CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

Jan Chipchase is one of my big heroes. In my book, Creative Intelligence, I talk about the need to “mine the existential” in cultures to understand the deeper meaning of people’s lives. Jan has been a pioneer in mining the existential, from China to America and beyond for Frog Design. He has an insightful comment about Google Glass we should all read. 

Jan is one of the growing number of “thought leaders” being offered Google Glass to wear and comment on, building knowledge—and political support. Jan turned Google down. He’s worried about Google’s privacy problem—that it continuously violates peoples’ privacy. Here’s the comment.

https://medium.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/5e4089a9a3ac

I presented at Google recently on the five Creative Competencies of Creative Intelligence and began by thanking Google for saving my life. I’ve never been able to tell direction—left and right—and felt that i lived in a constant state of lost. Google Maps changed my life. It had deep existential meaning for me. I was no longer lost.

But, like Jan, I also questioned Google Glass. I put up a slide of a pretty woman wearing the glasses (all the pictures are of good-looking young people), and said it embodied the values of Googles’ Gen Y engineering founders. Great technology that could do cool stuff. They used the “Gift” model of innovation—use tech to invent new things and throw it over the wall to society.  

But in this case, society is wary of Google’s intentions and worried about the impact of Google Glass on privacy.Taking data without asking appears to be baked into the deep DNA of Google—from taking content, to taking books to taking emails and other data when taking pictures for Google Maps. All put on Search.

What would Google Glass “take?” I don’t know. And neither does Jan. and neither do you.

Jan has a new book out—Hidden in Plain Site.

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Plain-Sight-Extraordinary-ebook/dp/B008B0ULDW

It’s really good.