Back in my good ‘ol days there were lots of people who called themselves Writers. When I say Writers, you might think of bespectacled young chaps hunched over a word-processor, punching out words on their Macbook draped in hand-knitted scarfs and wearing comfy flip-flops. But no, I am talking about good ol’ pen and paper blokes who toiled all day beside a mountain of crumbled paper overflowing from their wastebins. When life was hard and every word was measured and well thought out. Their prose was water-tight and flowed from line to line like a swift arrow of unbroken thought.

There were two kinds of writers, though – Fiction and Non-fiction. The former were always popular. People loved to get trapped in their colorful web of imagination. They would get lost in far-away worlds of fire-breathing dragons or colourful unicorns. But the non-fiction writers had it tough. Every word of their’s was picked on and taken apart. “What is your reference for this?”, the critics would clamour. “Prove your claims”, the technical ones would demand.

Despite all this, the technical writers, the journalists or the biographers wrote volumes and produced great works. In fact, the critical audience made them write impeccable and widely researched bodies of work.

Time rolled by and the Internet happened. Now, don’t get me wrong, Internet wasn’t a bad thing at all. But, soon everyone realised that they could be and later, would be – a Writer. Nobody bothered to label themselves as Fiction or non-Fiction. Both genres would be intermixed in the same, so-called, blog-post in the interest of a greater subscriber base. After all who wants a recital of dry facts. Sprinkle some controversy and hyperboles, mix them well and let’s make merry – was the mantra.

Soon, technical writing was not worth the… err… bandwidth (?) they used up. Hearsay became random tit-bits which became fun-facts and later authoritative references. Nobody, checked the authenticity of what was written or passed around. Eventually, nobody regarded the technical writers as well as they did. Some poor ol’ timers like me found it difficult to survive by technical writing alone. So, we switched to better jobs.

“So what did you switch too, Granpa?”, asked the little attentive one with a glint in her eyes.

The Grandpa gave a long sigh and answered with a sour look, “Well, I write jokes for Reader’s Digest”

You can only learn these things by practice.

But are reading books a waste of time? Absolutely not. Learning by doing will only get you so far as in perfecting something you already know. For instance, if you know the basics of operating a car, in due time, you can move around comfortably. This does not mean that you can take very good care of the car or understand traffic rules. Most of us learn these things through friends or a driving instructor.

But books offer a much more reliable and insightful information (say a simple automobile service kit). They are usually written by experts in their respective fields. They have years of wisdom to back what they have written. Interestingly, this is not just applicable to non-fiction but also in fiction. Be it reading about the mathematical ingenuity of a symbologist or the experiences of hitch-hiking in a romantic Scottish highlands, the written word enriches your experiences with many lifetimes that you haven’t lived yourself.

Similarly, programmers jump to ‘on the job trainings’ and claim to have acquired expertise based on the years of experience they’ve spent on a technology. It is quite debatable on what they have mastered. They might be able to get something working but it will be a far cry from an elegant or a well-designed solution. Reading does wonders in acquainting one with the best practices of a technology area. Indeed, the well-read ones are quite easy to spot too.

The culture of doing is as important as the culture of learning. Both go hand-in-hand. But the emphasis must not shift purely to doing as it shows tangible results. The results must in itself demonstrate the depth of learning. Often, opening the bonnet solves the problem rather than kicking the tires.

Of course, after a certain amount time, you will notice a slight flicker in this generous whitespace devoid of any tangible information. Given the time and effort spent in your unwavering gaze, much later, the flicker will multiply into various coloured dots. These dots are a temporary phenomenon called retinal tear.

But please do continue watching the space. Your answer will reveal in a couple of hours when you hear muffled giggles from the corner of your eyes. This means you have kept yourself still long enough to warrant attention from your colleagues. You have become an imminent and potentially future source of subversive humour. Let this insight not detract you from your current task at hand. Please continue watching the space.

The passage of time might seem glacial, but it might have been only a few days elapsed since you embarked on this endeavour. The strange tickling sensations tracing a halo-like pattern around the crown of your head might be cobwebs-in-the-making by some opportunistic spiders. The occasional shrill noises at night might not be the usual crickets after all, but little rats ogling at you. The pithy tch, tch from the ceiling might be the most patient audience of them all, the stunned household lizards. They produce these sounds only when they are amazed at some still life which rival their own stillness, out of pure jealously, obviously. However, the good news is that the worst is probably over. So, please continue watching this space.

In the midst of all this, please do not be surprised, if the prolonged presence of the white’space’ burnt a hole on your LCD screen. This is perfectly natural and probably for the better. You will now have the unrestricted viewing pleasure of an actual space right in the middle of your screen. This is a real ‘window’ and gladly enough, cannot be closed or minimized by any means. This is wonderful news for a patient observer like you. So, please continue watching this space.

In the meanwhile, the human race which, in evolutionary terms, quite recently got an upgrade from their always quibbling, tree jumping cousins, would have found themselves engaged in a major war of some kind. As a non-participant to this frivolous event, you would probably be quite indifferent to the comical sounding sirens around your place.

Suddenly through the little window you have been gazing, somewhere in the distance, you might notice a bellowing angry red mushroom cloud. This might be accompanied by a brilliant bright flash of light. But…

Please, please continue watching this space!

I read a very interesting passage from the book about the need for clarity of communications. The book says:

Look at these two messages that address the same idea. One of them should seem very familiar to you.

a. “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace initiatives.”

Or

b. “…put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade.”

The first message sounds similar to CEO-speak of today and is barely comprehensible, let alone memorable. The second message — which is actually from a 1961 speech by JFK — has every element of SUCCESs and it motivated a nation toward a specific goal that changed the world. JFK, or at least his speech writers, knew that abstractions are not memorable, nor do they motivate.

There are many examples where I have read 2 to 3 page/screen emails without understanding a word of what they are trying to say. Communication has deteriorated to the point that we are now extremely thankful when someone can explain the gist of the message in a few words.

The worst thing that can happen is the spread of this culture of obfuscation to the next generation. If that happens, we will lose the art of communicating ideas simply and the real message will be drowned in the noise.

PS: Recently I delivered a talk on Relevance of IT in Business and used Presentation Zen ideas in my slides. The slides were well received and appeared on Slideshare homepage as well.

The answer is Evolution. Evolution is a continuous process of attaining perfection through small steps. The steps are some what like this

• Lets start with a fairly evolved species
• On a global scale creating life is cheap
• Every generation is an minor experiment involving producing a unique combination of genetic attributes
• The attributes might or might not help the offspring that only time will tell
• The ones with beneficial attributes like intelligence, attractiveness thrives
• One in a long period of time, a mutation i.e. significant change in attributes happen.
• This mutant might or might not survive.
• If it survives and multiplies, it might or might not supplant the earlier species.

This cycle continues over millions of years. This cycle has resulted in millions of diverse and interesting flora and fauna. The key to all this is, in fact, step 2. It is cheap to create something. Something different. The difference might be minor at first, but the cumulative effect of several minor changes is very significant.

This is how creativity works. This is how innovations work. There must be an environment to experiment and create without too much overhead. The time from conception (of an idea) to birth (i.e. implementation) must be short. This is the basic idea behind prototyping.

Taking this analogy to computer languages, most of the innovative applications are now first implemented in a dynamic language than a statically compiled language. The traditional statically typed languages require more overhead due to increased line count and lack of ready to use libraries. The time from concept to implement is longer. Dynamic languages permit the prototyping of more ideas at the cost of less optimal implementations.

This is why copying ideas and applying it to areas different from where it was intended often works. It is cheap to reproduce an idea. It might have been a result of thousand iterations. But the idea is already born now. The genetic code has been designed and it has been proven. The next step is to clone the idea and start tinkering with it in small ways. You might very well be innovating.

The real secret of innovation is in making prototyping, experimenting, iterating or whatever you call it, cheap.