312 Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? How often do you hear the phrase, “Its down to tradeoffs,” or “It’s a matter of priorities’, or even “You can't have your cake and eat it?” These stock statements misunderstand the infinitely complex nature of creativity and problem solving. Let us take a concrete example: the car. My first car was a Volkswagen Polo. It was a great little car, quite nippy, cassette-radio, and four seats. The most recent Polo has antilock brakes, airbags, NCAP 5-star crash resistance, smarter styling, and a low emission engine. Shall I go on...? The doctrine of tradeoffs says I would have to give up something to gain these new features. But, I have not. The newer Polo is cheaper in real terms than my original, as well as being better designed. Problems always have at least two dimensions of freedom. We can trade one feature for another or we can innovate to both have our cake and eat it! We are never constrained to simple on-the-one-hand, on-the- other-hand type decisions. Creativity is unconstrained by linear rules and tradeoffs. Process versus Creativity How many times have you heard the words, “We must create a process for this!” In its place, process is good; It makes things consistent, repeatable and predictable. You can follow a process by rote without error. Processes are also easy to document and communicate because they are symbolic. But process is limited. It is, after all, a set of prescribed rules for solving a particular problem — and, because of this, it falls into the same trap. A process cannot solve a problem that requires creative thought or logic more complex than the logic limit. Logical processes are useful for tracking lists. I am reassured when I get on an airplane and know the pilot has been through a preflight checklist. I would not want to fly in an airplane where the pilot announced he was taking a creative approach to the preflight check. Process is a perfect tool for organizing the steps around being creative, bu