Creative confidence by Tom and David Kelley. Introduction

Blink 5
New experiences will help you explore the creativity within you.

How many times have you waited around for your muse to come to you? Often people sit around waiting for the proverbial apple to fall on their head, but it never works. If you want to gain inspiration, you’ll need to have new experiences.

New experiences allow us to see the world in a different light, thus helping novel ideas come to us more easily.

For example, two of the authors’ students were once faced with the task of finding a way to decrease child mortality. After doing some research on the internet, they decided that the only way they could really grasp the problem would be to go to the countries and the hospitals where this problem was worst.

The insights and experiences they gained from their travels helped them to develop a cheap sleeping pouch with a built-in heating pad that has kept countless children living in remote, harsh climates safe from hypothermia.

But let’s say that you can’t afford to fly around the world to gain inspiration. What should you do?

In order to gain these valuable insights, try to think like a traveler, seeing everything – even the most mundane or familiar tasks and environments – with “new eyes.”

Ask “why?” at every opportunity. You’ll find that the answers will offer you insight into why people behave and use products the way they do, and how you can improve things.

For example, many people still use outdated technology, like landline phones. It’s easy to just accept this fact and move on. However, if we asked “why,” we’d probably discover that people use them purely out of habit, and not because landlines are somehow more practical than the alternatives.

Armed with this information, you might look at ways to produce or market mobile devices more suited to a conservative mind-set about technology, rather than trying to win people over with gadgets that don’t appeal to them.