One of Many Paths to my Own Discovery

At BDW, where I am currently in their 50-week designer founder accelerator, we get the distinct opportunity to visit and engage with Denver/Boulder creative companies, as they are potential places of employment after our 50-weeks in the program. Last week, we were headed to EffectiveUI. We’d learned they had a 5-hour time slot planned for us and we had no idea what to expect.

The day arrived. I equipped myself with fancy attire, a computer, pen, paper and printed resumes. I was ready for anything. The building is in a great part of Denver, it’s old, industrial, exposed brink & beams, open and inviting to collaboration. They set us up in an adjacent building, in a loft style room with amazing light, all I could think of is how much I wanted this room to be my apartment and maybe that’s what it used to be.

The first few hours were filled with individuals of varying job titles speaking to us about their work, EffectiveUI and what it would be like if we decided we wanted to work there. Everything was timed to the minute, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it got a little overwhelming for me, sitting in the same chair for 3 hours, trying to digest all of their information and only thinking about how badly I needed to eat. Finally, after a short break, we were told the next hour and a half was going to be filled with activity, an ideation exercise.

Now, earlier in the week I had begun listening to the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. Having always identified myself as an introvert, this book helps me wrap my mind around being one and how it’s ok. But so far what’s struck me the most is the books realization that group ideation doesn’t work, especially for introverts. That when trying to come up with new ideas and discussing them there is usually someone who leads the group and while someone is there explaining there idea, all you’re doing is thinking about your idea and not really listening to theirs. It goes into experiences of past introverts and how most of them came up with their brilliant ideas when they were working alone. With the new open working and collaboration model a lot of companies are moving towards, this realization has really impacted my thoughts and I couldn’t help but bring them to this ideation exercise with EffectiveUI.

We were started off with a problem space, gift giving (a standard ideation exercise area), we first had to interview and observe others with their gift giving experiences and practice, gather as much information as we could, the event, emotion and goals of the individuals. We then had to break up into groups and digest the information onto post-it notes on a board, timeline each event, emotion and goal into simple words and phrases. Then having to pair them into broad categories, humanize these experiences, find patterns and interesting areas to explore, find pieces of the gift giving experience we’d never thought about before. This was all done and discussed in a group, I really enjoyed this, breaking apart the collected information and seeing other perspectives on the process. This all felt like discovery, discovery of information I’d never thought of before and I think its pertinent that others are a part of this part of the ideation process. People to talk to and learn from and share with. This is all intake of information.

Then came time to generate ideas, ideas on improving the gift giving process. This they told us to do on our own. Sit down with pen and paper and just write, ever little idea, good, bad or ugly that comes into your mind. My first instinct was, I’m not going to have any good ideas, I got anxious, doubted myself. But, I had to do it and we were encouraged to come up with 10 ideas in the next 5 minutes.

So I wrote down one idea… then another, and another. I kept writing, some sentences long and thought out, others just a few words haphazardly strung together and incomplete. I used every group’s discovery boards for inspiration, finding problems that could be solved with things I’ve learned and experienced. It was liberating in a way, not only allowing the words to pour out of me, but finding that I am able to generate ideas. They do come to me, maybe not revolutionary ones, but ideas none the less, that give birth to new ideas and so on.

Through these last 7 months at BDW I have discovered more about myself than I ever thought possible. This week, with the help of a Quiet book and an emphatic exercise, I found my mind works best by gathering information from and with others, but ideates the best alone with my thoughts and experiences.

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