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.)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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!

Comments

[David Armano]

Roger,

I enjoyed Kathy's post as well—and Ironically I also use both the Whack Pack and IDEO cards to help stimulate my thinking. They are actually nice compliments.

And speaking of Random—I recently wrote a random post about travel. Totally unplanned and I thought it would be a dud—but decided to publish it because that was the mood I was in.

To my surprise I've been getting all of these interesting comments that have been very insightful.

So yes, random thinking can be very powerful as a tool to help take our thinking to that next level.

Speaking of travel—have fun in Egypt!

[Stephen Denny]

Roger: a funny analogy to this point -- flies tend to escape from bottles more often than bees do... apparently, bees logically fly towards the light and flies do what flies do best, which apparently is bounce off of glass in random directions. Eventually, many of them bounce through the neck of the bottle (and end up in whatever you're drinking, but that's another story).

We do tend to limit ourselves by setting up constraints to our thinking. After all, "we're experts and we know what's best", right? Very often, we don't find the bottle opening because of our limited thinking -- usually the same problem that probably got us into this mess in the first place...

[Tom Haskins]

Yesterday I tried pulling a random idea from a book and I used a HyperCard version of iChing I wrote 15 years ago. The iChing was a better oracle. That got me thinking about randomness AND synchronicities. Roger, your experience with pulling the "Try and Random Idea" from your Whack Pack is a synchronicity. My iChing reading was like that too - an acausal, meaningful coincidence. I wonder if the randomness works best if its confined to a deck of cards like the Whack Pack, Tarot or iChing? I suspect its possible to get too random which cuts down on the "amazing coincidence" -- as well as "not random enough" which gets back to the problem Kathy Sierra addressed beautifully.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Roger:

I think what your 3 points have in common is an open spirit -- ask and you shall receive/be given; accept what is; trust that what you receive is the right thing/response. Ask, accept, and trust sometimes require more of us.

I love Stephen's story, we must have been in school together or something like that!

Tom's synchronicity resonates with some of my search through Eastern philosophies and spiritual beliefs. I believe there are no coincidences in life -- only choices.

Thank you for the inspiration (Lat. in spirit = breath of life).

[Roger von Oech]

David: Thanks for the good wishes. It's interesting about posts. I had a recent one (How Do You See the Obvious?) that I thought was just a Roger-head-trip and it turned out to be my most commented on. And, like everyone else, I've experienced just the opposite many times.

Steve: Great analogy! Are you more bee-like and fly-like?

Tom: Wonderful comments. I haven't thought about the I Ching in a good long time. But it's a great way to use the random in a systematic way. Here's something random for you: tomorrow open up the obituary section of your newspaper and pick out the second person listed in the national (or international) area. Ask yourself: "How would this person approach my problem?"

Valeria: Well put. You have a nice way of cutting right to the essence of things.

Would you say that you are you more bee-like or fly-like?

[David Anderson]

BUT, Roger... there is an entirely different interpretation of your Indian hunting map story: your assumption of randomness may be quite faulty... you assume that the lines on the leather were random and "just happened" to point the hunters to the game.

However,instead, the world may be much more "magical" ---- much more self-arranging... When the old Indian (who no doubt was a shaman) asked the question prayerfully, he KNEW that a real answer would come.

Your own experience of "happening" to draw the random card out of your own deck ALSO DEMONSTRATES precisely this.... called by some "synchronicity"

And for those who believe in such a world... well they truly experience it, frequently.

[David Anderson]

so I hadn't read the other comments when I posted mine.. and see that some other people had the same idea

but let us now consider whether: IS THERE ACTUALLY ANY RANDOM? ... or does the world instead conform to expectation and somehow to focus of attention.

Dean Radin and others have done interesting experiments watching what happens to random number generators when a large amount of human attention is focused onto a single event.... like the super bowl, for example. What they found was that supposedly random generators went non-random, statistically speaking... not only during the event, but even slightly previous to the event, itself, starting. This pattern occurred in several machines, in different locations, so the phenomena is not just a fluke.

[Roger von Oech]

David: Thanks for joining the conversation. I like the way you look at it. However, not everyone is ready to jump to the magical interpretation . . . and for them calling it "random" is a nice way to get them through the door of considering such things (magic).

Also, interesting example about the Super Bowl.

[David Anderson]

& I am glad you are sharing your various thoughts... it is stimulating of expansion

let us, however, consider the meaning of words.... of terms .. like "magical".

What if the currently-in-place "normal"... "linear"... "cause & effect" are just as "magical" as anything else?

What if everything manifested procedes from some kind of logic.... from some kind of system of core belief?

What if "a true magician" is actually only an individual capable of thinking (and believing) a logical system quite different than the norm, and thus can produce results also quite different than the norm?

What if "the creative engine" is the same in both cases, but because the input is radically different, so also is the output radically different?

[Graham Horton]

Let me turn the topic on its head (which itself is a good way of generating ideas.)

Imagine an oracle which had lost its powers of prediction. Every time anyone asked it for inspiration, it always replied "parrot". The inspiration-seeker then dutifully thought about this answer until he or she came up with a solution for his or her problem.

When teaching students about idea generation techniques, I tell them that it is good training for their "idea muscles" to be able to use any word or concept to generate ideas. Then, if you can are able to do it with any word, then you can choose your favourite word and always use that. There is now a kind of tradition here to use "parrot" or "strawberry yogurt".

So here is the challenge: train yourself so that whenever you need an idea, all you need to do is to think of "strawberry yogurt"!

[oscommerce]

Thanks great article.

[Bobby]

IS THERE ACTUALLY ANY RANDOM? ... or does the world instead conform to expectation and somehow to focus of attention. http://www.rapidpig.com