Roy Sharples delivers a lecture on creativity to the Product Design Engineering (PDE community at The Glasgow School of Art about what creativity is, how to blend the art and science of the creative process by unleashing creative power that creates innovative businesses, products, services, and experiences. Why creative leaders are always outsiders, misfits, and mavericks who have extraordinary confidence, drive, and resilience to bring their ideas to life by seeing around the corners to fearlessly navigate the future.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Roy Sharples delivers a lecture on creativity to the Product Design Engineering (PDE community at The Glasgow School of Art about what creativity is, how to blend the art and science of the creative process by unleashing creative power that creates innovative businesses, products, services, and experiences. Why creative leaders are always outsiders, misfits, and mavericks who have extraordinary confidence, drive, and resilience to bring their ideas to life by seeing around the corners to fearlessly navigate the future.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you an industry expert? Looking for insights? are you growing your career? Or are you a dear friend, helping to spur your pylon, I created the unknown origins podcast, to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry personalities and experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. The Glasgow School of Art is one of the most prestigious and highest ranking art and design schools on the planet, offering undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees, and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and design. product design engineering brings together the studio and creative environment to design innovative products led by the department head, Craig witek. It is a collaborative program taught at the Glasgow School of Art on the University of Glasgow, to apply technology to improve the quality of life through design, engineering, and commerce, to make products that relate to human usage, behavior and appeal. Craig facilitates a lecture by myself to his department on CREATIVITY WITHOUT frontiers.
Craig Whittet:The plan is a presentation q&a, so we've got quite a healthy turnout. And as people may arrive, I'll do my best to let them in and not not instruct the floor. But I'm just going to hand over a Roy.
Roy Sharples:Thank you, Craig, and for the opportunity to share perspectives with you on the product design engineering faculty. I'm impressed by how you blend the art and science of divergent and convergent thinking, which is exceptionally challenging, yet and increasingly essential not to crack and a powerful capability and skill set. In an increasingly technology mediated world where critical thinking and authentic creativity are more crucial than ever. Your mantra brought the joy and creativity back into engineering really resonated, especially given how standardized and regulated the discipline and profession have become in recent generations. Creativity is the ability to make the invisible visible by taking what is not the create what is it manifests what's inside you and arrange you by transcending the obvious, ordinary and routine. It connects the past to the present. By putting things together in new ways. Creativity is the belief in yourself and your ideas, always moving forward and never giving up. True creatives are the outsiders looking in the rebels with a cause. To be one, you must be comfortable taking a stand against oppressive forces, and articulating your opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation. Creativity entails providing something new to the world, overturning the status quo by positively impacting people's lives and helping society advance by making life more purposeful, engaging and fulfilling. It also means embracing originality and making unique connections between disparate universes past and present, to light the way into the future. Andrew Carnegie, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Ilan Musk, Nikola Tesla, and the Wright brothers rose from obscurity to radically transform industry and how people lived often by accident, disruption can have a domino effect outside the intentional target an area of expertise. For example, Apple's iTunes, became a multimedia content and hardware synchronization management system and e commerce platform. It was originally envisioned as a music player. It ended up disrupting the music industry by providing consumers with the ability to legally buy only the songs they wanted to hear at a significantly lower cost than any other platforms. Another example is Coca Cola, which was first invented by pharmacist john Steve Pemberton to cure headaches before becoming a household name. And sometimes, the farther you are from a problem, the more likely you will be to find a solution because you can see the situation from a fresh perspective and often apply novel solutions to a disparate field. This transformation infuses imagination, taste style and haven't met messiness, with an inner desperation and persistence, along with the desire to succeed. Those results in having the skill and practical know how to be creative. You must swim courageously against the tide and search of the authentic and new while staving off false promises of easy gratification and immediate success in a world saturated with consumer led celebrity culture where everyone looks the same, and everything is for sale. This is the reality in which we live. And it is counterintuitive to nurturing creativity. However, Curiously, it is hardship, melancholy, and adversity that often inspire creativity. People who survive alienation or pression, poverty, and other life challenges realize that it feels a genius when they are able to truly focus. And this primal desire to survive the odds with extraordinary intellectual ability, mental toughness, grit, and creative productivity is what fuels an insatiable drive. For self actualization. This in turn inspires creativity. When you know how to channel your passion and energy into creativity and create meaningful outcomes. Your outputs will be the next generations inputs by lighting the way to the future and passing on the baton, leaving the world a better place. If you aspire to be as influential as the things that influenced you, not to imitate them, but to influence others in your own creative way, you can recreate the world, creative leaders have confidence and their ideas and never give up on bringing them to fruition. It means leading without frontiers. By seeing around the corners and fearlessly navigating into the future. Few movements survive long term without embracing both radical and incremental innovation. Every successful artist, entrepreneur and business needs to innovate continuously, or the risk being surpassed by competition. And the longer term radical innovation introduces a new business model and way of doing what it's invention. This models and surpasses an existing business model and the status quo that surrounds it. And the business continuum, it typically equates to higher risks, but in offer higher returns, it requires the ability to envision and treat failure as a step forward, not a step backward, or a reason to disengage. startups are typically biased toward radical innovation by having significant Li fewer constraints than larger organizations. They can afford to take greater risks, focus on the bigger picture, have more inspirational objectives, and be willing to experiment, reimagine, and design for the new with fewer inhibitors. Apple experimented with the music application iTunes, it realized there was no quality mp3 player on the market, so it created its own the iPod eventually at the materialized its own technology by pivoting into another adjacent market smartphones with the iPhone. This led to Apple revolutionising both the music and telecommunications industries, ultimately, leading to reinventing itself from being a personal computing company, to an all encompassing consumer electronics, computer software and online services global leader. incremental innovation is small improvements made to an existing business model, product, service or experience to achieve a desired business goal and differentiate from the competition. By building on current value propositions and offerings to an existing unknown market. Mature businesses tend to be biased toward innovating incrementally to maintain their existing customers needs and grow their customer base, and our risk mitigated and tangible way typically characterized by narrower objectives, and quantitative goals. They also take advantage of market research, focus groups, and prototyping. These large organizations focused on continuous improvement. They work toward defined milestones and rely upon internal resources and sources of information to fill knowledge gaps. Companies like Disney and Coca Cola have mastered the art and science of of relevance and customer retention by incrementally innovating extensions to their product offerings through product enhancements, acquisition and experiential branding. This has enabled them to stay relevant to tap into emerging trends and continually bring something new to customers while remaining market leaders. We all exist in time. Which is a progression from the past into the future, moving in one direction. Design influences society by communicating through visual word and Sonic, changing opinions, instilling values, and translating experiences to people across space and time. It is an expression of the soul that experiences ideas and provides us with purpose and meaning. Design is a vehicle for time and social change that interconnects society, entertainment, politics, fashion and technology, which translates into popular culture, practices, beliefs and rituals prevalent in society at any given point in time. Popular cultural reflects Time, time is the traveler, and so look back in the last seven years as an example as a snapshot. out of time. The 1950s comics captured the imagination, rock and roll encouraged rebellion, television sharpened the mind, the 1960s bell bottoms, long hair, love experimentation with psychedelic experiences on our key and revolution were memorable trends and occurrences the 1970s the rapid pace of societal change, a gala terian society diversity, broad ranging styles and tastes, the 1980s self centered, materialistic, androgynous and money making a decade that witnessed the rise of consumer goods, the 1990s, multiculturalism, alternative media, grunge rave, hip hop, cable television and the internet marked this decade, the 2000s growth of the internet excessive access to information mass globalization, the expansion of the service industry and the rise of online platforms. And 2010 through to present day is become the blurring of virtual and physical life where the edges are no longer the boundaries, and intelligent machines are emerging. metropolises inspire creativity as a space for social integration, dreaming, making and doing where citizens can realize the full potential to live more enriched, fulfilled and happy lives. Combined with the chemistry of individual human ingenuity. Creative breakthroughs are a human process that happens when a diverse community of like minded purpose LED and mission driven, creative people come together. societies are a catalyst for creating influential art and socio cultural movements. And this can be seen from the ancient Egyptian Memphis, classical Athens and renascence, Florence to the French Revolution, and romanticism and Paris, to post war New York and London. Historically, industrial cities like Detroit, Glasgow and Manchester have an ingrained maker and Dewar ethos. And port towns such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, and Liverpool have a constant exchange, diversity of people and international trade to the modern day digital revolution was born in Silicon Valley, within the San Francisco Bay Area of California, with its burgeoning startup and global technology innovation scene, and its culture of openness and free exchange of ideas. Creativity is a way of life, creative hubs, and the experiences gleaned through entrepreneurship, and innovation, improve people's lives, making society more productive, and improving the places where we live, work and play. Setting the right conditions for the urban revolution is essential for a better life and society. Architecture and Design influence how people feel and connect them emotionally that triggers the imagination. They speak a global language that everyone can understand, regardless of their native language and cultural identity. That can affect how art is made and experienced. And the act as a catalyst for social integration and collaboration, empowering people with a sense of escapism, freedom, and hope to become self actualized and live a fulfilled life. Time place occasion. Time plays occasion. music venues, like the current club in Liverpool became an epicenter for mercy beat, and the 1960s the troubadour in Los Angeles for folk music in the 1960s and 1970s cbgbs in New York City and the 100 Club in London for punk in the 1970s the Wigan casino for Northern soul in the 1970s in Manchester, the Hacienda nightclub For us at house rave music, and then the Mad Chester scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The point being, these venues became synonymous with the music they hosted a sanctuary where music, fashion and culture came together where like minded people could self identify and feel liberated. cultures are defined by the people who live and function within them. And the same demographic, two cultures created simultaneously pursuing the same ideals will still become two very different entities. Why? Because people are different. When people come together in the service of something greater, they retain their own unique personalities, passions, hopes and dreams. They share the shared experiences and constant interactions between people make up a culture. Culture is the engine that drives our momentum. It is the sum of what you feel, believe and do that shapes and defines your works, input and output. The principles for curating creative cultures are five things, leadership, do it yourself, craftsmanship, collaboration, and mentorship. So for leadership, leading by action define the future by breaking through the status quo. That's leadership. Leaders create clarity by synthesizing complex concepts that generate energy by inspiring optimism and creativity and growth, and they deliver success by driving innovation and tenaciously pursuing the right outcomes. Do it yourself. This means rejecting conventions and originating new ideals. Do it yourself refers to the rebellious impetuosity of nonconformity with direct action and not selling out, doing it in your own style on pace, embrace challenge, accept failure, persist in the face of setbacks, and learn by doing as the path to mastery, craftsmanship, being passionately dedicated to your craft, folks wonder and discovery, and remaining honest and trustworthy and responsible by taking pride in everything you do, helps you achieve the highest quality craft and professional excellence levels. collaboration. It is important to collaborate when exploring new ideas, finding innovative solutions, and not being afraid to learn. Collaboration is the cross pollination and sharing of knowledge across multiple domains by combining individuals intellectual capital, and know how. And finally, mentorship, stand on the shoulders of giants. by seeking counsel from people you trust, respect and admire. Find positive role models, who can share their their skills, insights and an expertise to help nurture your ideals. understand and respect history and infused best practices and to find in the future to truly innovate, and not reinvent the wheel. Magic takes planning. The creative process is about making new connections between past and present and infusing economic, political, social, cultural, and technological perspectives in parallel, to produce new business models, products, services, or experiences. The steps in the process involve discovering and developing insights, applying divergent thinking to analyze a problem generating and evaluating ideas that can become concepts, experimenting, prototyping, constructing, and making a plan of action, and then bringing it to form to life. How do we find creativity? Do we simply dream up ideas from within ourselves, what we manifest from what we observe, and the world we live in? Or do ideas just fall from the sky, and we grow and gravitate towards us. My approach blends the science and art of the creative process. And the three steps dream, make, undo. That's dream, make, undo. The process is iterative and constant and customizable, by craft, situation, and opportunity. So in dream, which is the first part of the process, it's about applying divergent thinking, to dream without frontiers, to find the breakthrough ideas by envisioning the desired outcome. Phase Two is make so here we are adopting a do it yourself sensibility and using convergent thinking through review and select the best ideas and then rapidly prototype and construct the plan to bring them to life. And then The final stage of the creative process is do review the solution to identified problem improvements, make eliminations fine tune, remove obstacles, mitigate risks, and bring it to life with the audience and markets whether the solution is a new business, a brand campaign, a physical product and industrial design, a song, film story or painting. I have also established a creative excellence model that details the collection of skills and competencies. These comprise five principles that define what creative leaders must know and practice and that holistically address leadership at the individual team and organizational levels. imagination, create design and make new things by seeing the unseen and navigating the journey to get there by evoking magic and delight and turning imagination into art. So that's part one. That's Principle number one. Number two, is innovation. So revel in finding the future by tinkering with and experimenting with technologies and cross pollinating across multiple domains in the creative arts and beyond. The third part is aesthetics. Blend the art and science with excellence and craftsmanship by anticipating future trends inspired by culture, industry, and the statics connected to emotions and imagination. The fourth principle is entrepreneurship. fruitlessly lead toward invisible horizons to find the future by being adaptive, persistent and resilient. And finally, manifestation. Light the Way to the future by breaking through conventional values, tastes and perceptions by manifesting what is inside of you, but also around you in your everyday life. That are five learning stages of Creative Leadership, fledgling journeyman expert innovator, and artists that are also four distinct behaviors, knowledge and skill clusters, leadership, a statics and identity, industry and cultural insights and craftsmanship. These make use of three proficiencies. Discovery, invention, and innovation. And the five stages are fledgling acquiring knowledge and know how journeyman applying insight and contributing independently expert guiding through domain expertise, innovator innovating through breakthrough execution and finally, artists leading through artistry and personal mastery. Many influential artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers, actors, writers, poets, entrepreneurs, industrialists and technologists started as imitators of the crafts current greats. Still, once they found the voice and sound, they became unstoppable in their own right. They are innovators who broke the bonds of their era to create high art and their own original experience cultivated a movement for change. Take the Beatles, for example. They started off imitating American gospel rhythm and blues, rockabilly and avidly rock and roll as fledglings. Their music dealt with love songs and teen relationships, which was the standard face of the day. They became journeymen until they mastered their technical expertise as musicians and songwriting experts similarly to artists like Banksy, Dolly, Matisse, Michelangelo, Picasso, and Andy Warhol, who started off as imitators of the masters of that time, so that they could learn and develop their craft until they found their own style and voice. Then about halfway through their duration. They found their authentic voice and style and produced the lyrics and music about everyday life and observation in their lives in their native Liverpudlian accents. Ultimately, they became artists who revolutionized how music was made, and acted as a catalyst and soundtrack. for social justice movements. albums, such as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, provided one of the most important musical cornerstones of the no legendary Summer of Love. The Beatles have maintained a canonized status unprecedented for musicians to date. However, expertise is not enough to change the world in any field and discipline. Innovation and artistry require the ability to transcend time and create a culture and movement manifested through Your own unique identity, aesthetics and the world around you. So bringing all this together, the five to dues for you, as students, when you come to that point when you graduate, and you become an entrepreneur or an artist or designer, you work for a company, whatever it is you end up going to do. And here's the five good news. One, knowing that ridicule is nothing to be scared of. If your efforts are met with ridicule, all you have to do is find your inner conviction that you are doing the right thing, navigating toward and visible horizons by anticipating future trends inspired by culture and aesthetics to drive sustained discovery, invention, and invent and innovation. It's a sure sign that what you do is bold and innovative. If you're dancing to your own drumbeat, pay no mind to ridicule. Number two, never be another brick in the wall. Dream make Undo, be in the moment, push forward for the greater good with true grit. conformity never leads to progress. If you have something authentically different to offer, you'll excite and inspire and ultimately thrive by lighting the way into the future. Number three lead without frontiers. fearlessly lead by example, and win the cloud by navigating territory where no one else has ventured. Avoid the mainstream and work to develop a deeper relationship between yourself and your audience. Be authentic, live in the moment with conviction and confidence and always stay true to yourself. Number four, provoke actions that change minds. Reject conventions constantly analyze and question and challenge the status quo in your everyday life. provide an alternative and bring it to life. People who achieve greatness do not fit a formula or follow a structure they break the mold by following their own path. And finally, keep true to the dreams of your youth and create outside the boundaries. Pablo Picasso believed all children are artists, but the loser creativity when they grow up, grow into not out of creativity. Don't give up on the dreams of your childhood, and your approach to the world through a child's eyes. Learn innovate, and never waste a second on anything that seems to restrict you. Don't let the future leave you behind. Follow your heart and do what you love. by falling in love with your craft, pursue it with intensity and be exceptional artists. Everything you need is already inside of you. free yourself from others expectations and walk away from the games and boundaries they impose upon you Only you know your true worth realizing your full potential to live a fulfilled life means unlocking and applying your creative potential to do and excel at what you love. Remember, our outputs are the next generations inputs that comes with accountability and responsibility to pass the baton to the next generation by leaving the world in better shape than you found it. So make it count is all about attitude, imagination and execution. Thank you
Craig Whittet:Thanks Roy Roy there's so much they're really kind of struck a chord in terms of what we refer to studio and studio over the past let's say a year and a half has been challenged considerably because of living and breathing in a in a digital domain and looking at the timeline that you had and thinking about that that lack of boundaries or borders now between the physical and virtual. And what's happened over the past few weeks when we've returned to studio. I think for me personally it's really cemented the value that it brings and there's a thing that you spoke about in terms of creative society in terms of you know, a built up area city or large tie whoever it happens to be we've got diversity things happening etc and just walking around the studios in GRC over the past week or so has definitely kind of made me feel that I'm almost back at home you're seeing the students and using police as as it's designed to do and this is one of the one of the questions I was gonna ask Troy's you know, in the back of my mind I've been somewhat challenged by what the future of studio will and what will it become because there are certain people who will look at things and say well, students have done really well in other grades are fantastic. They've gone into amazing careers there. Don't need a studio, you know, they they're able to work home be able to work in their digs. They're able to work remotely, etc. And I think any of us would, we'd very much challenged that I was going to ask is that something that you've come across with the network and the community that you're part of where people are really looking to redefine which studios about
Roy Sharples:Yes, Craig, and situationally and symptomatically, those challenges, and that seems to be similar to what you've highlighted there. But I think it is about establishing the conditions that bring together creative people by nurturing a culture of creativity and a social system that allows people to do their best work, and to create without fear, which is embraced, encouraged, and partnered, and practice regardless, regardless of whether that's in a virtual or physical space, most likely, in a hybrid setting as as, as things are starting to evolve much more toward, and the pandemic has helped accelerate that change and kiss goodbye to many of the bad habits that we've accumulated as people, organizations and teams, which ultimately became inhibitors for progress. And, and so now I think what the pandemic has done is, is really helped us show that this can be done without excuse, especially, and clinging on to the bygones of pre previous CDs. I mean, for example, within business, many organizations, were still glued to the past managing in classic functional and operational ways to that was designed for a mass produced manufactured, one size fits all, industrial revolution. organizational systems are designed for command and control really, and mass production, rather than what the modern world the modern way of working the the modern way of living, and studying and so forth. So I think what this has done is it's been a catalyst to help accelerate to burst through those inhibitors. And within the digital revolution, you know, what we've what we've learned is organizations need to be this need to be designed based on agility, speed, and ability to adapt to change. And as a result of that, it's really driven new ways of work and new ways of learning and education. But I think what's happened as well as people feel truly much more empowered to choose their work life location, and balance the patterns that suit their lifestyle, and preferences and feel empowered to optimize the effectiveness and ability to do their work. And the fundamental role of management is to remove the barriers to make the work happen by creating an environment that inspires people to do their best work, whether that's physically or remotely. And suddenly, within the industry, I function within the creative industry. What I'm seeing there is an increasingly all encompassing gig economy, where people have multiple gigs simultaneously, either in a part time or full time capacity with a single company or a variety of employers, and they need that flexibility to be able to empower themselves and work from anywhere. There's practical, compelling visions draw people in and high performing teams are self governing. The performance emerges from the experts joint actions within the project or the engagement, they share a vision and commitment to the mission at hand. And similarly, the most innovative teams mobilize themselves in response to unexpected changes. They don't need a leader to tell them what to do. People who have the expertise and passion can step up at the right time within the creative process to lead and drive their respective input and add value to the team on whatever solution is that they're creating. So the key is creating the right creative atmosphere that provides autonomy in space. And it needs to be liberal, inclusive, and meritocratic, yet is entirely focused on motivating, and expediting the joint mission. It starts with a big idea and a shared vision. And then the team works through the details to develop the big picture. In a way it's like the the ACS, or the navy seals. And sports teams like the New Zealand All Blacks, Manchester United and Liverpool in their their heyday, when other full pelt, they created a self sustaining winning mindset and value system through professional excellence and building skilled teams that prove better than their individual parts to achieve peak performance by providing the autonomy and flexibility for people to perform. So what those teams the common thread that goes through those teams was fostering a creative culture by having a strong sense of acceptance, belonging and connection to a greater purpose and hole where each member feel valued and empowered to create the best work within that culture, whether it's physical and or remote, most likely a hybrid in terms of in a world where the world has evolved to and when it's heading in the foreseeable future. How about yourself, Craig, are you seeing similar patterns in marriage, within your area,
Craig Whittet:the notion of elicited discipline of times and our timetables was certain, certainly something that was very prominent from my own personal experience during markdown, where there was very little time in place than the daily schedule to actually sit back and reflect, take a deep breath, you know, we'll try things. Because it seemed that every, every waking moment of the day was a zoom, or was a follow up to a zoom from the previous day, etc, creators, Ice Age being back in the building. The thing, which, for me, and I'm sure the students will appreciate this, maybe they don't appreciate it, but our studios are on the top floor, or workshops in the basement. So there's a journey. And a lot of people have mourned over the years saying, I wish the workshops and next to the studio and vice versa, you know, I, I would, I would agree, you know, it'd be fantastic if we had no physical barrier between the two. But equally having that, that space, gives you a chance to escape from one area, and then trans transition to another. And there's, there's a process in there. And to some extent, I think, with the university being on a different campus, that our school, there's a process there where people are switching off from one side and switching on to another. And I think that's something that that's, that's missed, because every waking minute, you can be working on something opposed to just moving towards something or moving from something. Yeah, so there's I think it's one of the benefits of PDU. But the two cultures of education in terms of the university in the School of Art, and the the fact that we can move between the both in a physical and virtual sense is actually quite, quite positive. I've just I'm going to check the chart. I think there's a maybe a question come in Bailey, who's a year three student has asked, you mentioned earlier about the differences in the boundaries of large organizations and startups? Do you think that a single person can have a big impact with a large organized organization has the word within a startup,
Roy Sharples:People organized in teams and corporate structures are rational. There are self contained economic engines applying their brand of rationality to situations, what isn't it for me, because people by nature tend to make decisions based on the benefit. to them. Creativity is the most distinguishable quality for every leader in every domain. And when I say leader, I don't mean someone that's at top of an organization. I mean, leadership exists at every level of a corporation. Creative leaders display distinctly different behaviors, values and characteristics from traditional management, and they get exponential results. They inspire creativity in others, and they build productive teams and they drive successful businesses. Yet while many organizations claim that the value of Creative Leadership, most of them play lip service, to the idea to rev up the past by promoting people who do not espouse Creative Leadership, and instead are perceived as safer, risk averse, and more likely to maintain the status quo, which is diametrically opposed to the necessary leadership needed to move the world forward. So take my response from that gorgeous startup, if you really want to maximize your impact and truly achieve greatness was working in a large organization that typically requires a different set of skills and techniques in order to really bring ideas to life, what it will involve a lot more stakeholder management, and political acumen, to bring people along on the journey. And that can be extremely stifling.
Bailey Tuddenham:What advice would you give to anyone that is interested in working in the US and the difference between working in the US and the UK, one of
Roy Sharples:the easiest ways would obviously be to join an American company or a British or European company that have a presence in the US and forge your way through through that route as one option, the cliche of Americans living to work depending on what you do, the industry you work and the geography you decide, you're likely perceive that to be the case, at least at face value level, and the UK generally prioritize work life balance. British companies typically provide 20 to 30 days of paid time off as one example of that, as opposed to the US which has no minimum vacation days. And having up to 10 days is considered goodness in the US, but conversely salaries and The US are higher, on average, with larger disposable incomes. Though many factors come into the equation and experience of living and working, and the UK and America, Britain is synonymous with IQ centricity. And they treasure, the architecture of design, fashion, music, storytelling, humor, reporting, the appreciation of the written word and the creativity with words and the whimsical use of making up your own words, the proximity of everything, how you can travel one hour north, south, east and west, and be in a different place with a very different feel and experience. And the dialects are different, such as Liverpool and Manchester. They're only 45 minutes apart by train, yet they speak a different accent, and look and move differently. Similarly, with Edinburgh and Glasgow, George Orwell put it the English are not happy, unless they are miserable. The Amish are not at peace unless they are at war. And the Scots are not at home, unless they are abroad. He obviously missed the Welsh from that. But whether you believe in that or not, sometimes those cliches and idiosyncrasies can can play out on the overall skill of things. But anyway, in all seriousness, when you come away from it, it's easy to get nostalgic, and romantic. And I do wonder if those memories I play on, really were true of the Britain that I experienced, and perhaps it never really existed. And the way that my imagination remembers it, America strives towards the notion of the American dream that anyone regardless of where they were born, or what class they were born into, can attain their version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone, but simply the ability to write your own future, and that historically has set itself apart in the last several decades, we've looked to the San Francisco Bay area for the language we use in the technology industry. It's not only the epicenter of American counterculture, Silicon Valley has made it a world capital for creativity and technological innovation has revolutionized the post Industrial Revolution. Though, overall, the reality is, some parts of the US have many similarities to the UK, for example, London in New York City, both provide immense exposure to cultural diversity, innovative ideas, and novel experiences, which inspire creativity, and innovation, and are magnets for the creative industries, especially design fashion, film, media, music, and also Manchester in Detroit, with our industrial roots, an influential musical heritage, and the notable maker and Dewar ethos that has continuously graced the world with immense creative output over the last 50 to 70 years consistently.
Bailey Tuddenham:I've always been interested in innovative technology. And so you know, that, like you like, as you've mentioned, about Apple, Apple is company that's always interested me, I feel like lately, there's been a lack of innovation from them. But that's something that interests me even further. You know, so as to why and whether there's, so it goes back to that question that I asked before about, can one person have a big impact within a large organization. Because I was talking to people recently about, for example, Johnny, Ive, when he left Apple, I feel like since that loss, there's been a lack of innovation. But obviously, he was quite a big part of that company, which is why I was I was interested to know from you, whether it for example, a graduate like myself was to go into a company like that, whether it would actually be able to have an impact to sort of rekindle some innovation within a company like that.
Roy Sharples:Apple's second common is probably the greatest success stories, especially in terms of Phoenix, rising from the ashes type story with our within our generation II, I think Apple probably have moved more towards incremental innovation to a point, but they still are producing great, innovative feeling, products and experiences. But it's going to be but that's not going to sustain itself. And I think of Allah and in some ways like this, people can get used to things too quickly. And it's like when you first arrive somewhere, you tend to notice all the little details that make up the impression of the experience, such as the architecture of the skies, color, the car, design, the food, the fashion, that the way people look and dress and the smell of life. But as you get used to that new place, you usually don't notice those things anymore. It's like an economics we discussed. diminishing marginal returns, the taste of your first chocolate bar is savored and cherished. And then the second bar still tastes good, but not as good. And then you eat the third one, and realize that you've had enough the desire to eat any more chocolate has has gone some a point here, right without sounding ridiculous. Unless you can continuously innovate and provide differentiated or continually improved products, services or experiences that delight your consumers, they will soon become uninterested, and go elsewhere for the next best thing to fulfill their desires. So sustaining innovation means institutionalizing it as part of your team or organization's culture, and continually creating those opportunities and platforms for talent to come in to an organization and can see things by looking left as opposed to others looking right. And listening to listening to them, and being able to help champion that ideas and to bring disruptive innovation into the mix.
Bassel Zeid:I got a question here. Corporate basil, No, thank you. Hello. Well, actually, my question is about the job hunting and it being a tiring journey with plenty of disappointments. But what shall one do within this time until maybe he clicks somewhere at a company or maybe a startup and like, like, for example, meaning searching for a job, it's Firstly, searching for something very specific within product design, or maybe even a special product, then afterwards, when there's no opportunities coming then looking at any product design, then any mechanical design, engineering, then any mechanical engineering, and so on. So what shall one go within all of this and like, how to shorten this journey,
Roy Sharples:Find a relevant company that aligns with your values, and ambitions. You mentioned product design and manufacturing. So such companies like Tesla, and Ford springs to mind, and they are doing innovative work in navigating the future of electric, autonomous and connected vehicles. And also companies like SpaceX, for space travel, and so on. Beyond all the recruitment channels, such as LinkedIn, which sounds like you've you've already exhausted, I clearly identify as best as you can, what you want to do in which industry, and identify those companies you'd like to work for, and targeting not just the recruitment people, but influential people within the organization that run the businesses that can benefit from your skills. So whether those are people that are leading product groups, service groups, research and development, product development, product design, manufacturing teams, you know, those are the, the obvious, places that spring to main so I would say from a personal motivations are the things I would network podcast or set up your own podcast, your own blog, your own thought, leadership CDs, and formulate an unique point of view, from your perspective within the domain, that you're a specialist in and become famous within that by building a community or creating an audience and just having presence around that particular domain and industry. So that will, it will rapidly get you fame or get get you recognized within those areas. Because we have so much access to many resources that are free and and can use to the benefit from opening doors and preparing everyday and also preparing every day. So that when you are called upon, you're ready to deliver. But just don't give up you know, you come from a great place, a world renowned brand that you know have on your CV with great in demand, skills and qualifications. The other thing as well that you've kind of got to keep an eye on is sadly, we exist in a clickbait world. And recruitment is no different where AI bots are actually screening job applications based on keywords before they get anywhere near a human interaction. So that is particularly challenging, and it drives you to really target keywords within your CV. And to even just get through an initial screening. The other one I would say is from benchmark for excellence is gretta Thornburg, who is 18 years old, she has 12 plus million followers on Instagram is one example. But she is building rapid momentum around becoming a global thought leader within being an environmental activist. So I'm not saying copy and be the same as that but take inspiration from someone like that to do something similar within your own domain. If that was something that excited you as well. She's a great example of exhibiting what the job of the artist is, which is to take a stand against oppressive forces, and be free to express her opinions without fear of retaliation.
Bailey Tuddenham:I was just wondering if you've ever worked for a company or had it's like any particular situation where you felt that the motive of that company didn't align with your own. For example, if you've been put in a situation where the company wants to do one thing, and you've completely disagreed, and how you dealt with that situation personall?,
Roy Sharples:Yes, on multiple occasions, especially when I worked in consulting, where I would interface with multiple clients, the defining question is a stalemate. Should you be acceptable to others, or to yourself, and walk away from the games and boundaries they impose upon you. Only you know, your true worth. And so with learnings and experience, you can start to detect and have a sense for those situations that are kryptonite to your soul and how to mitigate and avoid them because they're like energy vampires that just suck the life out of you if you allow it to happen. And after all, the most use known in the English language is time and we all want to make the most of it. You have been listening to the Unknown Origins podcast. Please follow subscribe, rate and review us. For more information go to unknownorigins.com Thank you for listening.