Hackers are problem solvers. They get juice from understanding a problem and sorting out a solution. Their motivation to meet challenges is internal. Occasional bragging rights aside, hackers do what they do because it’s extremely satisfying to solve puzzles and fix the up-until-now unfixable. The pleasure derived is both intellectual and practical.
You can’t deny the good deeds performed by authentic hackers who in fact built the internet (and Unix and Usenet) and who continue, quietly and behind the scenes, to monitor the World Wide Web so it functions for everyone else.
But you don’t have to be a geek to be a hacker. Being a hacker is a mind-set.
“There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things,“ says Raymond, “you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art.”
In his treatise, How to Become a Hacker, Raymond describes the fundamentals of a hacker attitude. It caught our attention because we think these very same principles apply to being innovative.
The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Innovation, no matter what field you’re in, happens because you’d rather solve a problem than complain about it. If you happen to find these problems fascinating and intriguing, well, then it won’t even feel like hard work.
No Problem should ever have to be solved twice.
We’re sticklers for clarifying the problem before we start generating ideas. It’s easy to jump to solutions, but sometimes that means you solve the wrong problem. A little bit of rigor on the front end of a problem solving process means you tackle the right and real problem, so you only have to do it once.
