People often ask me about thinking visually and how this solves problems. I don’t think thinking visually solves problems. I think there are many aspects to solving problems. Without the recent Volcano E15 there are many things that I wouldn’t have thought of. As a result of E15 I solved a few problems. I almost bought a lava lamp in honor. I used to work in the same building where they made and sold them and I bet they have no shortage of raw material right now. Disruption solves problems. Without a way of structuring conversations I couldn’t solve anything for my clients – nor with the people in the sessions I run. Without the context, the data, the insights and the statistics – visual thinking will not solve a problem. Without case references and experts or the opportunity to widen the context around the problem no-one is going to solve the problem. Without open, trusting and difficult moments or tension and excruciating pain visual thinking will not solve the problem. Without knowing the right questions visual thinking isn’t worth a light. Trouble is even with all of these things you still need the ingenuity, creativity, energy and blessing to go consider. Oh and luck. Yes you need luck. Lots of it. Learned over many years. You will need the mandate and the good fortune to be wrong. Only by going wrong will it be disruptive enough for you to eventually get it right. The guarantee and know how how to get it all right is then essential. Don’t try this at home. Disruption solves problems. It really does. You just need to be happy with disruption.Take the following test for solving any problem. Think of it as the Hitchhikers Guide for Disruptive Thinkers. Basically it’s a list of 12 things you need to know - a set of principles for disruptive road warriors to hold true to. Fundamentally a salutory set of blindingly obvious things learned the hard way.
- When you get a brief write your own version. Just think of a brief as someone else’s start point. Mentally rip it to shreds. They were scratching an itch. What was it they really wanted. When they wrote it down imagine what got edited out and was thought to crazy to put in. That’s the stuff of award winning responses right there! Get under the hood. Fiddle about with the stuff that’s not written. Think what isn’t being said. That is where the problem or opportunity is. That is what will mark out your solution. You will need to find both the problem and the opportunity before proceeding.
- Imagine yourself presenting your ideas to someone else. Someone who doesn’t actually know the issue as well as they should. The barman you are talking to this evening. Your mates wife. Your mistress (whatever). Maybe someone totally unrelated to the task What can you do to answer the challenge in the most broadly valuable way. Convince someone without a vested interest that the idea is sound.
- Be real – get ready to pitch the idea and undervalue it. Be cool. Smooth your ideas in. Initially they probably won’t be that great anyway. The ideas you will have may seem pretty clever or correct to you and naturally enough you will be very keen to defend them - but the chances are they won't work the way that you are imagining. Many of them will be based on the wrong interpretation of the brief anyway so always remember that and be ready.
- Know the audience and imagine them. Right there. Have they got better things to do? How many Power Point slides and arcane diagrams and charts will they have they eaten before you? What will be on their mind? What is the thing they are really looking for? And how will you shock them into agreeing that what you think is what they actually need? Two very different things. Think about that and then imagine what, how and with with what tools and techniques would the answer be best presented. By imagining this as a framework or deliverable you will be amazed at how that influences the way you proceed.
- Don't pursue the perfect and finished thing along the way. Admit it, you hate collaborating. You want to be the one with the idea. We all get that but learn to do that in teams with others. Occasionally? Once? Try it. They will still think you are brilliant (if you are). Try and co-create in the rough too. Be open to working your ideas – out. Be sure to stay with the program of what the reality is on the ground. It’s always a mess that you are sorting out. Get to love the mess. Delight in the bag of hair. Get even with the crazy stuff by wrangling it to the ground. Listen to the cheers.
- You are very likely not the only or even most creative in the room. Beware that creativity may often come from those who don’t appear to be creative. Everyone bangs on about innovation. Well that can mean just do something basic brilliantly well. Be careful what your definition is. That guy in the tie. He is probably just a whole lot smarter than you about the critical thing in this riddle. Shape up. Pay attention. You will sense the glimpse of an idea. From the corner of your mind’s eye and it will be gone just as quick. Be attuned to listen out for it. It will come from the strangest place and and most often it will not emanate from you.
- Hide it but be anal. Be obsessive. Be persistent, go hire a thick skin and a waterproof. Get used to being lonely. Buy a dog. This is a very slow and tortuous business. People will fall into a number of easy to identify camps – 1. just give me the idea and lets get on with it. (run) 2. those who will want to make it their own (think money) and 3. those who will want you to spend every waking hour convincing them that there isn’t a better idea. (think caffeine)
- Don't open the champagne just yet. In fact unless you are Jonny Ive, Philippe Starck or John Lesseter don’t actually celebrate at all. Your ideas still have a lot to learn. In 30 years of trying I still don’t think I have approached a solution that I want to sing from the hilltops. Well not just yet. And anyway I like the idea that there is still a greater hill to climb as its the journey that teaches us more anyway.
- Go to sleep. Read a book. Get drunk. Learn Math. Do all three. Just walk away from that wall, there is nothing to see here. Stop. Do something else. Your brain needs difference. It needs something new to stimulate it. It wont forget the damn challenge. Don’t worry about that. You know if you are really onto something because you will not sleep anyway. See earlier ramble on Aldous Huxley. Just come back to it later. I find the best thoughts are not in the pitch battle of the battle but in the bar.
- Just ‘cos you are a supposed creative person, it may say so on your card, you are not automatically awesome. Get over yourself. Test and then test the thinking again and again. Don’t trust the answer you have. You will get caught. There probably are a million better ideas. You just didn’t think of them yet. Listen with your eyes and ears. Write stuff down. Let that process inspire and remind you that the first idea may actually be improved. Google it all and get another opinion on every thing. You will find the bigger idea waiting out there somewhere.
- Just because he is older it doesn’t mean it’s an old solution. There really is very little new under the sun dude. David Ogilvy of major and superior advertising agency fame is credited with popularizing the earlier idea of standing on the shoulders of giants. Nice irony. Steve Jobs surrounds himself with other geniusses (genii?). What’s your problem?
- Technology isn’t the only answer. Funky gadgets may appeal and hypnotize a few and you may get away with it now and then. I have. Lipstick on a pig always meets - it’s still a pig - and it won’t save you for very long. Just because you can point at something very cool doesn’t mean it’s the right idea. Look beyond the technology and you will find a big wide world of other stuff. Then of course the chances are someone is aplying technology to that too. So maybe you will get your wish after all.
Sent from my iPad And remember - the fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
No comments:
Post a Comment