Originality

How could we define ‘originality’?

BYUICLASS: socrative.com

In less than 10 words, write a definition of originality.

Ford on originality

I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.

Henry Ford

Steve Jobs, Ideo, and the Mouse

… You know, [the Xerox mouse] is a mouse that cost three hundred dollars to build and it breaks within two weeks. Here’s your design spec: Our mouse needs to be manufacturable for less than fifteen bucks. It needs to not fail for a couple of years, and I want to be able to use it on Formica and my bluejeans…

Steve Jobs

• From that meeting, I went to Walgreens, which is still there, at the corner of Grant and El Camino in Mountain View, and I wandered around and bought all the underarm deodorants that I could find, because they had that ball in them. I bought a butter dish. That was the beginnings of the mouse…

What was original?

If you lined up Engelbart’s mouse, Xerox’s mouse, and Apple’s mouse, you would not see the serial reproduction of an object. You would see the evolution of a concept.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/16/creation-myth

What is originality?

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

The windshield wiper

Kearns’ intermittent wiper was an elegant piece of engineering. It had four parts, and only one of them moved. It was a leap forward, beyond electricity and into electronics.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/01/11/the-flash-of-genius