"Insisting on the scientist-type versus artist-type distinction reflects the sort of dense bureaucratic worldview in which happiness hinges on everyones's keeping his three ring binder neat."

Watching my creative children navigate our school sytem made this statement personally resonant.

David Gelernter's Machine beauty elegantly distills an aesthetic formula: Elegance = Power + Simplicity...an equation that transcends products and machines, and requires an alchemical blend of art and science.

Microsoft beat Apple because of cuteness... a sad but convincing argument exposing our testosterone laced culture whose discomfort with beauty can stifle creativity.

Read Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind and after hitting the chapter on Men, Women and Empathy as well as references to to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on creativity and the advantages of the androgynous mind, and you should start to really wonder about the structure of our social and educational foundations.

This is a very thoughtful book that for over ten years I have gone back to over and over, and it is loaded with scribbles and note cards...if you develop products or services it should be on your desk.  Order it for your team, your bosses, and partners - Machine Beauty: Elegance And The Heart Of Technology.