Love this quote from Julio Ottino, Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University:

"I believe that finding new things requires a prepared mind, and a prepared mind is being aware, consciously or not, of surroundings.  The most spectacular ideas happen when someone sees connections between two different fields that no one saw as connected before."

I think Ottino speaks from experience.  Ottino was a working artist in Argentina (I've seen some of his work hanging in his current office) before moving to the US to get his PhD in chemical engineering.  Innovation happens at the edges, not in the center.

Here's a short video of Dean Ottino, talking about some of his ideas that are grounded in multi-disciplinary thinking:

If that teaser makes you want to see more, you can see his complete presentation, titled, Thinking in a Complex World: The Nexus of Art, Science, and Technology.  

I only wish that Dean Ottino had been at Northwestern when I attended many years ago. It's fun to see the impact that a boundary crosser can have on an institution.  In the last ten years, he's had a hand in creating centers at Northwestern related to design, entrepreneurship, sustainability and complex systems.