editorial

creative together

What happens when we're paid to be imaginative but the creative juices just aren't flowing? Perhaps you have surmised that today, as I sit in front of my computer, is one of those days. At certain times, being alone with my thoughts can inspire nothing more than making a turkey sandwich. But if I had a team of writers and engineers surrounding me, all pumping ideas in my direction, then, by golly, my chances of coming up with an interesting column would be much better.

But is creativity really a team event? Are we better left to our own single-minded imaginations to come up with creative new designs, or do we need a team to keep us on the straight and narrow? Opinions differ.

According to last month's survey of the month on Mechanical Engineering Magazine Online, 77 percent of those who took the poll said that the most innovative designs come when teams collaborate; 23 percent said the best designs come when engineers work alone.

"Engineers may work at individual desks and workstations, but teams almost always create the vision that guides their work," says Associate Editor Alan Brown in the article, "The Creative Impulse," contained in this issue.

"While teams have the potential to surpass individual creativity, not every team functions at that level," Brown tells us.

The right culture unleashes creativity, Brown says, but creativity varies widely among individuals. Give some people a marker and a dry board, and they'll sketch a process in ways that you can't even imagine. Others thrive by talking it through with peers.

Last month, I was in Philadelphia visiting the Tutankhamun exhibit in Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. He, of course, is ancient Egypt's famous boy pharaoh who grew up 3,300 years ago in the royal court at Amarna, the ancient city of Akhetaten. In a generation, this royal city arose, flourished, and vanished. But its legacy remains vivid.

I'm not sure whose implausible design it was to create all those Egyptian pyramids, but for sure it took a team to get them built.

Was it one person's vision, one person's creativity, one lead designer? Not likely. Did these ancient Egyptians gather around in a meeting and decide that a pyramid should be shaped like, well, a pyramid, and that it should point to a specific star? Did they think that this shape was better suited than a circle or an octagon? Was it the design of the chief "engineer" of the time? Maybe you subscribe to the notion that extraterrestrials built the pyramids. (Remember Chariots of the Gods?)

So many questions remain unanswered about these amazing early engineers, yet so many similar creative problems exist.

"Every company has a design team," says Uli Mahle, vice president of marketing at CoCreate Software, in "The Path to Invention," in this issue. "Team design drives much higher levels of performance by empowering any engineer to pick up a design and carry it forward. Designers work in a cross-functional manner, speeding development by eliminating resource bottlenecks."

Back in Philadelphia, during the late 1700s, our country's founding fathers formed a creative design team of their own when they drew up the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Now, as back then, the formula for success lies in collaboration.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

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