Creative Think

Use A Random Idea As An Oracle

In her delightful recent post "Add A Little More Random to Your Product," Kathy Sierra wrote some very positive things about using the Creative Whack Pack to generate ideas. This inspired me to go to my very own Whack Pack and pull a card at random. And this is the card I drew: Try A Random Idea! Truly Amazing! Can you believe that? Let's check out what it says.

There once was an Indian medicine man who made hunting maps for his tribe. When game got sparse, he'd put a piece of fresh leather in the sun to dry. Then he'd say a few prayers, fold and twist it, and then smooth it out. The rawhide was now etched with lines. He marked some reference points, and a new map was created. When the hunters followed the map's newly defined trails, they usually discovered abundant game.
   Moral: by letting the rawhide's random folds represent trails, he pointed the hunters to places they had not looked.

We can create an oracle in the same way the medicine man did. We’ll need three things:

1. A question that we address to the oracle. (The medicine man asked: “Where can more game be found?”) This question focuses your thinking.

2. A way to generate a random piece of information. (The medicine man twisted and folded a piece of leather.) The random selection is important. Since people tend to use the same problem solving approaches repeatedly, they come up with the same answers. Since a random piece of information is unpredictable, it forces us to look at the problem in a new way.

3. An attitude that interprets the resulting random piece of information as the answer to your question. (The medicine man interpreted the lines as representing new hunting trails.)

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You can see that if we have a question and an open, receptive mind, then you’re two-thirds of the way toward creating an oracle. Let’s run through it step by step. 

1. Let’s suppose that you’re working on a project and wonder, “What should I be thinking about? What should I do next? What’s an alternative approach? What aren’t I seeing?” First off, clear your mind. Take time to relax and focus your thinking. Now form your question.

2. Now, open your mind up to things that have nothing to do with the idea you’re developing. Select something from the world at random. Indeed, constructing the means to get a piece of unexpected information can be both a great way to use your imagination and a lot of fun. It could be one of the following:

• Pick out the sixth word on page 247 of your dictionary: A doorknob.
• Open a magazine. Count the 12th full page advertisement from the front. What product is shown? A fountain pen.
• Look out the window and find the second thing that has yellow in it: A tennis ball.
• Open a catalog at random. What’s in the upper left hand corner? Coffee cups.
• Open up the stock section of your newspaper. Go to the third column. Count down to the 16th company whose shares increased in value the previous day. What is their main product? Water faucets.

3. Now think how the random thing applies to your situation. Take as much time as you need. There is a connection between the random thing you select and your problem — and your job is to find it.

What are different ways in which it relates to or could apply to your question? Be creative. Go beyond your first answer; look for a second and a third right answer. Be literal in your interpretation. Be metaphorical. Be off-the-wall. Be serious.

Think of each random thing as a stimulant to your imagination. Let it spark a series of fresh associations in your mind. Don’t worry how practical or logical you are. What’s important is where each random thing leads you.

Remember: Often those ideas that initially seem the least relevant become the most important ones of all because they point to something that you’ve been completely overlooking.

Special Secret Surprise
So, are you looking for a way to generate random ideas? Well, here's a little secret I haven't shared with anyone. If you go to my Creative Think website and click on my photograph in the banner, you'll get a nice useful surprise (pssst! it's a Creative Whack). And if you click again, you'll get another random useful surprise. A gift to my readers! I hope you enjoy using it. Have fun!

My Ingmar Bergman Marathon

I just completed my "Ingmar Bergman Marathon"! Over the past three weeks, my wife and I watched 11 classic films from the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (born 1918).

It started off about three weeks ago when I rented "Wild Strawberries" on a whim. I had first seen it in 1970. After thoroughly enjoying it, we decided to re-immerse ourselves in Bergman. These are the films we watched: (the ones with the * are ones I had seen before in the early 1970s)

Smiles of A Summer Night* (1955)
The Seventh Seal (1957)*
Wild Strawberries (1958)*
Virgin Spring (1960)
Through A Glass Darkly (1961)*
Winter Light (1962)*
The Silence (1963)
Persona (1966)
The Passion of Anna (1969)*
Cries and Whispers (1972)*
Scenes from a Marriage (1973)*

As I watched them, I couldn't help but compare my feelings about these films to the feelings I had when I first watched them over thirty-five years ago. Back then, I was a student in my early twenties trying to open my mind up to the big issues of life. At that time, these films helped do just that. Today, I'm in my late fifties and have had my own life experience, and these films helped to put that in perspective.

When I first saw "The Seventh Seal," "Wild Strawberries," and "Winter Light," I was entranced, delighted and provoked by the big metaphysical issues Bergman confronted and explored. Plus Bergman's writing is outstanding. These three films still stand up well today, and rightly deserve to be called "Classics."

When I saw "The Passion of Anna" and "Cries and Whispers" in theatrical release in the early 1970s, I was amazed by their ideas, boldness, and subject matter. When I saw them again, I was less impressed. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a confusing time, and Bergman's own confusion comes out clearly — especially in "The Passion of Anna." Now that I've had my own taste of life (business, marriage, fatherhood, death of loved ones, etc.), I scratched my head over some of the decisions his characters made. These films, nonetheless, are still provocative and worth seeing. 

What's especially enjoyable about Bergman is he presents us with consistent glimpses into his evolving vision of God, man's place in the world, love, human relationships, and fear. I use the word "consistent" because Bergman uses the same film technicians and actors repeatedly. In a way, it's comforting to see Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, and Gunnar Bjornstrand, and then Liv Ullman, and Erland Josephson adopt different roles in his work. I use the word "evolving" because Bergman moved from a religious/metaphysical orientation to an existential one.

Bergman, along with Kubrick, Kurosawa, and Fellini, is one of the six or seven greatest directors of the second half of the twentieth century. Watching eleven of his films in a short period was fun, personally revealing, and above all inspiring!

If you haven't seen a Bergman film in a while, check one out. Criterion has done a fine job of bringing the films to the DVD format and adding special features and commentaries. The so-called "Trilogy" from the early 1960s — "Through A Glass Darkly," "Winter Light," and "The Silence" — is not a bad place to begin.

What are your favorite Bergman films?

 

Ball of Whacks Update

I'd like to thank all of you who have written to me about the Ball of Whacks. I appreciate your very nice comments. I'm glad you're having fun using it to stimulate your creativity!

I thought I'd take a few moments and let you know how the product is doing. As readers of this blog know, I spent about a year-and-a-half developing it (designing it, prototyping it, engineering it, going to China to manufacture it, etc.)

Finally in late September, 2006 my first run arrived in the United States. I got good word of mouth on the Blogosphere starting in October and that pushed sales. Plus, my partner Stuart Kaplan was able to get it into a number of stores including FAO Schwarz and many museum and other retail stores. It also did well in the online arena, for example ThinkGeek.com and our own e-commerce store CreativeWhack.com (you can see a fun 1 minute BOW video there).

 

We sold out the initial run in early December (sigh! just before Christmas). Toward the end of October, I doubled my second order from my Chinese manufacturer. And these are just arriving now.

The Ball of Whacks is really a product for 2007. Our first big marketing show is "Toy Fair" in New York the second week of February. We hope to generate a lot of interest and . . . sales! (Wish us luck!)

I've thanked many of the bloggers who wrote about it (here and here). But one person I haven't acknowledged yet in this blog is Glenn Reynolds who gave it several mentions (here and here) in his Instapundit blog. Thanks for the "Instalanche, Glenn!"

How Do You See the Obvious?

First a story and then a question for you to think about.

It seems that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. They pitched their tent under the stars and then went to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes awakened and exclaimed, “Watson, look up and tell me what you deduce.” Watson opened his eyes, and said, “I see billions and billions of stars. It’s likely that some of these stars have planetary systems. Furthermore, I deduce that there is probably oxygen on some of these planets, and it’s possible that life has developed on a few of them.” Is that what you see? Holmes replied, “No, you idiot. Somebody stole our tent!”

This humorous story brings to light an important idea, namely, the obvious can sometimes be difficult to see. Like Dr. Watson in the above story, we bring in our own agendas, biases, and filters.

I think most of us would agree that when we're solving problems or developing concepts, it's important to understand the "obvious" elements of those problems and concepts.

Lately I've been engaged in a product-naming process. As I've been doing this, a question I've been puzzling over is: 

"How do you see the obvious?"

One strategy that I employ is to step back from the issue and ask myself, "What are the most obvious things I can say about this issue?" Another is to ask, "What's my blind spot?"

Yet these approaches feel unsatisfactory. They work sometimes, but often I feel like I'm blathering on like Dr. Watson. That's because it's not always easy to be aware of my biases.

So here's my question for you: When you're in a situation (especially problem-solving, concept-developing), what questions do you ask that help you grasp the obvious aspects of that situation? I'd really like to hear your ideas.

 

Cartographic Food for Your Imagination

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved maps — studying them and trying to figure out the mysteries that lay behind their representations.

Then I stumbled on this map (from Carl Stormer). And I thought, "What is going on here?" If you haven't seen this before, take a few moments to study it and see if you can figure out the key.

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The First Right Answer: It turns out that it's an "economic production equivalence" map. The country whose name is inside of each state has a GDP that is approximately the same as the state in which it is placed.

For example, California and France have approximately the same GDP. Some of the "equations" are off by as much as 20%, but I think this map paints a fascinating picture, namely one of the US as an economic powerhouse.

I just love it when someone's able to show me something that I've seen many times before in a fresh way!

The Second Right Answer: By joining together states and countries with similar GDPs, the map creator (perhaps inadvertently) has given us a big plate of "forced connections" to stimulate our thinking. This is one of the places I go with it:

What do you get when you mix together
the cultures of the two places?
For example:
Iran + Alabama = ? (Would Bear Bryant have been the Ayatollah)
Netherlands + Pennsylvania = ?
Algeria + West Virginia = ?
Oregon + Israel = ?

What connections can you make?

Interesting Links

Here are some sites you may wish to check out.

Over at Willzhead, Will Samson and his readers are participating in the Pantry Challenge. It starts with his January 16th post:

" If you read this blog you are rich. You may not feel like it. You may feel as if you are scrimping to get by. But consider that you have both a computer (probably a newer laptop) and connectivity (probably broadband at your house) to read this. Are you with me so far?

One of the greatest signs of our wealth is the amount of extra food each of us has in our house. This is not something you would see in most houses around the world. I noticed this the other day when I was organizing my pantry. So, the idea occurred to me:

How long could our family eat from the food in our house without going to grocery store?"

Go there and then scroll forward to see how these families are faring. It's an interesting consciousness raising experiment.

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Another contest is called "Let's Be Brief" from Robert Hruzek's Middle Zone Musings. Robert and I both agree that constraints can stimulate our creativity. In his words,

"Roger wrote about imposing limitations on yourself as one method of enhancing the creative thought process. It’s especially true when writing; limiting yourself to a specific word count or small space makes you very aware of every single word you put on the page.

Have you ever tried writing within extremely severe constraints (time, space, words, content)? Sure you have! Not so easy, is it? What if you were given an assignment where you had to write a complete story, but were limited to, let’s see… we’ll make this a hard one: six – yep, you read it right – only six words?"

Robert's contest is a lot of fun: Go here to check out the fast-growing list of entries.

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Another site well worth visiting is Stephen Denny's Note to CMO. Stephen's tagline is:

"If you could send a memo to the marketing community and straighten everything out, what would you say? This is my "note to the Chief Marketing Officer".

I find his comments informed, perceptive, and provocative. Anyone who can reference Robert Ardrey's African Genesis to make a point about GIGO (garbage-in-garbage-out) and data mining has my vote. Also, I like that he often sums up his posts with something called key takeaways. Check him out!

The Water Model of Finance

Here's something fun. Check out these terms:

Flood the Market       Laundered Money      Liquid Assets       Solvency      Deposits      Slush Fund      Pump Money In     Frozen Assets      Float A Loan      Bank      Currency      Take A Bath      Cash Flow      Washed Up      Sinking Fund      Capital Drain      Underwater Pricing

Notice anything?

Our language is quite metaphorical, so much so that often we don’t realize it. One example is the metaphor used by some teachers who view their work as though they were horticulturalists. They talk about their students’ basic ability to learn as the “seed” and their role is to provide the right "soil” and “sunlight” for their “growth.” Some students are “potbound,” while others “flower” and reach “fruition.” Some students need a “hothouse” to develop, while others could prosper in a “desert.”

My favorite example of this phenomenon is the language used by financial people. Whenever I do any work with bankers or accountants, they talk about what they do as though they were plumbers. And no wonder! The metaphor they use to describe their work is what I call

“The Water Model of Finance”
 

Feel free to share some of your favorite metaphors!

Use Your "Forgettery"

It's time for some wisdom from Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher whom I consider to be the world's first creativity teacher. His words today are: "Knowing many things doesn't teach insight."

As with all of Heraclitus' ideas, there are many ways to interpret this. What stands out for me, though, is this creative strategy:

Practice forgetting.

I think what he's getting at is this: forgetting what we know — at the appropriate time — can be an important means for gaining insight. This is illustrated in the story about a creativity teacher who invited a student to his house for afternoon tea. They talked for a while, and then it was teatime. The teacher poured some tea into the student's cup. Even after the cup was full, he continued to pour, and soon tea overflowed onto the floor.

Finally, the student said, "You must stop pouring; the tea isn't going into the cup." The teacher replied, "The same is true with you. If you are to receive any of my teachings, you must first empty out the contents of your mental cup." His point: without the ability to forget, our minds remain cluttered with ready-made answers, and we're not motivated to ask the questions that lead our thinking to new ideas.

For example, one day on his regular walk past the local blacksmith's workshop on the island of Samos, the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras temporarily forgot that the banging sounds produced by the smith's hammering of iron bars were "noise" — his usual reaction — and instead viewed them as "information." He soon discovered that musical pitch is a function of the length of the material being struck — his first principle of mathematical physics.

Remember: everyone has the ability to forget. The art is knowing when to use it. Indeed, novelist Henry Miller once stated:

"My 'forgettery' has been just as important
to my success as my memory."

Some questions to think about:

What conventional wisdom are you relying on? What would happen if you forgot the obvious answers that spring to mind and searched for new ones?

The Dangers of Thin-Slicing for Creativity

There is a "meme" about "thin-slicing" in the making. I played in a small role in its spread with my recent post Thin-Slicing Wrist Watch Wearing. (Thin-slicing is the ability to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.)

I think "thin-slicing" is fine for some (perhaps most) activities — especially those where you don't have a lot of time and need to make some snap judgments.

But — and it's a big but — in the early part of the creative process when we're trying to open our minds up to new possibilities, thin-slicing can really hurt our ability to come up with original new ideas.

For example, here's a quick lateral thinking puzzle:

Here's a chance for you to play Sherlock Holmes.

You walk into a room and see John and Mary lying dead on the floor. There is broken glass and water all around them. How did they die?

(If you're not familiar with this puzzle, take a moment to think how John and Mary met their ends.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I've heard a lot of different scenarios: "They died in a hurricane";  "they were stabbed with broken glass"; there was flood and they drowned," and so on.

Most of these answers assume that John and Mary are people. But if we don't jump to conclusions and play with some other possibilities, we might consider a different idea, namely, that "John" and "Mary" are fish and the cat knocked over their fish bowl.

Similarly, we can jump to conclusions when we "thin-slice."

Here's one of the great paradoxes of the human mind: we spend a lot of our education trying to get the knowledge and experience necessary to make quick informed judgments, but as we do so we tend to lose some of our capacity for looking at things in significantly different ways. After awhile, we see only what we expect to see.

It's been a couple of years since I read Gladwell's "Blink," but I remember that one of my take-aways from it was: "Well yes, we all thin-slice when we judge things, but we do it at our peril — especially if we're trying to be creative."

Thin-Slicing Wrist Watch Wearing

Mike Wagner asked me to do a  €œthin-slice€ for him. (The concept of "thin-slicing plays an important role in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink.") Mike defines "thin-slicing" thusly:

"Thin-slicing is a neat cognitive trick that involves taking a narrow slice of data, just what you can capture in the blink of an eye, and letting your intuition do the work for you. It's the ability to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience."

Over the past weekend I was watching the NFL playoffs. At the beginning of the Kansas City-Indianapolis game, NBC  commentator Chris Collinsworth introduced the match-ups. And then WHAM, BAM, in the BLINK of an EYE, I thin-sliced him.  And, in the process I learned some interesting things. Let me explain.

I'm a long time fan of Collinsworth. He's smart, articulate, and opinionated, and I really enjoy his HBO program "Inside the NFL". But in that program, Chris is usually sitting at a desk and it's difficult to see his hands.

On the live NBC football broadcast, however, Chris was holding a microphone up near his face, thus exposing his wrist watch. And that's when the thin-slicing took place.

First, I learned that Chris is probably left-handed (he wears his watch on his right wrist), a characteristic he shares with me. This allowed me to get an insight into his perceptive, often opinionated "takes" on plays and players.

Second, the dial on his watch was easily legible. So, Chris prizes functionality and simplicity.

Third, because I was watching on a HD-TV, I could read the time. It said 2:37. The correct time  was 2:31.  So, Chris is one of those guys who is probably a little time compulsive and wants to make sure he's not late to anything.

And fourth, for all the money Collingsworth has made (both as a professional athlete and elite broadcaster), his watch was not a "bling-piece." This shows that Chris is down-to-earth.

As I did this exercise, I realized that I often look at someone's watch to "thin-slice" them. It's certainly not fool-proof, but for me it's a neat trick to employ to gain some initial information.

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Since Mike has visions of this "thin-slicing" exercise turning into a "meme virus," he asked me to pass it along. So here goes. I'll pass it along to these people. To them I say: do whatever you want: nothing, anything you please, or the question I suggest.

David Armano: What questions do you ask yourself when you "thin-slice" whether some new application or idea is "authentically web 2.0"?

Mack Collier: How do you "thin-slice" whether an idea has a "meme virus" quality?

Stephen Denny: How do you "thin slice" whether a brand is smoking or tired?

Liz Strauss: When you call bloggers  on the phone for your Blogger-a-Day feature, how do you "thin-slice" whether that person will make for a good interview?

Timothy Johnson: When you walk into a new company as a consultant, how do you "thin-slice" the office politics there?

Ann Michael: How do you "thin-slice" a post to determine whether you want to leave a comment?