Christopher Columbus and the Microwave

Nicolette Wallmann

A theme year like the Year of Creativity and Innovation not only has a motivating effect, it also engenders criticism, triggers controversial discussions and raises a lot of questions.

Critical voices make disparaging remarks about an advertising stunt, advocates talk about opportunities for creating awareness and setting forces in motion that could initiate sustainable changes.
Having a time frame of one year in which to accord heightened attention to the concepts of creativity and innovation leaves all these possibilities open. The goal, however, is to use the year for reflection on and serious examination and discussion of available resources and potentials as well as necessary requirements and structural limitations. We have to avoid the trap of simply placing the protagonists in the spotlight for a short period of time and leaving them stranded in centre stage with the prospect of having to make their exit by 2010 at the latest. “How do we get new things into the system?” is a key question in this connection, and this question is being discussed at various levels of the education system. Can processes of change be systematised? What framework conditions need to be created? Is creativity a basic prerequisite? Are there definable factors and criteria for innovations?
Christopher Columbus discovered America while attempting to reach India by crossing the Atlantic instead of taking the usual overland route or sailing around the southern tip of Africa. The carpenter’s son Max Himmelheber observed how his father’s wood waste landed in the refuse. During the economic crisis of the 1930s, he mixed the shavings with wood glue – and invented pressboard, without which there would probably never have been a certain major Swedish furniture manufacturer. Sir Alexander Fleming did not toss away his bacteria culture and so discovered the antibiotic penicillin. Percy Spencer invented the microwave after a chocolate bar melted in his pocket while he was standing in front of some radar equipment.
Crises, necessities, coincidences, or the courage to tread new paths: often, the beginning of a process of change is unplanned and appears to be unexpected. But a certain amount of effort is still indispensable, for, as the French chemist Louis Pasteur once said: “Chance favours only the prepared mind.” When the right moment arrives, an attentive eye and an unconventional way of thinking are of the essence. Making pressboard out of waste, going by sea instead of by land, keeping one’s cool when a chocolate bar melts and saving the world with a fungus – let’s keep these examples before us as we try to prepare our minds for the right moment in the Year of Creativity and Innovation.