How the Constitution Invented Hollywood and Silicon Valley

Few classes in law school are drier and more arcane than courses on patents and copyrights. And while the debate about intellectual property includes the worlds of entertainment, literature and technology, we don’t often make the connections between those arcane laws, the Constitution that laid down their predicate and the creativity that they seek to protect.  But that is exactly what Elizabeth Wurtzel does in her new book Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood.

My conversation with Elizabeth Wurtzel:

Creativity: The Perfect Crime

On the morning of August 7, 1974, forty years ago, Philippe Petit illegally strung a tightrope between the towers of New York's World Trade Center, then under construction. For 45 minutes, he performed a ballet in the sky, as he moved back and forth across the wire. He was more than 1300 feet above the ground – without a net. The story of this feat was captured in the Oscar-winning documentary "Man on Wire."

However powerful that feat was, in its own right, it was also a metaphor for the rebellion, chaos, organization, faith and fearlessness that would animate Petit’s life and which, if looked at in the wider context of today’s world, animates all that is good and necessary about change and progress and fear. Now Petit has taken his fearlessness and applied it to creativity in Creativity: The Perfect Crime.

My conversation with Philippe Petit:

Creative Intelligence

No one questions that we are going through a period of dramatic change. The world, the nature of work and relationships are changing faster than at any other time in human history. Succeeding and managing in this environment, will require a degree of nimbleness and creativity, in order to sustain or create any economic value.

But how creative are we, and do the old paradigms of education, work and leisure allow us to foster and bring out that creativity? Bruce Nussbaum, a Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School of Design in New York City, and a former Managing Editor at BusinessWeek, thinks we have to reset our approach to creativity. He outlines it in Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire.

My conversation with Bruce Nussbaum:

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Jonah Lehrer explains How Creativity Works

George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying, that "some men see things as they are and ask why, others dreams things that never were and ask why not." This is often quoted in a political context, but could also be said to be a central question of creativity. Where does creativity come from, how can it be stimulated, and like the uncertainty principle, if we try too hard to understand it, do we in some way alter it?  Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How we Decide" gives us a contemporary and real look at the creative process in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works.

My conversation with Jonah Lehrer:

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