by John Brooker | Sep 7, 2014 | Develop Opportunities, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
How can you trigger creative ideas? “Insights obtained from conceptual blends constitute the products of creative thinking, however, conceptual blending theory is not itself a complete theory of creativity, inasmuch as it does not illuminate the issue of where the inputs to a blend originate.” Mark Turner, author in “The Literary Mind” (Page 93) How do you trigger creative ideas? Here’s one way. At the weekend, I struggled without success to find a topic for this article. Monday morning I went for my regular walk. I had a goal to climb Pinner Hill, a strategy to use a different route to the normal and no conscious thought of the Creative Gorilla. I walked across a meadow, saw a gap in the hedge and cut through it. Surprise. I discovered a semi formal public garden I had not seen before in 20 years of living here. I wandered around looking for the exit and realised the only exit was the entry I had come through, away from the houses that surrounded it. It was like a secret garden. I was looking at the garden when my article came to mind. The seed of a topic arose, “disrupt your patterns and you might discover something new.” Inspired, I completed the first draft of the article on the walk, using the recording app on my phone. What did I do to provoke this idea? I did nothing that I planned. So Let’s consider what I did do and elicit some creative principles: I had a goal to climb the hill and deliberately chose a different route, which meant that I broke my pattern. Creative principle?...
