I remember when I was younger there was a segment on the disney channel called "Great minds think for themselves", hosted by the genie from Aladdin. That segment always struck a chord with me. This article seems to echo that.

"On average, tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time." Clearly the tappers were morons, because the minute I read that sentence it seemed off by several factors of magnitude.

While the article makes some good points, I can't say I agree with it 100%. When considering the first sentence, "As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off.", I think this is very inaccurate when it comes to "new-growth" areas like the internet of today. In fact, to me the opposite is true, the more I learn, the more creative I feel because it's still very possible to do something on the 'Net that hasn't been done before. adf471587879rzq

"Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike " - I disagree!

there are thigns you know you know, things you know you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know. The latest is the scary one.

The point of the article is that there is a 4th category that is even worse, things that you know, but are wrong or have been made irrelevant or obsolete.

Think of the experiment with the 5 monkeys, the problem is we as experts in a field are afflicted with scores of preconditionings.

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/Articles/a-m/monkeys.htm

I thought it was more about the things you know and focus on, which are right in their narrow domain, but which prevent you from looking at the wider problem and therefore prevent you from perceiving, possibly better, alternatives.

I know I've spent days perfecting a certain programming paradigm, be it function composition or object orientated design, only to realise that I've lost sight of the overall problem domain and therefore how best to tackle it.