Fantastic Ideas and Where to Find Them
Ideas are magical, they are a force of enchantment; similar to how a tattered, run-of-the-mill suitcase can play host to awe-inspiring magical world — full of fantastic ideas. Ideas are “out there” floating around in the atmosphere, waiting and hoping to be housed in your own tattered, run-of-the-mill suitcase. There is no theft; no ownership; no time or space where ideas come from. There is just the stubbornness of the idea, refusing to stop searching until it has found that equally stubborn idea maker.
Ideas are closely connected to a fascinating human trait, that all of us know — creativity. Creativity is the ability to connect knowledge and experiences in your subconsciousness — connecting the dots, so to speak. Your creativity is what makes you come up with different solutions and new ideas, and it’s what’s driving us forward — “humanity depends on creative innovation”.
Creativity has been studied in multiple ways, and it turns out, that creativity is composed of a whole plethora of cognitive processes in the brain: The ability to improvise, think divergently, have flashes of insight etc. — what you might consider thinking outside the box.
Flashes of insight are those aha-moments when relaxing our mind, and without thinking methodological and logically, we are coming up with important ideas and solutions. It’s no big secret that when we relax and let our mind wander, we get our best ideas, those flashes of insight. You know it yourself: you’ve been focusing all day, endlessly trying to find a solution, and then suddenly sitting on the train home, running or walking home, the idea pops into your head as if like magic.
One such flash happened to me at Zurich airport, while traveling back to London, it relates to the experience of using an automated border control kiosk. You know the ones where you insert your passport, a camera takes your photo and the gate opens once your identity has been checked. During that trip, an interactive game was being designed for an event for the following week — a buzz-wire installation and iPad app that recorded the score.
Walking through the gate, I had the magical idea to do something similar “to take a selfie” of the player before they play the game; and for the camera appearing like that of the border control gate. The ability to perceive the world — like the border control gate — in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate ideas is what characterises our creativity.
Everyday objects, tasks or experiences can trigger these flashes of insight; but there is no warnings, no sign saying “hey you, pick me” and no second chances. You need to be observant, trustful and ready, as they can happen at anytime, in anyplace and to anyone. When they happen grab your notebook, camera, napkin or whatever you can find and capture it— as it won’t be yours for long…
