Creative Think

When everyone zigs, it’s time to zag.

[I have a new book, "The Creative Contrarian," coming out on October 12, 2021. Click link for more info and to preorder at Amazon.]

A wonderful creativity strategy is to look for ideas in the opposite direction from everyone else.

Here’s an example of a person who “zagged.”

In August 1969, a few days after the Beatles’ penultimate studio album had been recorded, the project was still without a name. The “Fab Four” and a few close advisors got together to brainstorm album titles. The prospective names they kicked around tilted toward the grandiose, and soon they played with calling the new album “Everest” in recognition of their towering contribution to the 1960s music scene.

Of course, such a name would necessitate an expensive 10,000-mile weeklong photo shoot to the Himalayas (such things were done by successful rock stars back then). But at this point in the group’s career, the Beatles were on the verge of disbanding and had little energy for such a trip. 

What to do? Rock historian Ken McNab relates that drummer Ringo Starr, probably the most grounded of the musicians, reversed everyone’s perception on the album name by suggesting: “Why don’t the four of us just go out in front of the EMI recording studio and stroll across the ‘zebra’ crosswalk, and call the effort ‘Abbey Road’?”

Why not indeed! This simple solution took two hours to set up and shoot, and became the Beatles’ most iconic photo. Abbey Road went on to become their biggest selling album. 

"Where can you zag?" What problem are you working on where can you go in the opposite direction from everyone else?

Think Like A Wise Fool

It's time for one of my very favorite creative thinking strategies: Think Like A Wise Fool

               Image from Wise Fool

Carrying the strategy of "looking at things differently" to extremes brings us to the realm of the Wise Fool, the being for whom everyday ways of understanding have little meaning.

It's the wise fool's job to extol the trivial, trifle with the exalted, and parody the common perception of a situation. In doing so, the fool makes us conscious of the habits we take for granted and rarely question. A good fool needs to be part actor and part poet, partphilosopher and part psychologist.

And throughout history, the wise fool has been consulted by Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian kings, Chinese emperors, Greeks tyrants, and Hopi Indian chiefs.

The wise fool will reverse our standard assumptions. He'll say, "If a man is sitting on a horse facing the rear, why do we assume that it is the man who is backwards, and not the horse?"

The wise fool notices things that other people overlook. He might ask, "Why do people who pour cream into their coffee do so after the coffee is already in the cup, rather than pouring the cream in first and saving themselves the trouble of stirring?"

The wise fool can also be irreverent. He'll pose riddles such as,

"What does a rich man put in his pocket that the poor man throws away?" When he answers, "Snot," he forces us to re-examine the sanctity of our everyday rituals.

The wise fool can be cryptic. He'll say the best way to see something is with your ears. Initially, this may seem weird, but after you've thought about it, you might agree that listening to a story conjures up more images than watching television.

The wise fool can be absurd. Having lost his donkey, a fool got down on his knees and began thanking God. A passerby saw him and asked, "Your donkey is missing; why are you thanking God?" The fool replied, "I'm thanking Him for seeing to it that I wasn't riding him at the time. Otherwise, I would be missing as well."

The wise fool will take the contrary position in most conversations. Whereas many people would agree that, "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well," The fool might say,

"You don't have to do things well! Indeed, it's okay to do them poorly; otherwise you'll never let yourself be a beginner at a new activity."

The great benefit of the wise fool's antics and observations is that they stimulate our thinking. They jolt us in the same way that a splash of cold water awakens us when we are drowsy.

Question: Where has "thinking like a wise fool" helped you look at a problem in a helpful way?

 

New Creative Whack Pack App for iPad & iPhone

"The Creative Whack Pack is still the most impressive brainstorming tool in the AppStore, hands down." —Innovation Tools

The best-selling Creative Whack Pack is now available as an iPhone/iPad Universal App and available at iTunes!

Based on the #1 best-selling iPhone app, the iPad version has the following highlights:

• 20 new creativity strategies (based on the thoughts of the world's first creativity teacher: Heraclitus) for a total of 84
• Full notepad editor for capturing and sharing your ideas while you're doing the creative workshops
• Automatic "suggest-an-Issue" to force you to address different problems

The new iPhone version (5.0) also has many of these same features including 20 new cards as well!

Special bonus: because this is written in Universal Binary, you receive both Apps for the same price.

Added bonus: if you already own the iPhone version, all you need to do is get the free upgrade and you receive the iPad version!

Check it out!

We Measure the Shortest Shadows of the Year!

One of the pluses of swimming Masters at noon is that we get to observe the sun's transit on a daily basis. [The sun's transit is its highest point in the sky each day. Throughout the year, this usually occurs sometime between 12:00 Noon and 1:20 PM — depending on whether we're on standard or daylight time.]

This time of year (Solstice time), the sun marks its transit at approximately 76º high in the sky at our latitude. Today this occurred at about 1:09 PM for our location (according to my celestial data app). [Stanford's latitude is 37.42º. Subtract from that number 23.5º which is the earth's tilt = 13.92º. Subtract 13.92º from 90º (directly overhead) and you get approximately 76º.]

For the second straight year, Noon Masters observed this passage. Rocket scientist Steve Fuselier (right) and I (left) measured a vertical poolside pole and the length of the shadow it casts at 1:09 PM. Having two sides of a right triangle, we then did a simple trigonometry calculation (tan-1) to determine the sun's height at its transit. According to our crude measurements, we calculated about 76º+. So, we were pretty close.

What does this all mean? If you swim at noon, you get the shortest shadows of the day. And today's was the shortest of the year!

As Carl Spackler would say: "So we've got that going for us . . . which is nice." [Make sure you check out this video]

Happy Kit Puts A Smile on Your Face

Would you like to be happy?

No problem at all. Here's your "Happy Kit." Guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Just follow these simple instructions.

Financial Collapse Explained in 3 Minutes

Source: http://www.thecomingdepression.blogspot.com

Niftiest Logo I've Seen in a While

It was made by logo designer Richard Fonteneau.

The logo has two visual elements: The golfer and his swing, the spartan face/helmet. Quite clever. Makes you look twice . . . and think twice.

[via Alex von Oech]

From the comments by Wes George:

This kind of ambiguous imagery has broader implications for how the whole cognitive mind responds to patterns. Notice that it is really difficult to hold both the golfer image and the Spartan in the mind's eye at the same moment and impossible while not vigilant.

Could this be a metaphor for how the human mind handles far more complex data sets and in fact be the explanation for confirmation bias and even the potential for human cooperation? For instance, once a researcher has “seen” that the evidence for a hypothesis is solid there is a tendency to only see new data in the light of the picture already dominant in the mind’s eye.

This tendency is massively increased in highly emotional charged situations such as political or cultural debates. If so, this is certainly one of the greatest hardwire blocks to humanity’s creative potential. And if it is physiologically based, then could it also be the result of natural selection forcing to limit the creative gestalt in human society in favour of cooperation? Or did this type of cognitive latching simply evolve out of the need to identify patterns rapidly and decisively rather than to dither as the lion stalks, so to speak.

Paradoxes of Creativity

I like this list of eight paradoxes of creativity from creativity thinker Michael Michalko (author of Thinkertoys, among other works):

To create, a person must

• Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
  
• See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
  
• Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
  
• Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
  
• Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
  
• Desire success but learn how to fail;
  
• Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
  
• Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

These remind me a lot of the insights of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

What other creativity paradoxes can you add to this list?

[photo credit: RvO]

It's Time to Think Like A Fool!

It's that time of year again! And it's time for one of my very favorite creative thinking strategies:

Think Like A Fool

Image from the Creative Whack Pack

Carrying the strategy of "looking at things differently" to extremes brings us to the realm of the fool, the being for whom everyday ways of understanding have little meaning.

It's the fool's job to extol the trivial, trifle with the exalted, and parody the common perception of a situation. In doing so, the fool makes us conscious of the habits we take for granted and rarely question. A good fool needs to be part actor and part poet, part philosopher and part psychologist.

And throughout history, the fool has been consulted by Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian kings, Chinese emperors, Greeks tyrants, and Hopi Indian chiefs.

The fool will reverse our standard assumptions. He'll say, "If a man is sitting on a horse facing the rear, why do we assume that it is the man who is backwards, and not the horse?"

The fool notices things that other people overlook. He might ask, "Why do people who pour cream into their coffee do so after the coffee is already in the cup, rather than pouring the cream in first and saving themselves the trouble of stirring?"

The fool can also be irreverent. He'll pose riddles such as,

"What does a rich man put in his pocket that the poor man throws away?" When he answers, "Snot," he forces us to re-examine the sanctity of our everyday rituals.

The fool can be cryptic. He'll say the best way to see something is with your ears. Initially, this may seem weird, but after you've thought about it, you might agree that listening to a story conjures up more images than watching television.

The fool can be absurd. Having lost his donkey, a fool got down on his knees and began thanking God. A passerby saw him and asked, "Your donkey is missing; why are you thanking God?" The fool replied, "I'm thanking Him for seeing to it that I wasn't riding him at the time. Otherwise, I would be missing as well."

The fool will take the contrary position in most conversations. Whereas many people would agree that, "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well," The fool might say,

"You don't have to do things well! Indeed, it's okay to do them poorly; otherwise you'll never let yourself be a beginner at a new activity."

The great benefit of the fool's antics and observations is that they stimulate our thinking. They jolt us in the same way that a splash of cold water awakens us when we are drowsy.

Question: Where has "thinking like a fool" helped you look at a problem in a helpful way?

Color Names

This is about right. What do you think?

 
 
 

 

"Vanishing Point" from Bonsajo

I really like this short video (1:40) entitled "Vanishing Point" from Bonsajo, a visual performance unit in Japan. It makes me think of some stuff I saw in the late 1960s and early 70s. It's fun just to watch it and let it flow over you.

Vanishing Point from Bonsajo on Vimeo.

Personal Highlights of the '00s

The '00s are at an end. On a personal level, I can say the '00s were a good decade. I spent most of my fifties there (I aged from 51 to 61). I had some wonderful experiences, met some interesting people, and created a few things along the way.

Here are some of my personal highlights from the '00s:

• I Imagined that a Rhombic Triacontahedron could be broken into 30 pyramids. This idea became the Ball of Whacks. I patented it, went to China to manufacture it, and created a company (with Stuart Kaplan, Creative Whack) to market and distribute it. Subsequent products are the X-Ball and Y-Ball, and more on the way.

   

• I Turned my life-long interest in the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus into a book, (Expect the Unexpected, 2001, Simon & Schuster) and a card deck (Innovative Whack Pack, US Games 2004).

• The favorite places that I've visited just before sunrise were: Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Karnak Temple (Egypt), Machu Picchu (Peru) Erg Chebbi Sand Dunes (Sahara Desert, Morocco), Temple of Concord (Agrigento, Sicily), Cappadocia faeries (Turkey), and Varanasi (on the Ganges River, shown below).

• Hachette (Grand Central Publishers) came out with the 25th Anniversary edition of A Whack on the Side of the Head. (Life sales: approximately two million in 18 languages. Not bad for what was originally a self-published book.) 2008

• Attended the Taormina (Sicily) and the Berlin Film Festivals.

• During the decade, I swam over 10,150,000 yards or 5,767 miles (9,300 kilometers), or just under a "quarter of the way around the world." (Swimming's a great way to get away from things.)

• Competed in the 2006 FINA World Masters Swimming Championships. Took a 6th, 8th, and 17th place in events in the 55-59 age group. Favorite swim: 800 free.

• Continued to do my Creative Think seminars for business, but at a much saner pace than the 80s and 90s. Favorite sessions were in South America: Colombia (shown below), Venezuela, and Argentina.

• Turned the Creative Whack Pack card deck into an iPhone app (with Phil Dhingra). In April, 2009, the Creative Whack Pack App spent two weeks at the top of the AppStore charts as the #1 seller in the Business category.

• Put a Ball of Whacks on the Moscow grave of former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who 48 years earlier told the West: "We will bury you." I had the last laugh.

• Went with my then-21 year son Alex to a place I had no desire to go when I was 21: Vietnam (2006).

• Celebrated my 60th birthday on the Mekong River in Laos, 2008 (shown below in a Hmong hut).

 

• Other travels included: Burma, Thailand, Russia, India, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan, France, and Germany.

• Saw my kids graduate from college (Athena: Stanford '03, Alex: USC '07) and move on in life.

       

• Another enriching ten years with wife and life-partner, Wendy (2000-2009). [Shown at Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia]

 

This was a fun exercise! You might try it yourself.

I wish you a good start in the "Teens"!

Novel Omission

Click HERE to follow me on Twitter!

For the past month, I've been Twittering — and having a lot of fun doing it. I was an early adopter of Twitter — March, 2007 or member #1,810,431 — but didn't much do with it until recently.

One thing that has helped make the experience enjoyable is the Tweetie app for iPhone. Now, I can take a few minutes here and there and check what's happening in the "river of Tweets" that flows by.

Many of the people I "follow" are interested in innovation, creativity, and the new social media technologies that enhance social interaction. Thus, there are many links to many interesting phenomena.

But there's an ominous omission. One thing missing from almost all the Tweets I see: references to the novels the Tweeters are reading.

I hope these people are not so addicted to the "quick buzz" of social media that they no longer have the free time available to read fiction. That would be unfortunate if that were the case.

Fiction provides us with a different narrative to view our own lives and problems. I think this is quite valuable for stimulating our creative process.

What fiction am I reading now? Paul Auster's (a long time favorite author) new novel, "Illusions."

I also recently finished "Motherless Brooklyn," and "Gun, with Occasional Music" both by Jonathan Lethem.

Another recent novel was T.C. Boyle's "The Women," which is a fictional rendering of the four women in Frank Lloyd Wright's life.

What novels are you reading?

New Version of Creative Whack Pack App!

Today, Apple approved a new version (3.1) of my Creative Whack Pack iPhone app. [Here is the link to iTunes.]

Since it was introduced last March, this product has become the iPhone's premier creativity/innovation tool. It has also been #1 in its category (Business). Great price too: $1.99.

 

The three main new features are:

• Note-taking workshops.
• Each specific Creative Whack card has its own sound effect. These enhance the user experience, and make the session more memorable.
• There is increased "sharability." You can now share Creative Whack cards with friends and colleagues via Twitter, Facebook, and email. A big Plus!

A five minute Creative Whack Pack break beats staring at your computer all day!

What's Your Creativity Style?

It's time again for some inspiration from Heraclitus, the world's first creativity teacher (he lived around 500 BC). Today's insight is: “I searched into myself.”

Heraclitus felt that consulting our own knowledge and intuition is a wonderful way to gain insight. Unfortunately, some of us never learned this lesson. Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of "guess what the teacher is thinking," and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone else's head rather than our own. Heraclitus reminds us that there are good ideas within ourselves if we are willing to dig deeply enough.

I believe there's a creative strategy in Heraclitus' insight, and it is:

Discover your own creative style.

We can emulate Heraclitus by searching for own creative tendencies. Here are six of mine:

1. I get my ideas either when I'm under a lot of pressure — "the ultimate inspiration is the deadline" — or when I'm away from the problem altogether. I rarely get them when I'm doing routine tasks that require some attention.

2. If I'm mentally blocked in trying to solve a problem, it's usually because I'm in love with a particular idea — so much so that it prevents me from looking for alternatives. Only when I force myself to become detached from it and "kiss it goodbye" do I find new answers. Letting go of a previously cherished idea can be one of life's great pleasures.

3. I try to pay attention to small things: how much frowning takes place in beer commercials, what sorts of patterns dead leaves make around a storm drain, and so on. I do this partly because I've trained myself to do it, but also because I've been forced to. I'm left-handed, but the world is designed for right-handed people — something most "righties" don't even think about. I'm constantly being made conscious of how things are put together. For example, telephone booths are designed to make right-handed people feel comfortable and at ease, but lefties can feel clumsy using them.

4. My own ego can get in the way of discovering new things. However, if I allow myself to lower my resistance to those ideas that I typically dismiss as irrelevant or unattractive, I find that they can become doorways to solutions I've been overlooking.

5. I don't know what I don't know. I've got a big blind spot, and the only way to get access to what's lurking out there is to put myself in a humble, receptive frame of mind (not always easy to do) and ask others to point out what I'm not seeing.

6. Rejection of my work in the early phases of the creative process doesn't bother me. I'm not afraid of taking one of my less than stellar ideas and asking complete strangers what they think of it. I find their responses frank and refreshing.

Questions: What's your creative style? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

It's time again for some inspiration from Heraclitus, the world's first creativity teacher (he lived around 500 BC). Today's insight is: “I searched into myself.”

Heraclitus felt that consulting our own knowledge and intuition is a wonderful way to gain insight. Unfortunately, some of us never learned this lesson. Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of "guess what the teacher is thinking," and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone else's head rather than our own. Heraclitus reminds us that there are good ideas within ourselves if we are willing to dig deeply enough.

I believe there's a creative strategy in Heraclitus' insight, and it is:

Discover your own creative style.

We can emulate Heraclitus by searching for own creative tendencies. Here are six of mine:

1. I get my ideas either when I'm under a lot of pressure — "the ultimate inspiration is the deadline" — or when I'm away from the problem altogether. I rarely get them when I'm doing routine tasks that require some attention.

2. If I'm mentally blocked in trying to solve a problem, it's usually because I'm in love with a particular idea — so much so that it prevents me from looking for alternatives. Only when I force myself to become detached from it and "kiss it goodbye" do I find new answers. Letting go of a previously cherished idea can be one of life's great pleasures.

3. I try to pay attention to small things: how much frowning takes place in beer commercials, what sorts of patterns dead leaves make around a storm drain, and so on. I do this partly because I've trained myself to do it, but also because I've been forced to. I'm left-handed, but the world is designed for right-handed people — something most "righties" don't even think about. I'm constantly being made conscious of how things are put together. For example, telephone booths are designed to make right-handed people feel comfortable and at ease, but lefties can feel clumsy using them.

4. My own ego can get in the way of discovering new things. However, if I allow myself to lower my resistance to those ideas that I typically dismiss as irrelevant or unattractive, I find that they can become doorways to solutions I've been overlooking.

5. I don't know what I don't know. I've got a big blind spot, and the only way to get access to what's lurking out there is to put myself in a humble, receptive frame of mind (not always easy to do) and ask others to point out what I'm not seeing.

6. Rejection of my work in the early phases of the creative process doesn't bother me. I'm not afraid of taking one of my less than stellar ideas and asking complete strangers what they think of it. I find their responses frank and refreshing.

Questions: What's your creative style? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

10,000,000 Yards Swimming This Decade!

If you asked me how this decade went for me, I'd say: "Swimmingly!"

Why? I'll share a personal swimming milestone with you.

This week, I passed the 10,000,000 yard mark for yards swum this decade (2000-2009). (9,144 kilometers, or approx. 5,700 miles.)

This started with an innocent remark that a teammate (Jim Merchant) made to me in January, 2000. He said: "I've had a couple of million-plus yard years." I thought, "That would be a fun goal." I ended 2000 with 1,177,000 yards.

All-told, I've had six million-plus yards years this decade: 2000-2003, and 2008-2009. The most yards was 2008 with 1.2 million. The biggest month was 142,000 yards (as part of a Max-Yards February).

The competitive highpoint was participating at the 2006 FINA World Swimming Championships.

Keeping track of yards has its upside and downside. The positive is that it kept me in the water a "little bit longer" per workout. For example, if I had done 3,300, I'd probably keep going until I got to 3,500 because it's easier to keep track of units of "500" and "000."

The negative, as many of you are probably thinking, is that it gets to be a little obsessive (but it's healthier than a lot of obsessions). I plan to stop keeping track after December (next month).

Swimming: what a great life-long sport!

Kenneth Clark's Series, Civilisation

For the past two weeks, I've watched the 1969 thirteen-part BBC series, "Civilisation" which was written and narrated by Kenneth Clark. This series --which focused on western art over the past thousand years -- was quite popular when it first appeared four decades ago. I greatly enjoyed it then, and I feel that it holds up pretty well now!

The Best Thing About "2010"

I think the best thing about about the year "2010" is that most people will call it Twenty-Ten.

Nice and simple. Only three syllables! [Not, God forbid, two thousand and ten. Ugh!]

This means a return to calling the first two digits of the year one number, and the last two digits another number. For example: 1948 is nineteen forty-eight.

I think that most of the years of this decade have been ponderous to pronounce, e.g., 2007 was two thousand and seven — and that's too many syllables. Twenty oh seven would have been just fine by me.

Hello Twenty Ten! Happy to see you!

Carbon Credit Humor

The Internet makes many new enterprises possible.

For example, I recently ran across this example.

Hooray for human ingenuity! The guy in the bed has used the Internet to combine his sloth (sleeping in) with environmental concern (people wishing to offset their carbon use) and clever marketing ("having an environmentally friendly day"). Made me laugh!

For example, I recently ran across this example.

Hooray for human ingenuity! The guy in the bed has used the Internet to combine his sloth (sleeping in) with environmental concern (people wishing to offset their carbon use) and clever marketing ("having an environmentally friendly day"). Made me laugh!

Tomato and Asparagus Synergy

Here's some amazing synergy!

Gardeners know that when tomatoes and asparagus are planted together, they have a beneficial effect on one another.

• Asparagus roots exude a chemical that kills many of the nematodes that either feed of tomato roots or carry diseases to the plant.

• Tomatoes repel the asparagus beetle.

Both plants do better when planted together!

What other examples can you think of?