Keynote speaker and social commentator Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers, Blink and The Tipping Point) whose gift for articulating fresh ideas has influenced a generation of business leaders, was present at iSOFT‘s Ideaworks for Healthcare 09. Mr Gladwell opened the discussion by addressing whether we are at healthcare’s ‘Tipping Point’ and how to accelerate a new era of innovation in healthcare. He gave an interesting talk on two types of creativity, inspired by a book by David Galenson on Cezanne and Picasso.

Galenson writes that Picasso, a conceptual innovator, pretty much knew what he was going to create even before he created it, and came up with new ideas at a rapid pace early in his career. Cezanne, by contrast, was an experimental innovator, slowly rehashing and improving on a particular concept until he nailed it. Consequently, his greatest works–or at least the ones most valued by collectors–didn’t come until later in his life. (more…)