The 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind is based on the true story of mathematician John Nash. The protagonist, John Nash (played by Russell Crowe), is a genius who enters Princeton University as a graduate student on a scholarship. However, he prefers sitting idly, counting raindrops rather than socializing with others. As he obsessively searches for his own “creative idea,” he frequently falls into delusions. While living in a dormitory, he creates an imaginary roommate named Charles Herman. Struggling with interpersonal relationships, Nash finds that Charles is the only person he can confide in. Later, while working as a professor at MIT, Nash invents another imaginary figure, a government secret agent named William Parcher. Misled into believing that his job is to decode Soviet codes, Nash increasingly isolates himself, and his mental state becomes more chaotic. At this point, Alicia, who later becomes his wife, enters his life. When Nash hesitates to propose, saying he needs proof, Alicia responds with a poignant line: “How do you know the universe is infinite? Love is the same.” Ultimately, it is her devoted love that helps him overcome schizophrenia. In real life, John Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 and expressed his gratitude with the following words:
“I’ve always lived in search of that elusive, creative theory that others couldn’t find. And I have found it. The greatest and most beautiful thing in the world is love. I learned that through my wife, Alicia.”
As John Nash himself stated, the reason he developed schizophrenia was the stress from the obsessive belief that he needed to find a “creative theory” that no one else had discovered. In reality, Nash chose a lonely path, using only his ideas and methods without referencing others’ work. He tried to create something original from scratch, solving problems in ways others hadn’t thought of. However, even he eventually had to rely on the academic achievements of others. To be sure of his originality, he needed to investigate others’ research. In fact, the founders of game theory were John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, not John Nash. When Nash was a graduate student at Princeton, geniuses like von Neumann and Einstein were also working there, so it’s hard to claim that he was entirely uninfluenced by them. Ironically, the greatest thing Nash eventually discovered, after all his searching for something original, was something most people find—love.
We all face our given environments with the best strategies we can muster. Even if these strategies aren’t ultimately the best, we all strive in that direction. Most environmental factors are beyond our control—they are givens. However, it’s also true that the greatness of the human spirit has sometimes managed to change even those environments, thanks to human creativity. All modern science and culture have reached their current heights because of human imagination. This is why our society emphasizes imagination and creativity so much. But what is the relationship between imagination and creativity? Although they are related, they are not the same. Imagination is the act of picturing the unseen or dreaming a dream. Creativity, on the other hand, includes the ability to differentiate and actually implement or express those imaginings. This is evident from the fact that creativity is often translated as “initiative spirit” or “originality.” If a hard-won idea turns out to be similar to someone else’s, it wouldn’t be considered original or creative. Additionally, if an idea born of imagination isn’t expressed in some form, it can’t be recognized as creative. It’s only natural that without expression or implementation, there is no tangible result. Ultimately, imagination and creativity are distinguished by their differentiation and utility.
Throughout human history, imagination has influenced us in many forms. Numerous inventions that enrich human life and various theories that help us understand the world all stem from imagination. However, today more than ever, creativity is emphasized because competition in every field is intensifying, while knowledge and information have become readily accessible to anyone with minimal effort. It’s no longer a world where one can boast about knowing a little. While the ability to self-learn is necessary, in today’s world, anyone can easily become an expert in a specific field by investing time and effort. Anyone can access a wealth of specialized knowledge and information through the internet. This means that specialized information and knowledge might quickly become common knowledge and cease to be a personal competitive advantage. It has been 27 years since Alvin Toffler predicted the Information Age, and now, instead of information and knowledge, creativity and ideas have become the sources of everyone’s competitiveness and wealth.
So, how can we be creative and produce creative outcomes? When we talk about creativity, we often think of strikingly artistic ideas or ingenious inventions. But just as the saying goes, “There is nothing new under the sun,” we must consider that most creative results are influenced by existing creations. While imagination is essential for creativity, it’s not necessary for everything. Imitation, or following what others have done, has always been the starting point of creation. In fact, even as we grow, we constantly engage in “following.” Children try to emulate great figures by reading biographies of historical heroes. Even as adults, it is wise to find role models and learn from their strengths. The term “role model” literally means “a model to follow.”
This concept applies not only to everyday life but also to patent-related technology and business ideas. Newton’s publication of the laws of inertia occurred in the 17th century, but there is evidence that scholars from the Mohist school in the 3rd-4th century BCE already understood these ideas. The book Mohist Canon, written by Mozi and his disciples, covers topics such as logic, natural science, philosophy, and ethics. It contains a passage about the law of inertia:
“A moving object stops when a force opposing its movement is present. If no such opposing force exists, the moving object would never stop. This is as clear as the fact that a cow is not a horse.”
If other natural scientists had known about this discovery before Newton, they might have become just as famous. Or perhaps, even those living in Newton’s time were aware of this fact but lacked the mathematical ability, like calculus, to express it convincingly. Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet inventor, extracted and analyzed 40,000 creative patents out of 200,000 patents worldwide. He found that obvious solutions accounted for 32% of all patents, and minor improvements to existing inventions made up 45%. Only 18% were considered significant advancements, 3% were seen as entirely new concepts, and less than 1% were considered new discoveries in the realm of pure science. In other words, 77% of all patents were not considered particularly special inventions. Naturally, Altshuller concluded that 99% of creativity, excluding the 1% in the domain of scientific discovery, can be learned by anyone through education.
In film and literature, the term “parody” is often used. A parody is originally a humorous piece of writing or verse that imitates the style and rhythm of a well-known author’s work, often with the intent of satire or ridicule. The essence of parody lies in twisting a single word or phrase from a famous work to evoke laughter. Most people are familiar with the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” In the 1960s, when concerns about the negative effects of television were prevalent in the United States, a popular parody of this line emerged: “TV or not TV, that is the question.” Such parodies have always existed. Parody is not a phenomenon unique to modern times, nor is it confined to literature. In a broader sense, parody is just another name for imitation. In fact, all cultures on Earth have been created by imitating other cultures. The music and films we enjoy today are no longer purely Korean; they are heavily influenced by American culture, to the point where some say American culture has taken over our own. But when did American culture itself begin? American culture originated from European culture, which in turn evolved by imitating the cultures of China, India, and the Middle East. Culture itself is a parody. We can say that the culture of each country has evolved by imitating and selecting from other cultures. The term “evolution” itself is just another way of saying that something spreads by being imitated.
The same is true in the business world. The phrase “Think new!” was once an advertising slogan that echoed the long-standing slogan “Think” used by IBM, the world’s largest computer company, since 1920. Then, in 1997, Apple’s Steve Jobs followed this by changing just one word to create “Think different!” Many of the famous scientific discoveries and inventions we know today were also created through imitation. Even Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, succeeded in business through imitation. Gates adapted the operating system of mainframe computers to create the DOS system for personal computers. This was an improvement of the first operating system created by Gary Kildall. Moreover, his company didn’t develop it directly; they bought the source code of a program called Q-DOS from a small company in Seattle and supplied it to IBM. The Windows system we use today was also first released by Apple in 1984. When Apple created a graphical user interface, Bill Gates followed suit and released the Windows system. Most of Microsoft’s products were imitations of other companies’ products. By observing the market and following his competitors, adding his ideas, Gates became the richest person in the world.
This concept applies not only to science and invention but also to social and economic systems, which have evolved through imitation. Richard Nelson, an evolutionary economist, divides the technologies necessary for economic growth into two types: physical technologies and social technologies. Physical technologies relate to scientific knowledge, while social technologies involve ways of organizing people to get work done, such as laws, money, corporations, and joint-stock companies. Nelson points out that these social technologies co-evolve with physical technologies. Since evolution includes the concepts of selection and imitation, this makes sense.
The structure of companies is one of these social technologies. The trading companies once known as general trading companies and today’s joint-stock companies are examples of social technologies. In the 17th century, Europe’s social and physical technologies appeared to lag behind those of the East. According to Andre Gunder Frank’s ReORIENT, the populations of Nanjing and Guangzhou in China each exceeded one million in the early 17th century. The Mughal Empire in India had around 5,000 thriving cities, with 15% of the population living in urban areas. In contrast, the combined urban population of Western Europe at that time did not surpass that of Guangzhou.
The Mughal Empire in India accumulated wealth through trade with Europe, particularly by selling saltpeter, a key ingredient in gunpowder. At that time, India’s trade was monopolized by the state. Queen Elizabeth I of England imitated India’s trade system and established the independent East India Company, a joint-stock company with monopoly rights, modeled after India’s trade methods. Ironically, England imitated the trade company of the very country it would come to dominate. Soon, other European countries rushed to imitate the British East India Company.
The same applies to business models. The American search engine Yahoo was imitated in almost every country. Korea’s Auction was born by imitating eBay, also from the United States. The ‘Knowledge iN’ service, which is a flagship service of Naver and largely responsible for Naver’s success today, originated from a question-and-answer community called ‘DBdic’ on the internet newspaper Hankyoreh. Imitation is something we all engage in. There’s a saying that those who can imitate can also create.
This doesn’t mean that merely following what others do is creation; rather, it’s a way to start. In this sense, creation can be thought of as “imitation + imagination.” However, in the 21st century, additional elements are required in the ideas demanded by companies and industries—not to be more creative, but because of practicality and usefulness. Demanding more creativity from ordinary people can be risky and time-consuming. Inventions or technologies that are too advanced may be rejected by the market. Therefore, to obtain practical ideas, it is crucial to first thoroughly analyze facts, information, and knowledge. Creativity involves trying to reassemble these components in innovative ways. In other words, today’s creativity is reinforced by “imitation + analysis + imagination + recombination.”
To develop creativity, many emphasize lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a method of expanding the breadth of thought, freely crossing ideas, associations, and sometimes even unconventional perspectives to discover new and diverse ideas. This is akin to the concept of gaining a new perspective mentioned in The Art of War. On the other hand, vertical thinking refers to the technique of thinking analytically and logically, focusing on a single subject. As mentioned, these two ways of thinking should be used complementarily, not oppositely. First, widen your thoughts through lateral thinking, and then converge ideas through vertical thinking to find the best solution. Lateral thinking generates alternatives, while vertical thinking is essential for making choices. Edward de Bono, the British creator of the concept of lateral thinking, emphasizes that “creativity is not a mystical ability or an innate talent but a skill that can be developed through training and the use of creative thinking techniques and tools.”
In the book The Power of Simplicity published in 2000, authors Steve Rivkin and Jack Trout advise that the process of generating ideas should begin with the simplicity of imitation. However, this simplicity is not mere “copying.” Imitation should involve modification or recombination to suit one’s purpose and must also go through a process of analysis. Rivkin and Trout outline the methods for creating something new as follows:
- Substitution: Using parts of an existing idea.
- Combination: Mixing existing ideas to create something new.
- Adaptation: Applying it to something similar.
- Magnification or Minimization.
- Utilization for a Different Purpose.
- Elimination.
- Rearrangement or Repositioning.
Applying an entire subject of imitation to a similar context or transforming it into something different involves altering the whole. However, to use methods such as taking parts of an existing idea, magnifying, minimizing, eliminating, or combining, it is necessary to break down the subject of imitation. The pieces obtained from this breakdown correspond to what we call modules. Analyzing these modules, discarding what is unnecessary, modifying what needs to be changed, and then reassembling all or some of them is the process of creation through imitation.
There is a book called Blue Ocean Strategy co-authored by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, who coined the term “Blue Ocean.” They propose the “ERRC” method to find blue oceans. ERRC stands for Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, and Create. The first step in creating a blue ocean is to break down a product, service, or business into its components. This breakdown process is nothing other than analysis. Then, certain elements should be eliminated or reduced, desirable elements should be increased and combined, and then reassembled. During this reassembly stage, it is necessary to inject original imagination into the creation. Thus, the entire process of identifying the target for imitation, analyzing it, and reassembling it with the help of imagination combines to achieve “creation.”
The creation methods proposed by Steve Rivkin and Jack Trout and the ERRC method by W. Chan Kim are, in the end, telling the same story. Knowledge itself evolves through imitation, and starting with imitation not only increases the probability of creation but also raises the likelihood of success in the market. New ideas inherently carry the risk of failure in the market. It is perhaps natural that ideas improving on existing market products have a higher chance of success.
TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is a more specific and empirical creative problem-solving methodology than the ERRC of Blue Ocean. The person who discovered that inventions follow common laws and patterns through an analysis of global patents was the aforementioned Soviet scientist, Genrich Altshuller. TRIZ, which stands for “Teoriya Reshniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch” in Russian, is translated into English as TIPS (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). In Korean, it is referred to as “창의적 문제 해결 방법론” (Creative Problem Solving Methodology). TRIZ is more practical and systematized compared to the creative approaches suggested by Rivkin, Trout, and Kim and Mauborgne. In fact, since the ERRC of Blue Ocean and Rivkin and Trout’s suggestions are business concepts, it’s difficult to compare them directly with TRIZ. However, TRIZ also starts with “imitation.” To imitate a subject, it is first necessary to break it down, and TRIZ proposes the same method. TRIZ emphasizes that in the process of breaking down, separation should be carried out more specifically, including time, space, the whole and parts, and conditions. This means observing the past and present of the subject, as well as all upper and lower systems. A new creation is made by reassembling these separated parts.
So, where should we find the target of imitation? Creativity in the business world must be original. However, Altshuller’s analysis of patents proves that “innovation in one field occurs by utilizing the scientific effects of another field.” In other words, he suggests imitating technologies or methods from fields outside of your own to create something new in your area. In fact, the creative tasks we face are likely not problems unique to us. Others may have been struggling with the same issues for a long time in entirely different fields, and some of them may have already been solved and introduced to the world. Therefore, to observe the target of imitation, we need to expand our perspective to the subject’s time and space.
For example, the solution to the base station load problem in wireless communication was reportedly found in methods used to reduce traffic congestion on roads. By not being buried in your problem and taking a step back to look around, you might discover similar issues in seemingly unrelated fields and find clues to solutions. However, it’s not just about taking something and applying it directly. The target of imitation needs to be broken down, and the pieces reassembled to suit our needs. Rivkin and Trout suggest seven methods of reassembly, Blue Ocean’s ERRC offers four methods, and TRIZ presents 40 principles of invention.
In the future, success will increasingly be achieved through such recombinatory innovations. This is because the level of technology we currently possess has already exceeded the demands of the world, so the benefits gained from further technological advancements are not as significant. As a result, recombining existing technologies and knowledge becomes a more intelligent form of creation than inventing something entirely new and groundbreaking. Today, technologies and methods waiting to be combined with something entirely different are scattered everywhere. We should perceive these as various shapes of LEGO blocks that children play with or as the diverse modules of physical and social technologies that adults seek. Furthermore, to creatively connect each module, continuous learning is necessary to generate ideas and strategies. In the end, “imitation” is a process of continuous learning for individuals, and for society as a whole, it is evolution through learning. On the other hand, “creation” is about making something that others haven’t by alternating between analytical thinking and lateral thinking based on imitation. Useful creations made in this way are then spread and modified by “imitators,” continuing to evolve.
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