Can You Be an Innovative Expert? – RTC News

If you’re too fluent in a particular process, method, culture, or piece of software, can you really break out of it and innovate?

Eddie Van Halen didn’t think so. He didn’t take guitar lessons growing up. He experimented on his own and came up with his own signature sound through discovery. Had he taken lessons, he once recounted, it would have limited his thinking.

Jack White doesn’t think so. He deliberately chooses guitars that are a challenge to play, so he can’t get too comfortable with them. When I used to play saxophone, I would put the hardest reed I could find on the horn, which makes controlling the sound difficult. Why? I liked to always be up for a challenge.

This Atlantic article I recently read describes some pretty serous shade being thrown at Apple when the iPhone was first introduced. Notably, the head of RIM (now Blackberry) said it would never represent a “sort of sea change for BlackBerry”.

Do you think the CEO of the company that makes…

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