Page 14 - AeM_Nov_2017

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Why it’s better to be in Beta

What do Steve Jobs and notorious architect Frank Gehry Pablo Picasso.
have in common? Would you believe us if we told you it Cézanne painted his masterpieces by continually striv-
was failure? Jobs was fired from the company he found- ing to improve them, whereas Picasso picked up a
ed by the age of thirty and did not achieve his true crea- brush, created his magic, stood back to admire his
tive potential until much later in life. Likewise, Gehry did handiwork and then walked away. Artists who follow
not reach architectural notoriety until he was in his six- Picasso’s model seem to execute their work in a single
ties. It would seem that time and iteration (and failing) sitting, but the truth is they’ve often spent long periods
play such important roles in the production of a genius. of time, consciously or unconsciously, pre-arranging a
vision of what they want to create in their mind’s eye.
Two schools of creativity
Artists of the Cézanne school, on the other hand, prefer
Many of the world’s most memorable works of art didn’t or perhaps cannot stop themselves from executing,
have the greatest start in life but, in the hands of an iter- executing and re-executing, always honing their initial,
ative artist, it didn’t stop them from going on to achieve imperfect creation into a much more perfect, final rendi-
greatness. In his Revisionist History Podcast, Malcolm tion. We could call Picasso an Alpha Artist and Cé-
Gladwell looks at “an event, a person, an idea” from the zanne a Beta Artist. Neither approach is right or wrong,
past and reinterprets it using a fresh set of eyes. He but the Beta Artist always get another bite of the cherry
does this because “some things deserve a second and sometimes, as Google Glass has proven, that can
chance” and he believes, and often proves, that some- happen many years down the line.
thing integral to the historical story has been overlooked
or misunderstood. In the podcast, Gladwell shows At the time when smart wearable devices began to gain
us two distinct creative approaches by looking at two of popularity, Google introduced Glass to a wide range of
the world’s most famous artists: Paul Cézanne and users as a pair of glasses that functioned similarly to a
14 November 2017 - Email Marketing & Lead Management