Innovation during stressful times

It happened between the 1880s and the 1920s. Before that, most belongings were either made at home or bought from local craftspeople or general stores.

American manufacturing and transportation took off around the turn of the 20th century, so the economy of items began to centralize.

Psychologists found that people cling to material stuff as a response to a form of anxiety (about loss, financial instability, even body image) and that clutter itself is often a source of stress.

Clutter tends to accumulate in the homes those working people for whom the hope of financial stability and the lurking possibility of ruination are always present.

The place where Hollywood stands today was initially just plains and hills with just a small hut, in the year 1853, eventually becoming an agricultural community called Cahuenga Valley. Harvey Henry, a politician and real estate developer purchased a large piece of the future ‘Hollywood’ for a ranch and ended up using it as a township of upscale homes. In a couple of decades, the place had markets, hotels and other commercial establishments.

.. was a banker and real estate mogul H.J. Whitley, who opened the Hollywood Hotel(Now Dolby Theater, the Oscar ceremony venue) and some residential neighbourhoods. According to many, he coined the name ‘Hollywood’ while honeymooning there in 1886, while some say it was named by Harvey’s wife Daeida Wilcox.

On 29th October 1929, the infamous crash of Wall Street happened, where 30 million dollars were lost in a week, leading to customers rushing to withdraw their money, known as the ‘bank run’.

The entire world felt the capitalistic fall and realized that a boom leads to a bust, eventually. The disastrous effects felt around the world showed how economically interconnected the world had become.

In 1933, then-President Franklin Roosevelt promoted his recovery path of Relief, Recovery and Reform, to give shape to the slow and arduous reform process that will take decades.

Encouraging people to be curious generates workplace improvements.

When we are curious, we view tough situations more creatively. Studies have found that curiosity is associated with less defensive reactions to stress and less aggressive reactions to provocation.

Curiosity encourages members of a group to put themselves in one another’s shoes and take an interest in one another’s ideas rather than focus only on their own perspective.

Thus, conflicts are less heated, and groups achieve better results.

This myth encourages the belief that creativity is a passive process. It suggests you have to wait and hope that you’ll make a breakthrough.

That Eureka moment is actually the last step in a long, involved process and not the only step. For this to happen, your unconscious mind needs material to work with. You have to put in the hard work of studying and mastering your field and exposing yourself to different perspectives.

In reality, creativity is a team sport.

The lone genius myth is a stereotype and it’s unhelpful because it suggests the route to innovation is to cut oneself off from colleagues and collaboration. You need a modest amount of intelligence to be creative, but extremely high IQ is neither sufficient nor necessary for being an innovator.

.. is when there is a loss of machinery, infrastructure and people, be it from war, or natural disasters.

The rebuilding of physical decline can also provide a powerful economic boost. This can also lead to inflation, as the capacity to make goods has been destroyed.
Losing people due to war or a calamity is the hardest to recover from.

..is a type of decline in which due to a personal narrative, circumstance or condition, the work terminates, and one's identity is no longer able to survive.

If a business suffers bankruptcy, or if a person has defaulted or is arrested, a certain 'absorbing barrier' is reached, and all potential of any future activity is shut down.

Future-proofing your career to stay relevant isn't about learning how to code or going back to college.

It is about having a career plan with a long-term vision, taking into account the current job-market conditions, economic factors, emerging opportunities, personal interests, and family realities.

A life cycle of a job is shrinking rapidly, and if you're not re-inventing yourself or pivoting on time, you are rendered out of work sooner than in the past decades.

We need to check our career plan and ask ourselves what skills need to be developed to pursue future opportunities, in this shifting economy.

The financial crisis of 2008 showed that the system can buckle anytime and money may not always be worth the same.

As we get hyper-connected, the state-backed authority of currency, and what Money is really worth, is being rethought. Society has historically tried to invent new forms of currency, most recent being Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.

The idea of Facebook's Libra, an attempt to create a new currency made from the architecture that powers Bitcoin, is that the value of new money is not derived from state authority, but a combination of mathematics, global connectivity, and trust that resides in people using Facebook.

The sound quality was an issue in the early days, with the sound system producing low voice for the cars on the back, and too much noise for the neighbours.

This early technology was called ‘directional sound’ and was replaced by the in-car speakers later.

The largest drive-in theatre was in Copiague, New York, known as the All-Weather Drive-In.

It had space for 2,500 cars plus an indoor viewing area of 1,200 seats along with a kid’s playground, shuttle trains and a restaurant.

"Nothing tends to materialise man, and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division of labour."

To come up with new ideas, you need to know things outside your field.

The further afield your knowledge extends, the greater potential you have for innovation.