See the Big Picture

It's time for some creative inspiration, so let's take a card from the Creative Whack Pack. Today's is "See the Big Picture." Let's see what it says.

In 1866 an Iowa farmer watched the construction of the transcontinental railroad near his fields. After seeing the track laid and a locomotive steam through, he thought, "So that's what railroading is all about: tracks and trains."

What didn't he see? That he could get his products to more markets more quickly, and that once there they would have to compete against products from many more places. That people could travel from coast to coast in less than a week. That more ideas would be shared, and that different people would meet and get married.

He saw the steel and the wheels, but he didn't see the consequences.

What are the larger implications of your issue? How does what you're doing fit into the Big Picture?

Comments

[shelbey]

i remember trying out ways to use the internet in the classroom 12 (!) years ago. i was a lowly TA in grad school, and the professors in my department (English) didn't want much to do with it, except those in media studies, and (interestingly) a medievalist. the rest felt networked classrooms belonged in the computer science dept. such a great opportunity to experiment on my end!

big picture is not my problem; i am a natural at that part. i have a harder time with the building-foundations-under-the-castles part. within this particular metaphor, it would have taken me ages to decide where to lay the tracks and what to put on the train, because i would see so many possibilities!

perhaps it would be better if i looked at the big picture outside my own bigger-picture for a lead?

[Free to think, Free to believe]

But in other ways he grasped the sheer concreteness of what it was about. And let's face it those other things that the train brought did not just happen - they slowly grew and if was an awkward bumpkin - he may never have used them even if they became accessible to him...

Sometimes folk see the implications but don't see the responsibilities that also grow out of them - I once refused to let someone have my login and passwrod at work only to be ticked off by my supervisor (who to be fair did come back and say I'd done the right thing...)

The big picture is only that, and without folk filling in their small details where would we be?

[Roger von Oech]

Shelbey: Interesting take. This world was built by imaginative people who were able to take their new ideas, and get into a practical frame of mind and make those ideas happen.

FtTFtB: "without folk filling in their small details where would we be?" Indeed, so!

[claudia]

I have experienced complaints from all my employers regarding my tendency to go into details rather than seeing the big picture.
I work in client service for advertising, so I really need to see also the big picture!
I need a reco for a fast "harmonization" of my instinct for details and my need for big picture.
thanks.