The Artian is an initiative that proposes combining the skills of the arts and business
Nir Hindi, an entrepreneur from Israel, founded the company The Artian with the intention of promoting the culture and skills of art in companies. Its objective is to restore the Renaissance way of thinking in the business culture, inspired by characters like Filippo Brunelleschi, consider that entrepreneurs must combine art and business, two areas that require similar skills.
Leer en español: ¿Por qué deberías estudiar arte si quieres ser un emprendedor exitoso?
Hindi participated in the Colombia 4.0 meeting, where he presented his Keynote: Renaissance of Renaissance Thinking: Why Business Needs the Art.
Several successful entrepreneurs have studied arts.
One of the central examples of Hindi, to which he refers to demonstrate the usefulness of studies in the art for business, is Paul Graham, an entrepreneurial guru and founder of the accelerator Y Combinator, responsible for the rise of companies like Airbnb and Dropbox.
Paul Graham is a programmer, but he also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Academia di Belli Arti in Florence. He is also the author of the book Hackers and Painters. In this book, Graham affirms that programmers and artists share a set of fundamental characteristics: the use of trial and error, the presence of a 'day job' or a 'real' work with which they finance their projects and learning through imitation of the great masters.
In addition, Hindi quotes Graham, stating that both entrepreneurs and programmers should have a 'fanatical devotion to beauty', and that ventures such as Airbnb have come to success due in part to their attention to design principles and the arts in the field. development of its platforms, offices and visual identity.
Additionally, referents from the business world such as Apple, have embraced the combination of the arts with business and have taken it to heart. Steve Jobs, says Hindi, learned the design principles that have made his brand great from Picasso. Particularly, Apple's insistence on eliminating the details, instead of adding them, and discarding everything but the essential, is inspired by the work of Picasso.
Also, Marissa Mayer, former president of Yahoo! and, previously, one of the main employees of Google, where she held high-ranking positions since 1999, has admitted the importance of art and design in the growth of Google. Mayer, the daughter of an engineer and an artist, admits to having combined the skills of both to develop the identity that Google would adapt to this day.
Artists for the technology industry
One point in which Hindi and The Artian emphasize is the importance of the programs of resident artists, something that has always been seen as a benefit that is given to emerging artists, but which Hindi says is very useful for the ventures, particularly those that have to do with technology.
Also read: Sending a message in a potato? 5 weirdest startups!
These programs consist of bringing artists who work in the offices of a company, also financed by the company. Although for many ventures this may seem like an unnecessary expense, Hindi says that creativity and art in business are not a matter of budget, they are a matter of commitment. Therefore, companies must look beyond costs, and begin to contemplate the advantages that a resident artist can offer them.
A reference web portal for entrepreneurship, Inc., said that the programs of resident artists trigger creativity among employees by proximity and can also help solve problems through their distinctive way of thinking, which, like a business, often deals with uncertainty and opportunity, instead of certainty and security. The article closes with a strong statement, citing an article in the Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology that discovers that compared to other scientists, Nobel Prize winners demonstrate a disproportionately greater involvement in the arts, either as a field of study or as a hobby.
Hindi closes his talk with a reflection. There are four art skills that adapt to entrepreneurship, and that are among the skills most desired by companies in their employees. Observation, questioning, ideation, and association. "The dilemmas of the present cannot be solved only with traditional methods," says Hindi. "Art is a way of thinking and a way of educating that teaches to question the world.
LatinAmerican Post | Pedro Bernal
Translated from "¿Por qué deberías estudiar arte si quieres ser un emprendedor exitoso?"
Listen this article
