Hacker Attitude

Hacker is a word that gets hijacked too often, casually tossed out as an adjective – not always but usually pejorative – to describe someone capable of cracking the code of a computer system and having their way with it. Editor of the Jargon File, Eric Steve Raymond, would substitute the label “cracker” for that subset of the code-literate community. “Hackers build things,” he says, “crackers break them.”

Hackers are problem solvers. They get juice from understanding a problem and sorting out a solution. Their motivation to meet challenges is internal. Occasional bragging rights aside, hackers do what they do because it’s extremely satisfying to solve puzzles and fix the up-until-now unfixable. The pleasure derived is both intellectual and practical.

You can’t deny the good deeds performed by authentic hackers who in fact built the internet (and Unix and Usenet) and who continue, quietly and behind the scenes, to monitor the World Wide Web so it functions for everyone else.

But you don’t have to be a geek to be a hacker. Being a hacker is a mind-set.

“There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things,“ says Raymond, “you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art.”

In his treatise, How to Become a Hacker, Raymond describes the fundamentals of a hacker attitude. It caught our attention because we think these very same principles apply to being innovative.

The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Innovation, no matter what field you’re in, happens because you’d rather solve a problem than complain about it. If you happen to find these problems fascinating and intriguing, well, then it won’t even feel like hard work.

No Problem should ever have to be solved twice.
We’re sticklers for clarifying the problem before we start generating ideas. It’s easy to jump to solutions, but sometimes that means you solve the wrong problem. A little bit of rigor on the front end of a problem solving process means you tackle the right and real problem, so you only have to do it once.

Boredom and drudgery are evil.

The best way to lose touch with innovation is to become too repetitive. Innovation requires constant and vigilant creativity. It may not be broken enough to fix, but there’s no reason not to tweak it and cut boredom off at the pass.

Freedom is good.
There are certain moments in the innovation process where anything goes. Following every train of thought that comes to you – especially the random ones – can lead to novel thinking. But first you have to be free-thinking, which means quieting your inner censor and feeling open enough to play with, and share freely, new – and sometimes raw – ideas and concepts.

Attitude is no substitute for competence.
So you’re open-minded and you see problems as intriguing opportunities, that’s a start. But then you have to do the work. Innovators are always at it, seeking to understand a problem more
deeply, puzzling at how an unworkable idea might become workable, increasing their skill set so that they are better problem solvers and can better execute their ideas.

Hackers are the innovators of the Internet, the MacGyvers of the domain of computer programming and information networking. How about your field, who are the innovators? Who’s got that relentless, curious, problem-solving attitude? Is it you? Are you a hacker?


Know Further: Learn more about the hacker world. Read How to Become a Hacker. Subscribe to Lifehacker. Read what essayist Paul Graham has to say about great hackers.

Playing around, Arsing about

Last summer, I had occasion to spend a day at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Initially I was somewhat reluctant about the excursion, but once I got there, all I wanted to do was play. The sheer volume of dolls and toys that are housed in this museum is stunning (every model of Barbie and GI Joe ever made, for instance) and the interactive activities – things you can get in, try, touch, and fiddle with – throughout every exhibit of the museum, are as intriguing for adults as for children (ahem).

The walls of the museum are covered with quotations extolling the value of play. They’re probably posted to remind the adults who find their way into the museum that play isn’t just for kids.

Experts will tell you that engaging in play is good for your health, that play can reduce stress, and that working in a playful way can increase the productive output of a team. There’s research that shows that the brains of rats living in a cage with toys and friends thrive, growing larger than those caged just with friends. (The brains of rats living without friends and toys actually decreased in size.) Laughing and playing are like pilates for the brain, strengthening it at the core and restoring balance.

There are books about the science of play, and books about play as a key to innovation. There’s even an institute for corporate play, and Stanford University even offers an engineering class in play and innovation.

Maybe creativity is just the adult word for play. Think about it: creativity involves testing, trying, imagining, pretending, expressing, making things up – everything that is part of a child’s world of play. When we use our creativity to solve a problem, we’re actually playing with the problem, playing with language and perspective, toying with possible solutions.

The problem is most adults equate play with silliness; we tend to think of work and play in polarized terms. But what if we viewed them as synonymous? The famous educator Maria Montessori said, “Play is the work of the child.” Couldn’t it be that work is the play of adults?

One of the quotes on the museum wall, by Greek philospher Plato, says it best: "Life must be lived as play."

Know Further: If you want more play, watch IDEO's Tim Brown on TED.

Don't Tell, Ask

Succeeding in the current business climate may have little to do with what you know, and much more to do with your ability to find out what you don’t know. In other words, asking questions may be one of the best tools for innovation.

The Harvard Business Review posed the question, "how do innovators think?" to two business school professors, Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregerson of INSEAD, who together conducted a 6-year survey of over 3000 creative executives to try to explain how the “innovator’s DNA” works.

Gregerson summarized all the skills necessary in one word: inquisitiveness. High on Dyer’s list was questioning: “an ability to ask what if, why and why not questions that challenge the status quo and open up the bigger picture.”

This means that the standard discipline-based approach to business school - with singularly focused classes in finance, accounting and marketing - is growing obsolete. According to the New York Times, some of the most prestigious business schools are crafting a more multi-disciplinary, holistic and liberal arts approach to business school.

For instance, Yale University has added a “problem framing” course to help students test assumptions and redefine problems. The Rotman School of Management in Toronto is teaching the fundamentals of integrative thinking. The Graduate Business school at Stanford University now requires first-year students to take a course in critical and analytical thinking.

Creating an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions is key. Professor Dyer says most people are too careful about asking questions, “for fear of looking stupid, or because they know the organization won’t value it.” This fear shuts down the overall critical thinking quotient, and closes doors that might otherwise have been open to new ideas and solutions.

And the best way to create a climate where people dare to ask questions and feel valued for their curiosity and inquisitiveness? Keep asking.


Know Further: Asking for more on the subject? Try Asking the Right Questions, by M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley.

Turning Negatives into Positives

Kia, a car company, has taken an interesting approach to building up traffic to its new website shape your soul. Working with a fascinating agency called Curb, they arranged to have the website address spray cleaned into dirty streets. In essence, they turned grime into a new medium.

Turning celebrity problems into a business for the masses

Being photographed by the paparazzi was once an (often dubious) honour bestowed only on the rich and famous, but today a new service is bringing the possibility to every consumer.

So starts a story over at Unusual Business Ideas That Work (one of our favourite sites). You can read the whole story by clicking on the link above. However, for those of you too busy to click, we can summarise it as follows:

These guys will follow you around - for a fee - and snap candid pictures of you.

On the face of it, this is a very unlikely business indeed. But, in fact, this is just tapping into the same desire that leads people to buy fake goods. We all know the Fendi handbag, for 10 Euros, won't last as long, or be as good as the real thing, but it doesn't matter.

So, what other 'problems' do celebrities suffer from, that might actually provide good business opportunities?