The document discusses principles of complex learning and innovation. It provides insights from various authors and thinkers. Some of the key ideas discussed include: 1) Three necessary conditions for complex learning - an optimal state of relaxed alertness, orchestrated immersion in multiple experiences, and active processing of experiences. 2) Different approaches to work - from chaotic dumbness to relaxed alertness, automated processes to orchestrated immersion, and passive analysis to active processing. 3) The importance of nurturing ideas, keeping an open mind, and learning from both successes and failures.

2. NOW!

6.  “I cannot accept a pretense
of science. I much prefer a
sophisticated craft,
focused on tricks, to a
failed science looking for
certainties” Nassim
Nicholas Taleb

7. 7

8. The Internet Inter-disciplinary Capillary network
collaborations
Complex system
design diagram
High School
Friendships

9. “The ability to reduce
everything to simple
fundamental laws
does not imply the
ability to start
from those laws and
reconstruct the
universe” Anderson, P.W.,
More is Different, Science, Vol. 177,
No. 4047, Aug. 4, 1972, pp. 393-396.

10. “The older is not always a reliable model
for the newer, the smaller for the
larger, or the simpler for the more
complex… Making something greater than
any existing thing necessarily involves
going beyond experience.”
Henry Petroski, Pushing the Limits: New
Adventures in Engineering

11. When Einstein was
asked what was most
helpful to him in
developing the theory
of relativity, he
replied,
“Figuring out how to think
about the problem.”

12.  Care
about the Premises
more than the Theory

13. What you know is
limited by what you
can know today;
What you don’t
know today is what
you will be forced
to know tomorrow;
There are always limits to
your Knowledge

14. What you should do is to
create as many alternative
futures as possible and also
keep with you as many
possible histories as
possible. Work
You don’t know which history
around
is connected to which future the limits
– but one path is unfolding
right now – you need to find to your
out….
Knowledge

19. Burning your hand is a
small price to pay for a
good idea.

20. Accept wide
variations • Interaction
within known s among
parameters members of
the groups
Release Play
Collaboration Ensemble
• Work of a group
• Conversation.
dedicated to
• Released from Vanity,
collaboration
inhibition, preconception
• Create a whole
• Treat others inputs as
greater than
material to make with
sum of its parts
• So that New Ideas
emerge

21. Re-conceiving everything in
response to what team sees as
newly possible with each passing
movement of rehearsal, as a result
of each new thing tried

22. Sometimes one pays the
most for the things one
gets for nothing
The whole of science is nothing more than the
refinement of everyday THINKING

24. Actors and other artists do their work for the sake of
doing their work!

25. “Discovery” suggests there is a
right choice waiting to be found

26. Successfully getting reliable innovation from knowledge
workers requires a diligent faith in an impeccable process
knowing that it will produce something of value before a firm
deadline
Calls for collaboration without detailed/coercive direction 
Passionate support and faith in their work
De-stigmatizing mistakes and failures – Celebrating them as
steps on the path to Innovation

28.  The brain is a complex adaptive system.
 The brain is a social brain.
 The search for meaning is innate.
 The search for meaning occurs through patterning.
 Emotions are critical to patterning.
 Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and
wholes.
 Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral
attention.
 Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes.
 We have at least two ways of organizing memory.
 Learning is developmental.
 Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by
threat.
 Every brain is uniquely organized
http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-based3

29. 3 Conditions for Learning
Low Threat and
High Challenge
Relaxed Alertness
Orchestrated
Immersion Active Processing
Experiences
processed as
In Multiple, the basis of
Complex, Meaning
Authentic
Experiences

30.  quot;Optimizing the use of the human brain means using the
brain’s infinite capacity to make connections–and
understanding what conditions maximize this process.quot;
 Three interactive and mutually supportive elements that
should be present in order for complex learning to
occur:
 An optimal state of mind that we call relaxed alertness,
consisting of low threat and high challenge.
 The orchestrated immersion of the learner in multiple,
complex, authentic experience.
 The regular, active processing of experience as the basis for
making meaning.
http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-based3

31.  Chaotic Dumbness (High Threat, Low Challenge)
 Comply with this or else…
 Constant use of “Killer Phrases” to destroy new ideas
 Automated Disjointedness (Delegation, Hands Off)
 Follow the process, don’t worry about anything
 Processes above people – Right processes Mandated will create
results
 “Skill Set” based work assignment
 Passive Analysis (Data Collection, Historical Data Analysis)
 Give me all the data that has been accumulated – I will analyze
and give you Insights
 Quantify – if you cant quantify you don’t really know?
 We will do a Quarterly Analysis to provide you results

32. From Chaotic Dumbness to Relaxed Alertness
From Automated Disjointedness to Orchestrated Immersion
From Passive Analysis to Active Processing

33. We Love to Kill Ideas! Everyone of us.
Especially if they are from Others!
Nurture and Grow
Every IDEA

38. “William Daniel quot;Dannyquot; Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and
author. He co-founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a company that
developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer designed by
Hillis at MIT. He is also co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, Applied
Minds, Metaweb, and author of The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That
Make Computers Work.

41. 1. Open Your Eyes – and Keep them Open
2. Open Your Heart – and Fall in
Love with each Idea
3. Dream Dreams – and Grow
with each Idea
4. Come Back to Earth
5. Just Do it – with open eyes, open heart,
dreaming with feet on earth
2009 © Crafitti Consulting Navneet.bhushan@crafitti.com