Genius - the Marmite years

August 2007

Genius is something which is difficult to define but usually easy to recognise. It comes in two forms.

There is the sort of genius which applies to footballers like Zinedine Zidane and international concert artists such as Martha Argerich who are so skilful that the rest of us can only look on in wonder.

Then there are the people who are creative beyond the normal order of things - Mozart and Beethoven who gave us incredible music, Michelangelo who brought painting and sculpture to new heights and Leoonardo da Vinci who was amazingly creative in both the arts and the sciences; we have the likes of Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking who have changed our view of how the world works, or at least would have changed it if we could understand what they said.

And then there is Thomas Edison, the great American inventor who it turns out was right all along.

For all is not as we thought. It turns out that geniuses are not born, but are made. The newly published ‘Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance' tells us to forget the idea that genius is innate. Thomas Edison, when asked to define genius said that it was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. It seems that he was right or, more accurately, according to the data now available, 1% inspiration, 29% good instruction and encouragement and 70% perspiration.

The common factor in people whom we would call geniuses is that, certainly, they were reasonably intelligent (although not way off the scale), but they have almost always had both very supportive environments and teachers. The one thing they have all had in common, however, is that they have made an incredible investment of effort. They generally put in about five times as much time and effort to become great, as an accomplished amateur does to become competent.

And so the question turns to why anyone would want to put in that amount of effort. It could be that they just happen to find their chosen subject so fascinating that they cannot leave it alone. Or it could be that they are obsessive. Or both. Either way, we seem to be seeing someone who is not normal. But then we always knew that some of the greatest geniuses were rather strange people. What it means, though, is that the rest of us are not geniuses because we can't be bothered to make the effort. I find that rather encouraging.

There is currently a show on Radio 4 called ‘Genius', hosted by the comedian Dave Gorman. It takes suggestions from the audience as to what would be a genius idea. The ideas are of a high standard, such as:

             'How about talking traffic lights to help blind motorists?'

My genius thought is that, to promote Marmite sales among a younger demoraphic, perhaps Marmite in its present form should be withdrawn and replaced instead with jars of Marmite mousse - ‘MarmiteLite' - for easier spreading on bread. Then for the European marketwe could have Marmite blended with extra virgin olive oil - ‘VirginMite' - and Marmite mixed with tomato sauce to put on burgers, for sale through American food outlets - ‘DinerMite'. For promoting it in Australia we could just change its name to ‘G'dayMite'.

And then there's my favourite from the programme itself -

‘I think they should make parking meters into gambling machines. If every now and then one of the meters gave a jackpot, everyone would want to use them. Then traffic wardens could be employed on other, more motorist-friendly, duties and the meters would make more money because people would voluntarily put money in them whether they were parking or not.'

Now that's genius!