0408 | Keith Sawyer

Dr. Keith Sawyer is the author of the new book Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity.

He is one of the world’s leading scientific experts on creativity and innovation. In his first job after graduating from MIT, he designed videogames for Atari. He then worked for 6 years as a management consultant in Boston and New York, advising large corporations on the strategic use of information technology. He’s been a jazz pianist for over 30 years, and performed with several improv theater groups in Chicago, as part of his research into jazz and improvisational theater. He currently serves as a professor of education, psychology, and business at Washington University in St. Louis. In this interview, we talk about the innovation process, the research on personal creativity and the entrepreneurial pivot.