Bathroom thinking

After reading one of the classical books on creativity, James Webb Young's "Techniques for producing ideas", I had an epiphany. Young says that to come out with a new idea, after writing down all the components that describe certain problem, product or service one should try to mix all these chunks to produce an idea, an improvement to an existing situation or a solution to a problem. After that, he suggests to "Drop the whole subject and forget about it. Turn the whole problem to the unconscious mind and to what stimulate your emotions".

This step reminded me of those times at school, during examination of certain subjects such as maths, physics or other logical and rational tests. The mould used to be more or less the same: two hours for the whole exam, and the permission to go to the bathroom after at least one hour.
Logical challenges, defying reasoning and of course memory, require the candidate to possess some skills: to dominate the subject, having done lots of exercises to familiarize with the typical problems but also to be flexible enough not to panic when the proposed exercise is different from anything seen until that moment.
And I think that's legitimate, reasoning and improvisation should be taught at school, or maybe at least introduced: it's not so straightforward to teach how to improvise.

Toilet built inside a Baobab Tree (Kayila Lodge, zambia)

The scenario was often the same. Students who had studied could easily obtain a very good mark. But I have only seen the excellence when personal interpretation and analysis of a problem was proposed. You might call that kind of personal touch, at the time of answering an exam, inspiration, creativity or genius. I don't know what it is. But what I know is that when I was stuck on a problem and could not discover the solution by using normal logical reasoning, I needed to go for a cigarette.

Asking the teacher to go to the bathroom, where I could smoke ─unseen─ a cigarette leaning out of the window, used to help me. Five minutes for me to completely disconnect from the examination and to forget problems by feeling in a relaxed mood: "I have done what I have done, and I have done it well. Probably I was not sufficiently prepared for the exam. But perfection has its own price".

I assure you that after some puffs of the cigarette the enlightened moment "But what if...?" automatically arrived. The inspiration was there, and suddenly the idea to unblock that problem and reach the solution was there too, clearly drawn in my mind. Not because of the cigarette, of course. The cigarette was just the pretext to enjoy the relief related to nicotine addiction. But the pleasant moment together with being locked in the bathroom, thus creating a relaxed and private space as if at home, contributed to produce wellness and the context switch, the shaking of concepts in my mind and the production of the idea.

Today I still discover that when I have to take a decision, solve a problem or look for compromises in my daily life, the bathroom helps me; often times unconsciously.

So this is what is for me "Bathroom Thinking": "To pause the routine when looking for the best solution to a problem by switching the context and taking a break with food, cigarettes, drinks, or any other pleasure facilitator in a familiar and private space".

Anything you want, you got it

If you are used to complain because your job is full of non-senses, because you cannot express yourself, or more, your very life is boring, just take a pause and consider that winners find solutions, losers find excuses (and I am sure that both are good at doing it).

What if you already have all the ingredients you need to make your life, your job or your relationships with others more interesting? Yes it is, everything you need; right now and in your hands. It's not great novelty that in order to have an original idea one needs to dig within his own environment and find out how to mix things to obtain something new, something of value.

Think of Mac Gyver, you know for sure who am I talking about. Do you think he ever needed anything more than stuff at hand to fix things or to escape from any dangerous situation? No, the nice thing is that he was a master in re-arranging his close world to obtain new things, to invent tools and to solve situations brilliantly. So let's have a look at some contributions to show how this thing work.

Everyone is creative within his own workspace, tools and goals. This paradigm constitutes one of the basis of Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) company: the "Closed World" condition. It dictates that, "when solving a problem or developing new products, one should strive to use only those resources that exist in the product (or system) itself, or in its immediate vicinity".

This approach is absolutely nothing new. James Webb Young wrote five steps for producing ideas in 1939 in his reference book for creative people from marketing, advertisement and other sectors of the industry. From his book: "The first of these steps is for the mind to gather its raw material. The materials which must be gathered are of two kinds: they are specific; and they are general. Specific material are related to product and the people. General knowledge, about life and events.". So it's clear that the first step to come out with a new idea is to have a look at what is in the near environment and write it down. Collecting materials related to products and people is necessary condition to produce results starting from certain point and to produce an innovative value. But it's also needed general knowledge, and nothing can provide it except curiosity for life.

James Webb Young

Last but not least, there is the most entertaining and catchy proof that everything come from some other place through copy, transformation and combination. Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based film-maker has produced a short documentary split in chunks (a preview of the first chunk in this post) to show that modern works in the industry of entertainment are based on classical and successful productions. Song melodies, movie plots and the very aesthetics of these artistic productions are most of the times taken and inspired from somewhere else. To give a quick hint, just consider for a moment Quentin Tarantino's movies inspired in vintage scenarios or whichever of the countless cover singers re-interpreting classical hits.

So, when I say that if you want to change something in your life and feel innovation under your skin you already have got anything you want and need, I am not saying anything new.
Roy Orbison already said that.

References:
http://www.sitsite.com/blog/2012/05/macgyver-and-creative-problem-solving/
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-technique-for-producing-ideas-young/
http://www.everythingisaremix.info

No genius allowed? You can still be creative

"I like your CV, but what I like more is that you have studied acting in a drama school. Engineers are all around, you know. We are not looking for a genius nor an inventor. We have products, and now we need to integrate as soon as possible one more person to our team to help improve the product."

That's what I was told at the end of a job interview by a manager. I still wonder nowadays what was the real meaning of that phrase. I can suppose that on one hand it meant that integrating in the company social texture would have been tough, and secondarily, that there would have been mechanical work to do, like testing, documentation and so on.

I can comprehend that the interviewer might suppose that belonging to a drama school would have made it easier for me to make friends (neither necessary nor sufficient condition, though), but I still don't see and don't understand the meaning of the not-being-a-genius requirement.

No need to say that genius or creativity, call it the way you prefer, is necessary at any stage of product life cycle. So, unable to understand the real meaning of that confidence ─shame on me for not clarifying─, today I believe that he simply couldn't manage to express what he really wanted to say: "We are looking for creative and brilliant solutions to our problems in order to enhance the value of the product, optimize human efforts and decrease costs of production".

I am sorry, I did it wrong, I won't do it again

Few days ago I wrote some considerations about committing mistakes when a person is supposedly living in an innovative environment. Today I am in the mood for writing some more lines about mistakes when one is effectively wrong and there are reasons to stop and ponder about that.

I made some reflections after the news had reported that Spanish King Juan Carlos Borbón-Dos Sicilias was admitted to hospital and operated for having his hip injured. Not a great news, had it not been for the fact that he injured himself hunting elephants in Botswana.

That news was well accompanied with a photo of the King holding a shotgun in front of the unlucky and deceased elephant.
As anyone might imagine, the fact provoked strong public critics; not only for the act of killing elephants and taking part to an expensive safari, not just because Spain is suffering from unprecedented economic and social crisis, but mainly because Spanish Crown is currently being scrutinized because of a financial scandals.

Eskamilla: Juan Carlos I of Spain, 2008

The thing that made the news ways more interesting was the immediate and clear answer of the King. When leaving the hospital, he faced a flash interview and after appreciating the treatment received in the hospital, he declared: "I am sorry, I did it wrong, I won't do it again." 

Not that much of a speech, really; rather a Tweet (93 characters) saying it all. But after days of polemics, scandals, burning media and boiling social networks, in my humble opinion he finally came out with the most effective recipe (regardless of the consequences of killing elephants in Botswana). These are the reasons.

• Humbleness is the most effective weapon against pride. Instead of arguing that black is white, acknowledging the failure at early stages is fast and efficient, much more than saying sorry when no more argumentation is available.
• The King summarized sincere feeling of guilt ─I am sorry─, transmitted the admission that hunting elephant is not the best thing to do ─I did it wrong─ and finally conveyed the message that after all, he learns from his own mistakes.
• He diverted public opinion away from the fault and concentrated attention on the apology and how it has been made.
• He probably achieved to go down in history as King Juan Carlos "The Humble".

That said, next time you commit a big blunder and you are aware of it, consider saying sorry as fast as you can. It'll save you a lot of time and your error will almost go unnoticed after a while.

Sorry, I am innovating

There's been a lot of talking about innovation recently. If one pays attention to newspapers, social media, magazines or directives' strategies for the immediate future, innovation is on everyone's lips. The reason is quite evident, being this particular decade one of the most unstable periods ─astonishingly rich in technological development, though. Besides investments to promote different thinking, huge efforts are made to communicate the message that committing an error is as good as having a brilliant idea.

There's a beautiful latin proverb saying: "The wise man learns from the mistakes of others, the fool has to learn from his own". But if one listens to Einstein saying: “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”, you just don't know what to do, whether pretend not to commit errors and feel ashamed when it happens, or start adopting a relaxed, practical and empirical attitude, often a good approach to obtain visible results in the shortest time. Too much resources spent on papers, planning and meeting, just to discover later that reality is the scenario against which it is always better to develop an idea, can be frustrating.

Anyway, the message I want to convey in this post is that if you happen to live in the tolerant world of innovators or, on the contrary, if your routine won't leave you huge margins to try and fail, sooner or later you will probably end up disappointing someone. Your boss, your manager, a client, a friend or even your spouse.

Being lucky enough to work in an innovative environment, a mistake should appear as an added value to culture, especially if one is trying something really new. A mistake shouldn't really look like a failure, but just research and development oriented to shift current conditions to improved ones (in terms of income, quality, savings or whatever value you might think of). In this case there are probably margins to go on with experimentations and not feel obliged to say: "Sorry".

If you think you can be free enough to develop your ideas but at the same time you are constantly living scared of committing mistakes, just reconsider what you are doing, probably there's not plenty of space for innovation in your environment. The innovator should never, according to my opinion, feel like saying: "Sorry" (although it's always an elegant and polite way to communicate that you are conscious that your actions need certain improvements). Take care, this has nothing to do with pride. It's just a matter of feeling real environmental open-mindedness, leading to regard errors and mistakes as part of the whole innovative process.

Now, if you are being unfaithful to your spouse don't tell her/him: "Sorry, I am innovating", because I am pretty sure it won't work.