and You Have to Do It

Of course, all the above possibilities mean nothing unless you want to be a successful innovator and are prepared to put in some effort.  As Walt Disney often said: “Let’s stop talking about it and start doing it.”