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Drive innovation through cognitive diversity | Li Chang | TEDxCharleston


[Music]
today I’m going to talk about
collaborative innovation I would like to
take every one every one of you to grow
and expand your comfort zone from your
learning doll to creative zone
ultimately we’re all going to be in the
innovative zone so how many of you have
heard people telling you to get out of
your comfort zone while you’re doing or
engaging your innovations how many of
you actually like it
I prefer to grow and expand my comfort
zone not to get out of my comfort zone
because when I feel more comfortable I
can perform better I can be more
creative and also more innovative now
let’s look at this lotus flower and
remember when I first saw this flower it
was so beautiful to me
and I asked myself why and how can this
be because this flower is actually
growing from this muddy pond I did not
see any water stain on it I did not see
any dust on it I was so curious I
stopped paying attention all the
surroundings including its flower stem
the leaves are also water I feel there’s
some type of information that can be
missing I don’t see the entire picture I
don’t quite understand something because
I feel there is some type of a self
clean cleaning system that can be inside
of this plant so I want you to gain that
gap knowledge what is gap knowledge mean
the gap knowledge is a knowledge that I
do not have but it can be
to other peoples expertise so I share
the Lotus observation and also the
self-cleaning concept with my teammates
some of them they start joining me they
are from design production in
researching area because we all have
different education background
experience we start sharing the
knowledge from different perspective we
talk about water repelling and also
rolling off the dust and all of those
inputs made us more creative and leading
us to have this collaborative innovation
with one big word are you ready for this
big world it’s active superhydrophobic
services
what is this word coming from it’s
actually from the lotus flower
observation is from that gap knowledge
we try to learn from that collaborating
team so those are related to that self
cleaning system so what is this world
mean to us
what is this world mean to all of you to
us is just like how innovation but to
you you can think about the application
of this innovation can be related at
different products in different
industries imagine if your car has this
self-cleaning system like this Lotus you
don’t need to wash your car anymore it’s
going to be like brand new car all the
time and think about if this application
can apply to that high-rise building
then you’re not going to see that people
washing that big window anymore because
it’s going to be clean all the time
while the application can be related to
most of the people here
it’s our smartphone
do you like your phone to be clean shiny
like brand new all the time so think
about it if one small group like us can
come up with one application to improve
our smart phone what about you and I and
every one of us working together with
our solution or any my set creative
thinking and collaboration with our
cross-functional team and friends how
powerful can this be look at a series of
a technology wave like the network
technology internet the social media the
camera those technologies are already
integrated into your smartphone in the
future I’m going to talk about
holographics machine to machine learning
artificial intelligence those technology
can make your phone even smarter so do
you feel the power of that collaborative
innovation do you feel that the power of
the diverse cognitive thinking
interaction and application can be so
powerful it’s so incredible so what are
those key elements they can make us more
creative and more innovative I’d like to
introduce three key elements the first
one is called freedom of learning the
second one is called freedom of
collaborating the third one is freedom
of innovating what does that mean
freedom learning freedom learning is
unlike why you just read from the book
because you can be limited by the author
it’s unlike what you learn just from the
classroom learning because sometimes you
can be limited by the instructor today
we are living in the global village when
we wanted to gain that knowledge we
shouldn’t be limited by time and space
we shouldn’t be restricted by any
resources or environment we can use
that technology and that smartphone to
help you to reach to any resources any
knowledge at any time that you want and
this type of freedom of learning can
apply for your lifetime so what is
freedom of collaborating freedom
collaborating is related that you wanted
to gain that gap knowledge it’s a
knowledge that you don’t have but you
can be found you’re collaborating team
when we all learn from each other we can
remove our blind spot and lower the
boundary today most people they have a
title like attorney teacher engineers
business leader artists and so on
those can be related to their primary
skill set they are absolute advantage
but a person can be more than that they
can have their secondary skill set they
can have their comparative advantage so
if you and I and all of us can
collaborate it together we can actually
unlock our potential to increase that
capabilities the freedom of
collaborating is actually the secret
sauce to make us from creative to be
more creative if we all can grow our
comfort zone by establishing freedom of
learning and freedom of collaborating we
are actually moving that creative zone
into that innovative zone so what does
that mean about that freedom of
innovating it’s actually related you and
I and our synergy we use that synergy to
change from our collective intelligence
into the collective impact the
collective impact is a way to try our
passion and our trainers remember it’s
not the technology
information of big data analytics is
going to drive our world it’s actually
you and I and all of us our passion and
dream is gonna try and shape our world
and you and I everyone we can
collaborate like this we’re going to
impact our generations after generations
so what inspires me to be here today
it’s related to to aviation pioneers
they are the Wright brothers there were
just two bicycle shop mechanics when
they saw that bird was flying
they asked himself why just like me when
I saw this lotus flower
I asked why we all tried to gain that
gap knowledge from the collaborating
team so they invented the world’s first
airplane in 1903 and December the 17th
the first fly lasts about 59 seconds and
852 feet look at how incredible the
aerospace industry is here today with
all the great products process and
services that can benefit the quality of
our human life we are even talking about
going to Mars so if this can happen to
our aerospace industry it can happen to
all of you feel all of your industries
engineering and engineering it doesn’t
matter
finally I would like to let everyone
know it doesn’t matter you have advanced
degree or not we all have one thing in
common that’s 24 hours a day and seven
days a week so never underestimate
yourself or anybody
they surrounding you
because we all can learn anything at any
time we all can learn to grow our
comfort zone to gain that get knowledge
from each other so you and your team can
be the best now innovating self with you
and all of you let’s collaborate it
together to innovate and enrich our
world
[Applause]
[Music]
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