Day: April 20, 2008

creativity, music

Derek Paravicini – a musical marvel

Christa Avampato

I receive a daily email from an organization called Daily Good. I’ve blogged about them before – they’re about sharing inspirational stories across many different topics. I believe they provide a greater service than their humble mission statement states – they give me a big fat wake-up call, jolting me out of even a twinge of self-pity I may be feeling. They make me grateful.

Today, Stephen Moss writes about an incredibly special musician, Derek Paravicini. 27-years old, Derek has severe mental challenges that make him incapable of caring for himself. Still, his musical creativity is not only intact but far superior than nearly the entire human population. Play him a song, any song, once and he will repeat it back through the piano perfectly. 
To read Derek’s inspiring story, visit http://music.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329797892-122426,00.html

creativity, design, human factors, technology

Can technology self-adjust?

Christa Avampato

My friend, Jon, recently sent me an article from The Telegraph on websites that “grow and develop”, just as humans due, raising the question of whether or not technology can abide by the laws of Darwinism. Can websites be programmed so the ones that are most adaptive to change survive, and those that are rigid and “set in their ways” perish? This takes the idea of user-generated content to a whole new level.

Human creativity, collectively, is able to alter technology over a number of iterations with these websites. The colors, fonts, and usability changes as the technology collect information by users of what they found appealing or unappealing, the links they clicked (or didn’t click) on. Think of what this could do for blogs or mass media information sources? Bloggers and reporters are constantly guessing what type of content would be most interesting and provocative to readers. Imagine if the readers could play direct hand in the alterations?!

This technology is in its early stages, though it’s easy to imagine all the different paths this type of innovation could create for us, or rather the paths we would be able to create for ourselves. What technology could human creativity synthesize using the same process that nature has followed for so many centuries? This invention could be the very height of biomimicry. Learn more at about the project and Matthew Hockenberry, the director of the Creative Synthesis Collaborative at www.creativesynthesis.net.