Friday, August 26, 2011

I am not a number...I am an "ideator"

As part of the NSF "Assembling, Visualising and Analysing the Tree of Life" Ideas Lab that I took part in earlier this week I had an assessment of my "problem solving style" carried out using a service called FourSight. I'm hugely sceptical of attempts to classify people (I'm unique, aren't I?), but I took the test and turns out am an "Ideator". FourSight's web site defines an Ideator as one who:

  • Likes to look at the big picture
  • Enjoys toying with ideas and possibilities
  • Likes to stretch his or her imagination
  • Enjoys thinking in more global and abstract terms
  • Takes an intuitive approach to innovation
  • May overlook details

Details schmetails, it's the big picture folks!

Ideators are:

  • Playful
  • Imaginative
  • Social
  • Adaptable
  • Flexible
  • Adventurous
  • Independent

Liking this. OK, how do you care for ideators? We need:

  • Room to be playful
  • Constant stimulation
  • Variety and change
  • The big picture

That's right, leave us alone to think our great thoughts. Result! Then there's this totally superfluous category "Ideators annoy others by...".

  • Drawing attention to themselves
  • Being impatient when others don’t get their ideas
  • Offering ideas that are too off-the-wall
  • Being too abstract
  • Not sticking to one idea

Utter, utter, nonsense. Look at my blog, it's full of ideas that have been developed fully... oh, wait. And, maybe the blog thing is a bit attention seeking, and I guess saying "it sucks" is a tad impatient, and saying to a crowd of taxonomists "haven't we basically found every species bigger than my coffee cup?" is a little off-the-wall.

Good job these psychometric thingies are clearly bogus.