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What Is Creative? - Part 8

When the tire was applied to bicycles, which had been invented eighteen years before, the bicycle changed its shape and became a world-wide fad. Until then, bicycles had been trick machines, with one wheel over 4 feet high and a very small wheel in the rear. But with the possibilities in the pneumatic tire, inventive minds began to move quickly:

They equalized the diameters of the wheels; devised a chain-and-sprocket mechanism to put the driving force into the rear wheel, and, by a proper ratio of diameters and sprockets, reduced the rider's effort. These things were not, of themselves, new. Gearing was an­cient. Rear-wheel drive had been used on locomotives. The really new idea was that of making contact with the earth's surface by means of the new substance of rubber. And the bicycle, in America, became a twenty-year fad. Before the fad had run its course, it had completely changed our private and industrial outlook. Here are some of the results of that particular combination of ideas:

Women changed to shorter skirts—from the cumbersome dust-gathering dress of that late Victorian era.

Repair shops sprang up all over the country. But no shop could be expected to carry different pedals, handle bars, sprockets, etc. for the different makes of bicycles, so the idea that machined parts must be standardized and interchangeable began to spread.

Workers in small-town machine shops, small bicycle factories, even tiny village repair shops learned skills and techniques which would make the more complex adjustments on still-to-come auto­mobile motors and transmissions easier. (Two such small-town bi­cycle mechanics later used their skills to invent the airplane!)

Steel formulas had to be improved because new steels were needed for a light machine that would stand hard usage. New steel alloys for durable moving parts came in with the bicycle.

Sheet steel and steel die presses were needed for mudguards and chain housings. Small accessories like lamps, bells, brakes, tool kits, and pumps helped spur new arts in gadgetry. And the movement to get better roads on which people could ride their bikes advanced to the point where the Massachusetts Institute of Technology intro­duced a course in road engineering. This movement gained enough momentum to carry on when the mass production of motor cars made it a necessity.*

Thus one simple combination of ideas was enough to completely change dozens of industrial fates through the multiplying effects of its benefits. Is it any wonder then that there should be such a growing realization of the power of ideas? And such a demand for new and different ideas to meet the compounding problems that business, humanity, and the world itself all face today? With this realization of the power and need of ideas has come the growing interest in a new art: that of deliberate creativity—the utilization of the principles, methods, and techniques we learn from studying highly creative people to try to develop new ideas almost "to order."

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