Is 'genius' a dirty word?

By Kate Dailey BBC News Magazine

Extraordinary individuals: Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven

The annual awarding of MacArthur Foundation grants means that another 22 people are going to find themselves called "genius". But is the title a blessing or a curse?

According to the MacArthur Foundation, annual fellowships are awarded to outstanding individuals who show talent, originality, and dedication in all fields. They must also be citizens of, or resident in, the United States.

But due to a popular nickname, the fellows are known by a much grander moniker - genius.

The winners of the genius grants, as they're often called in the media, reflect the Foundation's broader goals. While some fellows fit the traditional idea of a genius - philosophers, physicists, composers - the grants have also gone to community organisers, journalists, and educators.

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A lot of kids who are labelled prodigies early on end up being mediocre or worse”

David Shenk Author of The Genius In All of Us

For those awarded the fellowship, the $500,000, no-strings -attached prize money is much more valuable than the honorific, a mantle most winners shrug off.

"It's a joke. Do you think if you met Plato, you would have called him a genius? If you met Socrates, would you have called him a genius?" says Ved Metha, a writer who won the award in 1982.

The disdain some winners have for the title "genius" is both a mix of humility and a sense that the true geniuses are far ahead of their time.

"When people are doing something that's really innovative, it's not recognized for a long time," says former fellow Richard A Muller, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. "Most people think you're just wasting your time."

Unfathomable insight

To call oneself a genius seems like a boast. It invites unflattering comparisons to other canonic geniuses and endless opportunities for people to point out your failings.

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Genius Class of 2011

• Jad Abumrad - New York radio producer, co-host of Radiolab, featuring "audio explorations" of philosophical and scientific issues
• Yukiko Yamashita - developmental biologist at the University of Michigan exploring the biochemical, structural, and molecular genetic mechanisms that regulate stem cell division
• Shwetak Patel - Seattle-based technologist inventing low-cost sensor systems to enable users to track household energy consumption
• A E Stallings - Poet and translator mining the classical world and traditional poetic techniques to explore contemporary life
• And 18 others...

• Meet the 2011 Fellows - MacArthur Foundation

"It's the irony between someone getting a grant for being a genius in the popular mind and the fact that any human being is likely to have done a number of stupid things," says Dirk Obbink, a professor at the University of Oxford and 2001 fellow.

Regardless of how uncomfortable it may make people, "genius" is still an often-used term.

"When people use the word 'genius,' it comes out of a mostly good place," says David Shenk, author of The Genius In All Of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent, and IQ.

"They're really just admiring the tremendous and almost unfathomable insight or ability or aesthetic, or whatever other skill that someone else has that seems so far removed from their own ability."

The word does, however, have a slightly dangerous connotation.

"A lot of people use the word genius as a way to say these people were born geniuses, they have this amazing stuff inside and aren't they lucky," he says. "That's really far from where greatness comes from."

Director Julie Taymor received a "genius" grant in 1991

This tendency to conflate "genius" with "gifted" can be especially dangerous for children, who have yet to learn lessons about failure and resilience.

Calling child prodigies "geniuses" may be very damaging. "These people end up not taking risks any more, they end up sticking to what they're good at and what people are praising them for," says Mr Shenk.

"The real path to being extraordinary is risk taking and a willingness to fail. A lot of kids who are labelled prodigies early on end up being mediocre or worse," he says.

The freedom factor

For successful adults, being called a genius doesn't have the same dangerous effect - in part because they know that hard work, not lofty titles, are the key to greatness.

"In my family, it became sort of a family joke, because I don't exactly pass for a genius in my family and life," says Robert Darnton, history professor, director of the Harvard University library, and former MacArthur fellow. "I don't think my colleagues took it too seriously."

Historian Henry Louis Gates was one of the first recipients of a MacArthur fellowship

More important than the mantle of "genius", he says, was the ability to turn down teaching work to focus on his research.

"The idea of taking people of promise and allowing them to take risks is a rather good idea," he says. "In my life, it made a tremendous difference."

Giving people the freedom and security to try new things, rather than declaring them brilliant, is one of the best ways to incubate genius-like ideas and execution, says Mr Shenk.

Still, calling these men and women geniuses may have some positive effects.

"Society at large doesn't really understand the intricacies of whale echo-location or French medieval history," says Charles Bigelow, a type historian, professor, and designer who received the award in 1982.

Labelling such work the output of geniuses, however, gives the public a reason to take note. "It gives our society a way to label it, to graph it and understand it," he says. "It's a useful term - maybe not for the fellows, but for society."

Plus, as far as name-calling goes, you could do a lot worse.

"It enhances one's credibility," says Billie Jean Young, the artist in residence at Judson college and a 1991 recipient.

"You probably already thought you were pretty smart, but it's nice to have it affirmed."

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The 365-Day Countdown to Global Truce Begins!

Happy Peace Day!

Today, we begin the 365-day countdown towards Global Truce 2012 - the biggest call for peace the world has ever seen. I’m at the O2 Arena where we will be celebrating Peace Day 2011 with a concert to officially launch the countdown.

It’s amazing to think that all around the world people will be commemorating Peace Day. And it's everyone's legacy. We want to tell individuals that the power to change the world lies in their hands - I don't believe in cynicism, in apathy; it doesn't get you anywhere - cynicism kills potential and possibility. And if we're not fighting for a better world, what's the point?

For Peace Day 2012, we are inviting all sectors of society to observe a day of Global Truce – individuals in every country, at home, in schools, in the workplace, in their local communities, and those engaged in armed conflict on the international stage. Everyone has a role to play. We want Global Truce 2012 to be the largest reduction in global violence in recorded history, both domestically and internationally.

The Global Truce 2012 campaign will only work if the people get behind it – if you get behind it. Please join the campaign via our website and ask as many people as you can to do the same.

Individuals can make a difference. By working together there will be Peace One Day.

In peace,

Jeremy

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A real Good Samaritan

One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he tells the story to inspire troubled young people to help deal with their disrupted lives.

The police called at my student hovel early evening, but I didn't answer as I thought they'd come to evict me. I hadn't paid my rent in months.

But then I got to thinking: my mum hadn't been too good and what if it was something about her?

We had no phone in the hovel and mobiles hadn't been invented yet, so I had to nip down the phone box.

I rang home to Leeds to find my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said.

I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was going as far as Peterborough, but I would miss the connecting Leeds train by twenty minutes.

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To this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail”

I bought a ticket home and got on anyway. I was a struggling student and didn't have the money for a taxi the whole way, but I had a screwdriver in my pocket and my bunch of skeleton keys.

I was so desperate to get home that I planned to nick a car in Peterborough, hitch hike, steal some money, something, anything. I just knew from my dad's tone of voice that my mother was going to die that night and I intended to get home if it killed me.

"Tickets, please," I heard, as I stared blankly out of the window at the passing darkness. I fumbled for my ticket and gave it to the guard when he approached. He stamped it, but then just stood there looking at me. I'd been crying, had red eyes and must have looked a fright.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Course I'm okay," I said. "Why wouldn't I be? And what's it got to do with you in any case?"

"You look awful," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"

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FIND OUT MORE

• The Good Conductor is on BBC Radio 4 at 20.45 GMT on Wednesday 29 December

"You could get lost and mind your own business," I said. "That'd be a big help." I wasn't in the mood for talking.

He was only a little bloke and he must have read the danger signals in my body language and tone of voice, but he sat down opposite me anyway and continued to engage me.

"If there's a problem, I'm here to help. That's what I'm paid for."

I was a big bloke in my prime, so I thought for a second about physically sending him on his way, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate. He wasn't really doing much wrong. I was going through all the stages of grief at once: denial, anger, guilt, withdrawal, everything but acceptance. I was a bubbling cauldron of emotion and he had placed himself in my line of fire.

The only other thing I could think of to get rid of him was to tell him my story.

"Look, my mum's in hospital, dying, she won't survive the night, I'm going to miss the connection to Leeds at Peterborough, I'm not sure how I'm going to get home.

"It's tonight or never, I won't get another chance, I'm a bit upset, I don't really feel like talking, I'd be grateful if you'd leave me alone. Okay?"

"Okay," he said, finally getting up. "Sorry to hear that, son. I'll leave you alone then. Hope you make it home in time." Then he wandered off down the carriage back the way he came.

THE FIRST GOOD SAMARITAN

• Parable told by Christ in the Book of Luke
• A traveller is beaten and left for dead alongside a road
• Passers-by ignore him, but a Samaritan - who would have been regarded by Jews at the time as an enemy - stops to help

I continued to look out of the window at the dark. Ten minutes later, he was back at the side of my table. Oh no, I thought, here we go again. This time I really am going to rag him down the train.

He touched my arm. "Listen, when we get to Peterborough, shoot straight over to Platform One as quick as you like. The Leeds train'll be there."

I looked at him dumbfounded. It wasn't really registering. "Come again," I said, stupidly. "What do you mean? Is it late, or something?"

"No, it isn't late," he said, defensively, as if he really cared whether trains were late or not. "No, I've just radioed Peterborough. They're going to hold the train up for you. As soon as you get on, it goes.

"Everyone will be complaining about how late it is, but let's not worry about that on this occasion. You'll get home and that's the main thing. Good luck and God bless."

Then he was off down the train again. "Tickets, please. Any more tickets now?"

I suddenly realised what a top-class, fully-fledged doilem I was and chased him down the train. I wanted to give him all the money from my wallet, my driver's licence, my keys, but I knew he would be offended.

I caught him up and grabbed his arm. "Oh, er, I just wanted to…" I was suddenly speechless. "I, erm…"

Bernard was desperate to see his mother, Joyce

"It's okay," he said. "Not a problem." He had a warm smile on his face and true compassion in his eyes. He was a good man for its own sake and required nothing in return.

"I wish I had some way to thank you," I said. "I appreciate what you've done."

"Not a problem," he said again. "If you feel the need to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, you help them out. That will pay me back amply.

"Tell them to pay you back the same way and soon the world will be a better place."

I was at my mother's side when she died in the early hours of the morning. Even now, I can't think of her without remembering the Good Conductor on that late-night train to Peterborough and, to this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail.

My meeting with the Good Conductor changed me from a selfish, potentially violent hedonist into a decent human being, but it took time.

"I've paid him back a thousand times since then," I tell the young people I work with, "and I'll keep on doing so till the day I die. You don't owe me nothing. Nothing at all."

"And if you think you do, I'd give you the same advice the Good Conductor gave me. Pass it down the line."

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JFK's inaugural speech: Six secrets of his success

By Max Atkinson Rhetoric expert

The poetic "ask not" quotation is among the speech's most memorable lines

President John F Kennedy would have been delighted to know that his inaugural address is still remembered and admired 50 years later.

Like other great communicators - including Winston Churchill before him and Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama since then - he was someone who took word-craft very seriously indeed.

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Recipe for Success

• 1. Contrasts
• 2. Three-part lists
• 3. Contrasts combined with lists
• 4. Alliteration
• 5. Bold imagery
• 6. Audience analysis

He had delegated his aide Ted Sorensen to read all the previous presidential inaugurals, with the additional brief of trying to crack the code that had made Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address such a hit.

Fifty years on, the debate about whether he or Sorensen played the greater part in composing the speech matters less than the fact that it was a model example of how to make the most of the main rhetorical techniques and figures of speech that have been at the heart of all great speaking for more than 2,000 years. Most important among these are:

• Contrasts: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"
• Three-part lists: "Where the strong are just, and the weak secure and the peace preserved"
• Combinations of contrasts and lists (by contrasting a third item with the first two): "Not because the communists are doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right"

If the rhetorical structure of sentences is one set of building blocks in the language of public speaking, another involves simple "poetic" devices such as:

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Watch JFK's speech

• Choose highlights and read Max Atkinson's commentary

• Alliteration: "Let us go forth to lead the land we love"
• Imagery: "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans"

In general, the more use of these a speaker makes, the more applause they will get and the more likely it is that they will be recognised as a brilliant orator.

But great communicators differ as to which of these techniques they use most.

Presidents Reagan and Obama, for example, stand out as masters of anecdote and story-telling, which didn't feature at all in JFK's inaugural. Mr Obama also favours three-part lists, of which there were 29 in his 10-minute election victory speech in Chicago.

Stark warning

Kennedy, however, used very few in his inaugural address. For him, contrasts were the preferred weapon, coming as they did at a rate of about one every 39 seconds in this particular speech. Some were applauded and some have survived among the best-remembered lines.

He began with three consecutive contrasts:

• "We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom"
• "Symbolizing an end as well as a beginning"
• "Signifying renewal as well as change"

From the 20 or so he used, other widely quoted contrasts, all of which were applauded, include:

• "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich"
• "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate"
• "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man"

The speech also bristled with imagery, starting with a stark warning about the way the world has changed because "man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life."

People of the developing world were "struggling to break the bonds of mass misery."

Ronald Reagan was a master of anecdote

JFK vowed to "assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty" and that "this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house."

He sought to "begin anew the quest for peace before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity", hoped that "a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion" and issued a "call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle."

First inaugural designed for the media?

Impressive though the rhetoric and imagery may have been, what really made the speech memorable was that it was the first inaugural address by a US president to follow the first rule of speech-preparation: analyse your audience - or, to be more precise at a time when mass access to television was in its infancy, analyse your audiences.

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The Gettysburg great

Lincoln's short Gettysburg address had caught JFK's eye. Here is a sample of the speech:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."

In the most famous fictional speech of all time, Mark Antony had shown sensitivity to his different audiences in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by asking his "Friends, Romans, countrymen" to lend him their ears. But Kennedy had many more audiences in mind than those who happened to be in Washington that day.

His countrymen certainly weren't left out, appearing as they did in the opening and towards the end with his most famous contrast of all: "Ask not..." But he knew, perhaps better than any previous US president, that local Americans were no longer the only audience that mattered. The age of a truly global mass media had dawned, which meant that what he said would be seen, heard or reported everywhere in the world.

At the height of the Cold War, Kennedy also had a foreign policy agenda that he wanted to be heard everywhere in the world. So the different segments of the speech were specifically targeted at a series of different audiences:

• "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill"
• "To those new nations whom we welcome to the ranks of the free"
• "To those in the huts and villages of half the globe"
• "To our sister republics south of the border"
• "To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations"
• "Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary"

The following day, there was nothing on the front pages of two leading US newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post to suggest that the countrymen in his audience had been particularly impressed by the speech - neither of them referred to any of the lines above that have become so famous.

The fact that so much of the speech is still remembered around the world 50 years later is a measure of Kennedy's success in knowing exactly what he wanted to say, how best to say it and, perhaps most important of all, to whom he should say it.

Dr Max Atkinson is the author of Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Public Speaking and Presentation and Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy

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The business of innovation: Steven Johnson

By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News

Steven Johnson: "The lone genius is the exception rather than the rule."

Standing on the station platform, waiting for the Philadelphia train one night in the summer of 1902, Willis Carrier was about to have his 'eureka moment'.

As the fog rolled in across the track, he suddenly realised how he could fix the nascent air-cooling system he'd been working on, using water as a condensing surface.

This sudden moment of inspiration led to the invention of modern air-conditioning, a fortune for its inventor, and the foundation of a multi-billion dollar company.

The lone genius, beavering away in the seclusion of his lab is how most of us imagine the great moments of innovation have come into being. But is this really the whole story?

Not entirely, according to author Steven Johnson. He believes Willis Carrier is very much the exception rather than the rule.

"It's not that the individuals disappear in this, it's just that they need to be part of something larger than themselves to be able to do the work that they do."

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• Going to work with the crowd

This is not completely new ground for Mr Johnson. He has written seven books on how science, technology and human experience interact, including the best-selling Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.

He is the co-founder of three websites - the now defunct Feed magazine, Plastic.com and his current project: hyperlocal aggregator outside.in. He also has nearly 1.5m followers on social media site Twitter.

Isolation v collaboration

His latest book, Where good ideas come from: The natural history of innovation, is his attempt to explain the phenomenon of inspiration.

"[Good ideas] come from crowds, they come from networks. You know we have this clichéd idea of the lone genius having the eureka moment.

Slow hunch: John Snow, who discovered how cholera was spread, had no 'Eureka' moment

"But in fact when you go back and you look at the history of innovation it turns out that so often there is this quiet collaborative process that goes on, either in people building on other peoples' ideas, but also in borrowing ideas, or tools or approaches to problems.

"The ultimate idea comes from this remixing of various different components. There still are smart people and there still are people that have moments where they see the world differently in a flash.

"But for the most part it's a slower and more networked process than we give them credit for."

The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg's printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.

He had the idea for the book while writing The Ghost Map, about the cholera epidemic of 1854 in London, and the subsequent discovery of the origins of the disease. The story goes that a man named John Snow had had the idea to map cases of the disease, and using that map pinpointed the source of the outbreak - a water pump.

As he researched the story he realised that it simply wasn't true - that Snow had had the idea for some time before this and that he also had had a collaborator, a vicar named Henry Whitehead who was central to the investigation. This is what Mr Johnson calls the 'slow hunch'.

"I realised there was this theory about innovation, and the spaces that made innovation possible, that was lurking in the background of that story"

Innovation space

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You can't invent a microwave oven in 1650, it's just beyond the bounds of possibility. ”

End Quote Steven Johnson Author

The book starts with a young Charles Darwin on a sun-drenched tropical beach in the Keeling Islands, as he formulates his theory on the creation of these coral islands - not simply pushed up by volcanic forces, but the result of the work of millions and millions of tiny organisms - the coral itself.

He is at the beginning of the 'slow hunch' that would result decades later in his theory of evolution. The coral reef also provides Mr Johnson with his analogy for the perfect innovation environment - a hugely diverse eco-system where despite the constant competition for resources, existence is dependent on collaboration.

This could be a city, a coffeehouse, an environment where ideas come into contact with each other - as Mr Johnson puts it, a liquid network.

"You know I think that there are two [perfect reefs] that really stand out. Clearly the web itself has been an amazing reef. Just the speed with which it's transformed itself over the last 15 years is just amazing.

"And so much of that is because it's wonderfully set up for other people to build on top of other people's ideas. In many cases without asking for permission.

"But I think that the other thing I want the book to be a reminder of is how much important innovation both in the commercial space and the private space comes out of the university system.

Charles Darwin, like most great thinkers, had a lot of hobbies

Universities, Mr Johnson argues, have in many ways exceeded the market in terms of the pace with which they generate ideas - despite the lack of the 'direct reward' found in the commercial arena.

"I think there's this abiding belief that markets drive innovation, corporations drive innovation, entrepreneurs driven by financial reward drive innovation, and while that's certainly true in many cases there's also this very rich long history of important world-changing ideas coming out of the more or less intellectual commons of the universities.

"The internet was not commercially useful to most ordinary consumers for 30 years really. It was in a sense a 30-year-hunch. It was providing other services in that time but in terms of the ordinary consumer and the payoff for investment it took a long time.

One of the other great preoccupations of the book is the concept of the 'adjacent possible', a phrase coined by the scientist Stuart Kaufman. In essence it means that invention is dependent on the right circumstances - as in a chess game, where there are a finite set of moves available at any given time.

"You can't invent a microwave oven in 1650, it's just beyond the bounds of possibility. There are too many intermediate steps on the way to something that complex.

"So the trick is to find the points of possibility in your own particular place and own particular space. And not jump too far ahead. It's kind of an argument for small modular steps using the ingredients available to you and not trying to reinvent everything.

Building your reef

Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit, but built on the ideas of others

So what should companies be doing to foster innovation in their workforces? Mr Johnson argues that creativity is a continuous process.

"Part of the problem is that one day a year they have a corporate retreat and they all go into the country, and they do brainstorming sessions and trustfalls and then they go back to work.

"But equally you don't want to have a non-stop creative process where nothing gets done.

"Corporations have an opportunity to cultivate hunches and hobbies and the sideprojects of their employees because those are such great generators of ideas."

Google is one company that has famously capitalised on giving space for workers to innovate, with its 20% time system. Employees are required to spend 20% of their time working on their own pet projects.

According to the company, about 50% of new features and products have resulted from it, including Adsense, Google suggest and social network Orkut.

"One of the lessons I've learned is that so many of these great innovators, Darwin is a great example of this, one shared characteristic they all seem to have is a lot of hobbies."

"I mean the web was a hobby for Tim Berners Lee, that's one of the wonderful things about it, it was a side project at his job at Cern."

Still from promotional YouTube clip mapping the ideas in the book

Mr Johnson's open, collaborative environment is the antithesis of the closed rooms of corporate Research & Development and the increasingly litigious world of the intellectual property lawyer. For some companies betting on the slow hunch that may pay off in 30 years may seem a risk too far.

But for those who yearn to find the spark within ourselves, Mr Johnson rounds off the book with this advice:

"Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down; but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies, frequent coffee houses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent."

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