Highlights - Adam Alter - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”

"The other thing from a creativity perspective is we know that more people around you is good for creativity. It's one of the axioms in thinking about creativity in general. You need time. An artist, a writer. I'm a writer. I need time on my own. I also paint and draw. I cannot do that with other people around. It's just my process. But before you get there, before you get to that point where you need that time alone, that space apart, for almost everyone being around other people is good. It's good for creativity. It's both about diversity of opinion and idea and just about having more - just more information, more thoughts, more ways of looking at the world. And some of the most profound research I've come across in preparing for this book suggested that it's better to be around people who are deeply incompetent than it is to be around no one, which I found very surprising.

I always thought, yeah, you want to surround yourself with people who are really good at the thing you're trying to do because it'll rub off on you, and you'll end up being better. You know, you'll pick up bits and pieces from them, but the really fascinating idea is that even people who do something worse than you do it are actually good for your creative process, which I hadn't really thought of much. 

But there's some really robust evidence to that effect, which suggests that there's not much cost to bringing other people's brains into the creative process, and I think that's one potential use of screens and tech, AI, and VR tech, is that you can bring in more ideas and greater diversity into the way you think about any creative process."

Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.

https://adamalterauthor.com
www.penguin.co.uk/books/431386/irresistible-by-adam-alter/9781784701659
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Anatomy-of-a-Breakthrough/Adam-Alter/9781982182960
www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/adam-alter

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