Look For What’s Wrong
“Creativity is the unexpected collision of two apparently unrelated frames of reference.”
- Arthur Koestler, author of the magnum opus, The Act of Creation
Because an idea is simply a connection between areas of your brain, it’s worth considering: what are the possible constituent elements? What is the nature of the component parts? Sometimes, they are two ideas themselves. Rocket + Stroller = Rocket-Powered Stroller. But other times, the connection is between a problem, and an apparently unrelated field (case in point, Bette Nesmith Graham’s invention of Liquid Paper!).
The search for unexpected frames of reference is the basis of analogous exploration as a valuable tool in the innovator’s tool kit. But whereas analogous exploration is a means of searching for unrelated frames of reference to a known problem, a method like keeping a bug list is more fundamental: it’s a collection of problems. And problems, as we see above, are every bit as legitimate a source material for new connections (ideas) as any other.
In fact, becoming aware of problems is a fantastic consciousness to cultivate.
As TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie described his first entrepreneurial endeavor Tim Ferriss (transcript here), I couldn’t help but note his description of where good ideas come from: “The best ideas in the best companies start always come from an entrepreneur who wants a service that he can’t get, a product that doesn’t exist. It’s a frustration. And the solution is not a business actually. It’s like a crusade to get rid of that frustration.”
Mind your frustrations! In fact, if you want to do something new, you should cultivate them! Whether you’re Jerry Seinfeld, writing a stand-up sketch, or you’re Lorraine Sarayeldin looking to reinvent your career, noting your frustrations is a source of entrepreneurial gold!
(Sometimes connections and collisions are hard to come by — join the Try Ten™ Program to get exclusive tools and sessions dedicated to practicing problem finding and solving in a community of like-minded innovators)
Related: What Stinks?
Related: Keep A Bug List
Related: Explore Analogies
Click here to subscribe to Paint & Pipette, the weekly digest of these daily posts.
The fine folks over at Section recently interviewed me about some common mistakes I’m seeing folks make when they use AI. One of the biggest ones? The tendency to expect too little, and get just that.