Although it's got all sorts of things I disagree with, a decent overview of, "can we nail down creativity more specifically than just 'flash of inspiration'?", and in particular how it ties in with "normal" problem solving, is Margaret Boden's book: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Mind-Myths-Mechanisms/dp/0415...
Cosmic ray radiation affects computers all the time.
Sometimes creativity is not so fancy or easy to see. I think the author is talking about the fancy.
Or
A good idea and $2 will get you a cup of coffee, a good idea and great execution will make you rich, famous, or whatever else it is you want.
I sort of get the feeling that this article was indirectly referring to his involvement in the very creative, but highly politicized "Policy Analysis Market" which was a DARPA sponsored prediction market that might have included trading on topics such "a missile attack by North Korea" or "the overthrow of the king of Jordan."
Given how that went down, this article makes much more sense.
Details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market
(Both are worth reading regularly.)
So it goes with the word creative. No longer will we judge an artist to be creative by considering only the impression their work makes on the mind, without reference to the price of their work. Instead it will refer to the ability to generate unexpected profits with a limited set of resources by "delighting" the customer.
Exit leadership, enter creativity.
This is true, but it's important to understand that whole categories of employment actually discourage and even forbid employees from adapting their own workflows to be more productive. Instead their workflows are imposed, often haphazardly or arbitrarily, from above - and often from people who have never actually performed the work they're managing. Workers who are denied any ownership of their own work are all but guaranteed to be cynical and unproductive.
According to Meredith Belbin - "NOBODY'S PERFECT - BUT A TEAM CAN BE" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Belbin
Although on the surface one person gets all the glory, it takes alot of persons to be successful.
I disagree. The only way to arrive at a workable revolutionary idea is to iterate aggressively until you hit on a model that works.