How to Help Creative People: Be (Or Support) Claude Shannon’s

 By Shlomo Maital

Claude Shannon

   Claude Elwood Shannon (1916- 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer. He invented what we today call known as “information theory” – the foundation of software, computers and cell phone technology.

   According to Wikipedia: “Shannon is noted for having founded information theory with a landmark paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, that he published in 1948. He is, perhaps, equally well known for founding digital circuit design theory in 1937, when—as a 21-year-old master’s degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical, numerical relationship.” In other words, you can do anything with 0,1.  

   NATURE magazine (July 13 2017, p. 159) has a review of a new book about Shannon, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon invented the Information Age. The review is written by Vint Cerf, who designed the architecture of the Internet.

     At the close of his review, Cerf notes:   “What emerges is a portrait of an exceptional free-spirited mind, nurtured by colleagues at MIT and Bell Labs….he was protected from some of the more mundane aspects of work, such as reporting progress, by colleagues and managers. They recognized his unique ability to wrestle insight from complexity, by peeling away details that obscured the kernel of problems and inviting creative solutions”.

     What I learn from this is:   Be like Shannon. Strip away the humdrum things you do, and focus on big problems, on the core of the problem. Peter Drucker taught “Innovation and Abandonment” and he began with ‘abandonment’. That is, what can you get rid of in your life that takes away time and energy from your creative powers? How can you be like Shannon?

     And, next best, if you cannot be like Shannon, can you identify and support other people around you who are like Shannon?   Supporting other creative people may be as important as being creative yourself.