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I don’t know, Thomas Keller seems to talk a lot about technique, and he is clearly not out of ideas.

I think the way to improve something is more often to focus on and improve the basic techniques involved, which seems boring compared to coming up with new ideas about how things should be done, but in my opinion, executing the basics with finesse is how you make great things.

I dunno, I suspect Tiger Woods thinks about technique and still can come up with a fresh idea or two.

This only makes sense in Chandler’s original context: writing.

Not sure I agree with this one. In martial arts, for example, technique is everything. However, my teacher constantly reinforces the notion that the more simple or fundamental the technique, the more ways it can be applied.

Studying the technique gives rise to ideas; applying these ideas refines the technique.

In a sense, does the entire Signal vs Noise blog talk about technique and not ideas.

All of the blog posts that people love about how 37signals builds there products, design decisions, etc … could very easily be consider “technique” and not ideas.

Brazilian jiu jitsu has had the same idea for 70 years. Nothing new. Over the years the techniques have been refined. But the same underlying idea: establish a dominant position is still the core.

So true. At which point you learn a few new techniques (or refine existing ones) opening up a whole new set of possibilities/ideas…

Much as I like Raymond Chandler, I don’t agree with this assertion (as written). Discussing technique helps distill out the strengths and weaknesses in a given approach and thus opens the way to new possibilities, new - and potentially better - permutations.

( Perhaps Chandler’s assertion could be restated as: “An idea is no longer fresh when the technique central to the idea is being discussed”? )

@JF Do you think you could expound on why you chose to post this quote? I don’t really understand what it means.

Thanks!

@JF ok, well here’re my thoughts, then:

I think he’s saying that someone who holds on to what they’ve been taught isn’t going to bring something innovative to the discussion, because they are in a stagnant comfort zone and have no passion to push beyond ‘technique’.

Now, others in the comments are saying that understanding technique drives new ideas and innovation. True, one should understand the underlying theory and technique of the art they wish to master, but they must be willing and able to draw new connections between the aspects of the technique to contribute something new to the craft.

Thanks for the provocation, @JF!

My thoughts: for most svn readers, ideas aren’t worth much. Implementation is where it’s at. I’ll take someone fresh out of ideas, as long as they’re able to apply a technique to implement existing ideas in awesome ways. Being fresh out of ideas isn’t as damning as the quote proposes it to be.

It’s all in the hips anyways…everyone knows that! :D

I agree with Jim: This is one of those quotes that applies only to the field it was meant for. There are probably analogs in other fields, but I am not sure what they are.

I remember I once saw an interview with a famous singer where he was talking about how he likes to shut himself up in a quiet house for months at a time to write, and a friend of mine said, “Won’t shutting yourself off from life just lead to writing a bunch of trite songs that are all about yourself? Oh, wait, that explains a lot.”

I definitely agree with @palmsey’s comment about Thomas Keller. That said I think that truly innovative ideas come from thoroughly understand the medium you are working in and knowing when you can break with “technique” in order to innovate.

With regards to technique, maybe improving technique can lead to new ideas? I think Rodney Mullen is a prime example—if you can’t articulate it, how do you conceive it?

I don’t buy it. Mastering the basics is often the best way to create masterpieces. Mastering anything implies understanding technique so well, it’s intuitive.

The moment a man values new ideas over improvement of technique proves he lacks the discipline to be his best.

One area where I find this quote true is in filmmaking. Often I run across new filmmakers who will spend much more time figuring out how to do a trick shot or effect when they need to work on having a decent script (idea).

As we all know, ideas are a dime a dozen. Techniques are the methods of implementation of these ideas that stand or fall not on their own merits, but on the implementation itself.

David Andersen’s got it.

I think it’s interesting that most people are taking this as an attack on ideas. It isn’t. It’s an attack focusing on technique rather then ideas, which is a subtle but important difference. Techniques are the implementation of the idea, but not the idea itself. If the idea is Sorting, then the techniques are bubble, quick etc. When you’ve gone from “We need to sort the data to find the top 10 sellers” to “We’ll quick sort sold items data”, You’ve probably lost sight of the fact that they’re trying to find the top 10 sellers. See, sorting is a technique that you can you use to find them. There are other ways as well :) I believe this is what is meant when some philosophers say you must transcend technique. If we get away from sorting, and get away from a top 10 list, what are we looking for? To be honest, there isn’t enough detail in the example provided to know what the overarching idea behind why we need a top 10 seller list. The other interesting assumption that people are making is that running out of ideas is a bad thing. Sometimes it’s not. If you building software, at some point you have to run out of ideas of what it might do, so you can get to building. On the other hand if you’re a writer or other artist type, yeah, it’s a bad thing.

The moment a man starts oversimplifying everything to A or B scenarios is proof he’s not much of a thinker.

@Chuck Another field it applies to is photography.

Guy in a museum, “What an interesting dinosaur!”. Museum guard, “It’s 3 million and 2 years old”. Guy turns to him, “Impressive precision!”. Museum guard, “I know that because I was hired 2 years ago and they told me then that it was 3 million years old”.

Precision is often overrated.