How
The Most Creative People In Business Generate New Ideas
Everybody
gets stuck. Here's how some of the most innovative thinkers in business get
themselves out of mental ruts and generate new ideas.
The
100 people on 2015's Most Creative People in
Business
list have achieved impressive breakthroughs across a wide swath of industries:
finding a possible cure for Ebola, using drone technology to help save
endangered animals, modeling jet engines with 3-D printers.
None
of these breakthroughs came from resting easy on outdated ideas or settling
into familiar ruts. And yet, even this illustrious group admits to getting
stuck and actively seeking grist for the mill. So we put the following question
to the group: Where or from whom do you seek out inspiration? What do you do
when you're in a rut? And most importantly, how do you keep new ideas flowing?
Here's what some of them had to say—if you try them out yourself, one each day
of the work week, you'll have almost a month of options to help spark some
creative new ideas of your own.
"Before
I started working on Minecraft, we would figure out new games by going on small
holidays. We used to go to Berlin. They have these really great
around-the-clock Internet cafes, and we'd just work on something. We'd also
attend Game Jams, where you're given just random things and have limited time
to produce a game. It's quite often that you are forced to think of something
that works within the theme and, like I said before, I don't know where I'm going
and try to make it fun during this 32- or 48-hour Game Jam. You either produced
crap or finished something interesting, and the interesting thing would end up
in a pile. Then when we would actually need to start a launch project, we would
look back in the pile."
"I
am obsessive with finding, cataloging, and doing new activities. A dance-floor
meditation? A talk on game design? A tattoo convention? Done, done, and done. I
am on an endless quest to learn about and personally experience as many diverse
subcultures as possible and never leave home without my adventure backpack and
a notebook so that I can collect inspiration and log new ideas."
"I
pull a lot of inspiration from traveling around the world. One in particular is
Brazil, where I’ve been going since 1997. Whether you’re talking architecture
or furniture or digital, the design is modern but with a soul. Which mirrors
Nike. I’ve been to Brasilia, the modernist mecca that [Oscar] Niemeyer
designed. Talk about being representative of an incredible, bold, disruptive
vision. It’s an entire city designed in exacting and uncompromising detail. It
forces you to look at your own work and ask: Are we really pushing things as
far as we can?"
"Okay,
so out of everyone in the world—authors, humanitarians, entrepreneurs,
innovators, Elon Musk, scientists curing AIDS right this second—I'm going to
say Kanye West. I know, I hate me too."
"If
one project is getting stalled for some reason, I switch gears to another
project or two for a while until the problem with the first one works itself
out. Sometimes if I am stuck, and leave a problem to sit for a bit, the answer
shows up at a traffic light or when I am reading something totally unrelated.
It's like when you are trying to remember someone's name and once you stop
trying, it pops into your brain. It's the best part of having a bunch of things
going on at the same time."
"Creativity
isn't just an abstract font for me personally—I tend to just look at those who
have successfully overcome issues similar to the one we're dealing with, and
try to imitate not their solutions, but their attitude and approach to it, and
take it to heart."
"The
need comes first, then the ideas. I’m also an endorphin freak, and working out,
running, and playing certainly creates the proper mind setting for
creativity."
"[Creative
inspiration] is all around. Nothing's ever boring. I'm never bored. Even if I'm
sitting with my oldest cousin out in the country in Alabama and no one else is
around. No way that's boring. I'm going to sit there, I'm gonna watch what she
does, I'm gonna listen to every story. Everything seeps in. Like I'm standing
in line at the pharmacy, I'm not bored. I'm looking at that lady wiping her
snotty kid's nose—like, is she really gonna use her hand? Wow, that's love.
What's her story?"
"I’m
always inspired by the small stories I see about people who are doing the right
thing with no attention given to it. I used to watch Charles Kuralt on CBS’s Sunday
Morning show, and they used to have all those stories. Also, when I see
people around the world in the most dire situations doing stuff. Malala
[Yousafzai], what she went through . . . man, if you’re not inspired by that,
there’s just something dead inside of you. What they have to face in that part
of the world, it’s just ridiculous. And then on a personal level, my kids
inspire me all the time."
"I
read everything I can get my hands on, flip through the racks at Zara and
Forever 21 (it's like a meditation), browse IRL in as many bookstores as
possible, and go to the club. Listening to good music makes you smarter! I also
love to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If I'm stuck on a writing or
strategy project, I write freehand on a legal pad in a weird place without
Internet—no environment that's too lovely or I get distracted. Other methods:
Go outside and walk, listen to something, smoke cigarettes, tell jokes."
"Most
of my ideas come from drawing patterns across conversations I have with
different types of people—technology investors, young fashion design students,
a CEO. This variety is stimulating, and offers many different perspectives on
the things I am thinking about."
"I
usually take my cockapoo out on a walk, I do some kind of physical activity,
whether that's Bikram Yoga or SoulCycle. Usually it's some kind of creative
activity. Or it's completely turning my mind off and watching something that
doesn't really challenge. Like Real Housewives of Atlanta. Literally
watching people argue about one little thing of shade that they threw."
"Four
years after starting Into the Gloss, I continue to be fascinated by
these conversations and inspired by girls around the world. Relatedly, spending
time alone. I'm naturally pretty outgoing, but when you're always 'on,' it's
important to be 'off' to give the brain time to wander. Also, I love reading
business books. The best one I've read is Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing
About Hard Things. It's a real kick in the pants."
"Yoga
is a huge help. I started doing it at the Twitter office (one of Twitter's many
perks) when I started building a new product in 2012, and I stuck with it.
Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed, I typically realize I haven't been
prioritizing yoga, and when I fix that, things fall back into place."
"From
when I first started making animated shorts, I would say, 'By any means
necessary.' I'd search my brain for any scrap of memory for any funny story,
any interesting thing. And then I was getting writer's block, getting
frustrated just sitting around the house and no ideas were coming. So I
thought, Well, I'm not getting any ideas, so I'm just going to wash the dishes,
go mow the lawn. And then ideas started coming to me. So washing the dishes was
the first breakthrough."
"My
Saturday morning walks on the beach often offer solutions that evaded me during
the week."
"My
real magic trick is taking a shower. I get the best ideas in the shower, and
I've got special notepads that can get wet to write down my ideas. Sometimes
when I’m stuck, I go and take a shower. It hardly ever fails!"
"If
I’m in a rut, I find it’s best to try not to think about it. Your brain is too
tied up in it. I go for a run, see a movie, go to an art gallery, or just sleep
on it. Push the pram around the park. Get drunk if necessary. Then I come back
and try to look at the problem more simply, less tangled. Easier said than
done. Sometimes it works."
By Erin
Schulte
http://www.fastcompany.com/3046484/my-creative-life/how-the-most-creative-people-in-business-generate-new-ideas
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