Where Do Ideas Come From?
Have you ever had a really good idea and wondered where on earth it came from?
It can be a strange experience. One minute you're thinking about absolutely nothing of consequence and the next something pops into your head that wasn't there a moment earlier. Where was it before that?
I haven't a clue.
I don't think there's a little Ideas Department somewhere at the back of the brain where rows of industrious workers manufacture thoughts and send them upstairs when they're ready. Although I rather like the idea that there might be. Mine presumably has a night shift because some of its employees seem particularly fond of delivering things when I'm trying to sleep.
Ideas can appear at the most inconvenient times.
The more interesting question for us isn't really where they come from in a biological or psychological sense. I'll leave that to people who understand brains rather better than I do.
What I want to know is whether we can encourage more of them to turn up.
Ideas Rarely Come From Nowhere
We often talk about somebody "having an idea" as though something completely new suddenly materialised inside their head. I'm not sure that's what usually happens.
Think about some of the ideas you've had yourself. There's often something behind them. Something you saw. Something somebody said. A problem you encountered. A programme you watched. Something you read years ago and had almost forgotten.
Then two or three apparently unrelated things bump into each other and something new appears.
We touched on this previously when we said that ideas are sociable creatures. They seem to enjoy meeting other ideas. I think that's worth exploring a little further.
Your Brain Has an Enormous Box of Bits
Imagine that everything you've experienced has been thrown into an enormous box.
Your first day at school is in there somewhere. So is the smell of your grandmother's kitchen, the first record you bought, a conversation you had last Tuesday, something you learned at work twenty years ago, the holiday when it rained every day and the argument you had with somebody whose name you've now forgotten.
Books you've read are in there. Films you've watched. Mistakes you've made. Things that frightened you, amused you, fascinated you and bored you rigid.
It's quite a collection.
Then along comes something new.
Your mind rummages around in the box and occasionally says, "Hang on. This reminds me of something..." That's when interesting things can happen.
An idea from gardening connects with something you know about marketing. Something you saw a child doing gives you an idea for a game. A frustrating experience with a website makes you wonder whether there might be a better way to do something. Neither ingredient is necessarily remarkable on its own.
The connection is where the new possibility appears.
Keep Your Eyes Open
Here is something rather obvious about becoming more creative, but you may have overlooked it. You need to notice things.
That's not as easy as it sounds because we're extremely good at not noticing things. We can travel the same road hundreds of times and suddenly spot a building that appears to have materialised overnight. It's been there for thirty years. We simply never looked at it. Familiarity makes us lazy observers.
Try something for me. The next time you go somewhere you've been many times before, deliberately look for something you've never noticed. A sign. A building. A tree. Something somebody has put in a window. The shape of a roof. It doesn't matter what.
You're not looking for an idea. You're practising looking. There is a difference. If you wander around desperately demanding that everything you see provides you with a brilliant idea, you're going to have a fairly exhausting afternoon. Just become a little more interested in what's around you.
Curiosity will do the rest.
Problems Are Rather Generous With Ideas
Problems can be irritating, inconvenient and occasionally expensive, but they do have one redeeming feature. They're very good at generating ideas. Every time you find yourself saying, "There must be a better way of doing this," you've stumbled across an invitation to create something. Most of the time we ignore the invitation. We solve the immediate problem as quickly as possible and get on with our day. Quite right too. I don't want to embark upon a major creative project every time I can't open a jar of pickled onions.
But occasionally a problem is worth another look. Perhaps other people have it too. Perhaps the existing solution isn't very good. Perhaps something designed for a completely different purpose could solve it. Suddenly an annoyance has become raw material.
As we eventually move further into the art of product creation, we'll come back to this because problems can certainly lead to valuable products. For now, though, forget the commercial possibilities. Just notice the thought. "There must be a better way." That's an idea knocking on the door.
What Annoys You?
Apart from me banging on about creativity! What else annoys you? That can be another surprisingly productive question. So, just take a bit of time to focus on a few things that annoy you. Please don't send me the complete list. We haven't got all day.
Simply think about little frustrations. Things that are unnecessarily difficult. Instructions that don't make sense. Products that nearly do what you want but not quite. Websites that make you wonder whether the person who designed them has ever actually used one. Annoyance makes us notice the gap between what exists and what we think ought to exist.
That gap is fertile territory for creativity. You may look at an awkward object and thinks, "Why isn't there a handle on this?" Sometimes you think, "Why do I have to follow this procedure every time? There must be quicker way. Ever wondered "Why can't I get one of these that's designed for somebody like me?"
That reminds me of the story about a Creative Marketer who photographed his product from a different angle and sold it as a “Left-Handed Teacup”
Here’s a thought for today. Without that annoying little bit of grit in it’s shell an Oyster would never produce a Pearl.
Ideas Also Come From Things You Love
I don't want to give problems all the credit. Enthusiasm is just as productive. People create because they're fascinated by something. A railway enthusiast builds an extraordinary model railway. Somebody who loves local history starts researching forgotten stories about their town. A keen cook experiments with recipes. A science fiction reader eventually wonders what would happen if they wrote a story of their own.
Hobbies are particularly interesting because people happily acquire enormous amounts of knowledge without thinking of it as studying. Mention a subject somebody loves, and they can’t resist telling you all about it. Choose something they have no interest in and you'll probably get a considerably shorter conversation.
Your interests provide your imagination with rich material because you've already filled your mental box with information, experiences and opinions about them. If you're looking for ideas, don't automatically go hunting somewhere exotic. Have a look at the things you already enjoy.
Borrow Half an Idea
You need to be careful here. You can’t simply take a product, paint it a different colour and call it your product. If you try you are likely to spend some time trying to find creative ways to get out of jail!
But, what you can do is explore the idea behind the product. Suppose you see something somebody else has created and think it's excellent. There's nothing wrong with asking yourself why you like it.
Perhaps you like the way somebody explains complicated subjects using humour. Could that approach work with something you know about?
Maybe you admire the simplicity of a particular product. Could something unnecessarily complicated in another field be simplified?
Perhaps you enjoy the way a television programme tells several separate stories that eventually come together. Could that structure inspire the way you write something?
This is where apparently unrelated interests become useful. You borrow half an idea from one place, half from somewhere completely different and introduce them. They may hate each other. They may produce something interesting. There's only one way to find out.
Write the Blighters Down
We have mentioned this before, but I'm going to keep mentioning it because I don't always follow my own advice.
Ideas are slippery little creatures so, grab em quick, and put them in a box before they get away.
Write your ideas down. I know, you're going to remember them. So am I. Will we? Really? Ideas have an inflated opinion of their own memorability. At eleven o'clock at night an idea can seem so obvious that you're certain it will still be there in the morning. By breakfast all you can remember is that you had an idea.
That is extremely annoying but the wrong sort of annoying. It’s not going to help your creativity one little bit. Keep a notebook nearby. Use your phone. Send yourself an email. Scribble it on the back of an envelope. It doesn’t matter how you do it. Don't write an essay about it. Just record enough to remind yourself what you meant. You can decide whether it's any good later.
Don't Demand Brilliant Ideas
This might be the most important bit. If you sit down determined to produce a brilliant idea, you've created a rather difficult working environment for your imagination. Everything that appears immediately has to pass the test, "Is this brilliant?" No? Discard it. "What about this?" Not brilliant enough. Discard that too. Before long your imagination gets the message and goes off to do something less hostile.
Try gently asking yourself for ideas instead. Good ones. Bad ones. Silly ones. Obvious ones. Impractical ones. Things that have already been done. Things you're not sure about. Get them out first. Don’t dismiss anything even if it seems impossible. Judgement can come later.
Here we are back through the looking glass again. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" said the White Queen.
Go Idea Hunting
Here's something practical to try. For the next twenty-four hours, don't try to invent anything. Instead, collect possibilities. Notice something that annoys you. Write it down. Hear somebody say something interesting. Write it down. See an object and wonder whether it could be used differently. Write it down. Think of something you'd like to try one day. Write that down too.
Don't evaluate any of it. Your objective is simply to collect ten things that make you think, "That's interesting," "I wonder..." or "What if..." At the end of the twenty-four hours, have another look. Nine may be completely useless. The tenth might be as well.
It doesn't matter. You've started training yourself to notice the raw material from which ideas grow. Do it again occasionally and something else may happen. You'll begin noticing possibilities without deliberately looking for them. That's when things become interesting.
So Where Do Ideas Come From?
Everywhere.
From problems and pleasures. Conversations and mistakes. Things you love and things that drive you mad. Old experiences and new discoveries. Other people's ideas and your own half-forgotten thoughts.
The world is absolutely stuffed with raw material. Perhaps the problem isn't that we don't have enough ideas. Perhaps we're simply walking past most of them without noticing. So keep your eyes open and tour mind tuned in to spotting ideas.
You never know what might be waiting to introduce itself.