The good craftsman and innovation

The Craftsman by Richard Sennett

I'm just finishing this book on craft and craftsmen by Richard Sennett. It was an interesting read, possibly with a few too many confusing metaphors, but lots of fascinating anecdotes and useful thoughts. So I'm going to blog a dog eared page. Around p.262 the author writes about the 20th century philosopher Wittgenstein and his obsession with perfecting the architecture of his sister's house. At one point he had just about finished it all when he decided the ceiling of the drawing room needed to be raised by an inch. Anyway Sennett uses this as a jumping off point to write about how to manage obsession.



Paraphrased...

• The good craftsman understands the importance of the sketch - that is, not knowing quite what you are about when you begin.


• The good craftsman places positive value on contingency and contraint.


• The good craftsman needs to avoid pursuing a problem relentlessly to the point that it becomes perfectly self-contained.


• The good craftsman avoids perfectionism that can degrade into a self-conscious demonstration - at this point the maker is bent on showing more what he or she can do than what the object does.


• The good craftsman learns when it is time to stop. Further work is likely to degrade.

I liked that. And those five points certainly apply to our prototyping and innovation work on the web at the BBC, indeed I've got some more notes that I need to write up about this sometime. But is what I do a craft? I don't know. And anyway what is it that I do exactly with the internet and technology? Produce, manage, build, innovate, design, code, craft?