Monday 29 June 2009

Walls creates speed and innovation.

Long time ago in a galaxy far away I wrote a small piece of boundaries, speed and innovation. Cannot find it now....But some of thinking was like:

Imagine a pinball machine. Imagine what would happen if you removed all the walls, small obstacles, rubber things, springs, targets. Just a steel ball slowly rolling down...*donk*. An easy game to play.

It is the obstacles and boundaries that makes the machine interesting. It is those obstacles and boundaries that creates the speed and excitement. *pling* *katchong* *swosch* *plang-pling*. It is the walls that creates the speed. It is the walls that forces the steel ball to take another route.

Without the boundaries and obstacles the game would turn into a slow, non-exciting game. No need to be alert. No need to actually do anything.

Same with innovation. We need boundaries and problems to innovate and keep us moving forward. Give us unlimited resources and the game gets uninteresting. Give us problems, limited resources and problems - and we will get speed, excitement AND innovation. We need the *pling* and *katshong* and all the walls!

The most exciting and rewarding pinball machine is the one with most problems, eh, walls and springs!

(Thanks, @catuslee, for reminder about the importance of "limited resources")

No comments:

Post a Comment