06 October 2011
By Sandrine Berges
By now most bloggers will have planned their Steve Jobs post, at least in their head. About how he was too young to die, how his genius changed the way we use computers and phones, how good the iPad is for researchers, or people who travel, about how I wish I had one, or an iPhone, or a MacBook Air, or all three.
We've all received the Steve Jobs videos on our Facebook accounts, the Think Different one, and the Stanford Commencement speech, and the one which shows how autistic kids can learn to communicate via the iPad. They're all great, but we've seen them before.
But one thing I, for one, haven't really given much thought to before is that little anecdote Steve Jobs tells in his Commencement speech. He'd had to give up his university place because it was too costly. But he stuck around and took course that caught his interest. One of them was calligraphy, in which he learnt all about beautiful fonts. Then, when he and his team created the first Apple computers, this was one of the things that stood out: they had beautiful fonts. And then, as they created new stuff, their products always stood out from anyone else's for aesthetic reasons. Apple not only made computers that worked pretty well, but it didn't make you want to kill yourself to look at them. That was part of their image, part of the reason people even know are loyal to them. But nothing to do with computing or IT. In fact, one might think it was completely random that Steve Jobs decided to take that course in calligraphy and thought of way to integrate it in his work later on.
Was it, though? How many of you would say that what makes your research as good as it is sometimes has more to do with the kind of person you are outside of your research than the training you received in your area. Is there even a case to be made for taking time out of research to develop hobbies or other interests that may, some day, feed in to our real work? Do our outside interests give our research a certain richness that it might otherwise lack, or does it just give our work a superficial quirkiness that is best avoided? What is your experience with this?
Simon Smith06 October 2011 at 05:54 PM
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Thanks for this post, Sandrine. I really do feel that outside interests enhance your research in so many diffuse and unanticipated ways. But I also think you can plan or contrive such cross-fertilisation to an extent. Or at least be constantly on the alert for opportunities and insights.
One trick I sometimes do when I'm stuck for ideas or I feel I'm losing the plot with something I'm writing is what I call cross-reading. I choose something to read that has no immediate connection with my task, and I read it partly just for diversion (I usually choose something I've been wanting to read anyway) but without completely switching my mind away from the issues I'm struggling over. Quite often, after doing this, I find connections I'd never have thought of.
I wonder if the secret of people like Steve Jobs is not to recognise that distinction between your job and your outside interests: to refuse to compartmentalise your life like that? Which reminds me of the discussion provoked by Sarah's post on working holidays.
Sandrine Berges11 October 2011 at 11:59 AM
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Thanks Simon: I think you're probably right. It's possible that people like Steve Jobs are in some way unconstrained by a lot of the structure most of us have to impose on our lives. Although he too was a father and a married man so he must have had to compartementalise some of the time. I like the idea of cross reading. I think I do that too in a small way: if I'm stuck with something, I'll turn to a book that I actually feel like reading and it's true that sometimes, something I read there gets me thinking again about what I'm supposed to be writing.
Kathryn North12 October 2011 at 10:49 AM
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This is really interesting, a lot of researchers think that there is nothing to be gained from learning about other people's research discipline, or that they don't have the time to lift their head out of their own research discipline. But is this the way the best researchers work? I don't think so. Whilst listening to The Life Scientific on Radio 4 last night I noticed that Paul Nurse attributed a change in his fortunes occurred when he took what he knew about yeast and applying it to human genetics - and to cut a long story short hey presto a seminal discovery was made. We can learn so much from other areas, be a hawk, not a worm!