Barb Kachelski, CAE
Plato said Necessity is the mother of Invention, and I'm sure he's right. But after a visit to the Hong Kong Art Museum's pottery exhibit, I've concluded Invention has at least three cousins born to Necessity's three "sisters."
The art museum trip was a fun excursion I took after staffing the CUES booth at the World Council of Credit Unions' annual meeting last summer. My two boys and I learned about innovations in pottery due to a knowledgeable docent with a lovely British accent.
Innovation was in every display case, along with her relatives. Here are some I saw at this amazing family reunion.
Necessity—The First Sister. Hundreds of years B.C. someone made a small, gray pot that resides in the exhibit. It isn't beautiful, it isn't large, but it is extremely significant. It is the earliest container turned on a wheel rather than produced using the coil method. Since a potter working on a primitive wheel could make pots 10 times faster than one hand making coils, this innovation resulted in increased productivity and became widespread.
Beauty—The Second Sister. Natural glazes come in colors of green, cream and gold/rust. Artisans could make a perfectly functional pot in a solid color. But in times of peace and prosperity, they experimented for beauty's sake. (As commerce developed, they no doubt prized beauty for its higher selling price!) Subsequent developments such as scoring the clay, painted
designs and more reflect this impulse toward variations due to the pleasure it brings the user.
Service—The Third Sister. Persians had an element that made the rare color blue, and provided it to the Chinese for and specified the artwork they wanted to be made into vases and other objects. (Since the Chinese held the secret to making porcelain for many years, Persians couldn't make their own blue pottery.) The Chinese did not like the busier style of painting made for Persian customers, so they made it for export only. The Chinese potters did like the blue color, and incorporated it into their own designs. Doing what the customer wanted resulted in valuable knowledge for the Chinese artists.
Surprise—The Fourth Sister. One striking section of pottery showed a glazing technique that can't be controlled. The glaze itself created surprise, since varying hues of blue and purple resulted from the glaze settling on its own during firing. To me the "out of control" element of this type of pottery is similar to Web 2.0. Giving up the illusion of control resulted in some pottery that went to the dump and some that is priceless.
It's an interesting family tree, and I am sure following this train of thought will result in my meeting more relatives. Have you encountered other relatives of Invention? I hope you'll introduce me.
Barb Kachelski, CAE, is SVP/chief operating officer for CUES and a former newspaper reporter.
The 2009 World Credit Union Conference will be held in Barcelona, Spain, July 26-29, just after CUES' DLI: Strategic Planning, also in Barcelona at the University of Navarra's IESE Business School.
