Letting dead people do your work

Last night I watched a video of a presentation called “Idea + Square = Origami,” by Robert Lang. Lang said one thing that made the audience laugh, but jumped out at me:

The secret to productivity in so many fields, including origami, is letting dead people do your work for you.

Of course, hearing something like this, your immediate reaction may be something along the lines of, “Right. Are we talking about an army of zombies, or what?”

But Lang’s point makes perfect sense when you look at it a bit longer, as he went on to explain:

Because what you can do is take your problem and turn it into a problem someone else has solved, and use their solutions.

Lang was speaking specifically about two things: How origami artists have taken ideas from mathematics and applied them to their art, and how scientists have taken ideas from origami and applied them to problems they were facing.

Taking ideas from one area and applying them to another is nothing new.

But Lang took this old idea and gave it a bit of what Andy Nulman calls “Pow!” He surprises us by expressing the old idea in a way that makes us go “What?” Then, after a moment, we say, “Oh, yeah! I get it!”  The idea of dead people doing work is nonsensical when taken at face value, so we dig in to what Lang said to figure out what his point really is.

When you can engage your audience’s minds on that level, with a bit of a puzzle and a touch of humor, your point has a better chance of being understood and remembered.

Your turn: When was the last time something you heard or read caught your attention like that?

Comments

[Andy Nulman]

Roy--
Comparing me to Robert Lang is very high praise indeed. Whatever did I do to deserve it? Thanks for brightening my day...and for not editing this comment.