One Genius or Thirteen Smart Guys

I read a very interesting article by Russell Davies about Malcolm Gladwell's speech last year at the New Yorker conference, and as they summarises my own thoughts so well, I thought I’d share them.

Gladwell’s speech was about genius, and the types of genius we need to solve modern problems. He contrasts Michael Ventris; who deciphered Linear B, with Andrew Wiles; who proved Fermat's Last Theorem.

Ventris solved his problem through lots of thinking, a flash of genius, and was, to some extent, a gifted and enthusiastic amateur, or at least self-taught. He did it largely on his own and his solution was relatively short and simple. Gladwell describes him as a 'pre-modern genius'.

Wiles was more collaborative, his proof built on the thinking of many others. His success is more about tenacity and focus than about an inspired moment of genius. His proof was incredibly long, and was the success of 'thirteen smart guys' rather than one genius. Gladwell describes him as a ‘modern genius’.

And Gladwell stretches that to a fascinating suggestion; that the problems the world faces today are more likely to be responsive to 'thirteen smart guy' solutions than 'one real genius' solutions.

He suggests that the people we're taught to admire and emulate are the lone genius types, and talks about how we're not giving us ourselves enough smart people to meet the challenges of the future, and that we should stop thinking so much about 'the top of the curve', as the problems we face today are complicated and involved, and are likely to require long, detailed responses.

But what he's talking about also explains a lot of behaviour you in see in our world of the creative industries, because the elevation of the genius is certainly big in advertising.

Agencies are always looking for the genius Creative Director or Planning Director that will dramatically turn around their fortunes. No-one's going to issue a press release saying “Agency Hires Fifteen Quite Good People Who All Promise To Work Really Hard”, instead they want to announce “Agency Hires Creative Genius With Many Awards”, and actually, I suspect that if you're product is a 30 second ad, then the lone genius approach might be the way to go. An ad, in the old traditional sense, seems like a Linear B kind of problem.

But the kind of problems we increasingly face now; digital experience problems, experiential marketing, big, complex, thorny interactive issues, social network strategies, the stuff that businesses are increasingly spending their money on, seem more like Fermat-style problems.

These are 13 smart guy problems, and require different kinds of thinkers, more about analysis and tenacity than the flash of inspiration. And maybe that means that we need new structures in agencies, practises not copied from the traditional model, but new inventions.

If you’re interested in the idea, you can watch Gladwell’s speech here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/gladwell