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Creating Connections

There are no original ideas. This statement gets thrown around a lot, especially in creative fields like writing and business. It may even be true to a certain extent. Most products, stories, businesses and designs are built on established foundations and templates. So how can people keep producing ideas that you wish you’d thought of (or worse, that you actually did think of but didn’t act on!)?

Connecting Existing Ideas

It may be impossible to come up with a completely original idea, but what if we connected two or three existing ideas together?

Story, images, sound and computer programming were combined together to create video games. Calling a taxi wasn’t an original idea, but if you connect taxi drivers to the Internet to smart phones, you get Uber. Look around you and see what you use day to day that combine ideas that existed before.

Creativity is about making connections. Connections between principles, ideas and knowledge.

One of the most valuable creative ideas I had at the company I work for came from a basic knowledge of code and an understanding of image formats. We give customers the ability to create personalised characters that we print on a wide array of products. Being able to manipulate an image with code meant we could scale the personalisation options we offered to our customers by many multiples of what we could before. We were also able to design and build a full web to print solution, which reduced production time and errors. This came from simply connecting two ideas.

Become an Ideas Sponge

To be able to make these connections, it helps to constantly absorb ideas and knowledge from all walks of life in order to build a mental library (and even a physical/digital library of notes). This means being open to learning new ideas, hobbies, disciplines and cultures. Develop a thirst for learning.

Building this mental library alone won’t make connections happen. It’s when you need a solution that may not exist yet that this pool of ideas comes in handy. It’s when you consciously try to make connections between ideas, knowledge and principles that they start to appear. A tool like mind mapping comes in handy here.

An Easy Creativity Tip

Once we’ve really exhausted our conscious efforts to make new connections and come up with new ideas, it’s a good idea to take a break, let go of the problem and sleep on it, even for a couple of days. If you’ve ever experienced a sudden spark of inspiration or a light bulb moment while in the shower or washing the dishes, it’s because the subconscious part of your mind continues to work on the problem after you’ve consciously let it go. Try this the next time you’re trying to solve a difficult problem.

Go create some connections.

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Facing a Blank Canvas

It’s a common problem. You sit down to write, draw, design or start your creative project… and then nothing. Where is the creativity hiding? Why aren’t the ideas flowing? Sometimes just starting and seeing where things go can work, but sometimes we need a structured process to get things moving. The process doesn’t need to be complicated. I sometimes use one similar to the following:

  1. Choose a subject or theme
  2. Research the subject
  3. Mind map
  4. Create some draft layout
  5. Refine

Choose a Subject or theme

Usually when we sit down (or stand up) to work we already have a subject or theme in mind. If not, choose one. If you’re writing a novel, will it be sci-fi, horror, romance? If you’re taking a photograph, will it be of a person, an object or an environment?

Research the subject

Before generating ideas it can be a good idea to fill your mental pool with knowledge around the subject. If you’re creating something that’s horror themed, watch some good horror films while you take relevant notes. Read some books. Save a bunch of reference images in a folder. Learn some of the history.

Mind Map

This is one of my favourite parts of the process. If you’re not sure what a mind map is, I’d recommend you do a little research online. Essentially you begin with one word or phrase “Sci-Fi” for example and write it in the centre of a sheet of paper or your digital canvas. You then draw a few branches sprouting away from this word. On each of these sprouting branches, write a word that’s associated with the root phrase. In this example “science” would be a good word. “Fiction”, “space”, “aliens” and “future” would also make great branch words. You then sprout off smaller branches from these secondary words with words and phrases associated with this like “experiment” and “test tube” if you branching off from “science”.

The important thing is to get everything out of your head and down on this mind map, even if you don’t think the words or phrases are good enough. No judgement at this stage. As they say “it’s better out than in”. Through word association, ideas and connections will start to appear and you can keep going until you’ve exhausted your mental capacity.

Create Some Drafts

You’ve chosen a subject, done some research and put some ideas down in the form of a mind map. Now it’s time to create some draft layouts. This can be applied to any creative discipline from writing to design to creating a business plan. Use broad strokes to begin with. It’s best not to trap yourself with too much detail just yet. You want to get a feel for the whole picture (or piece of writing) before narrowing in on the details.

It’s important at this stage to explore numerous options. Have fun, experiement, turn things upside down. What if who you imagined to be the good guy in your story was actually the bad guy? What if instead of capturing a wide landscape photo, you zoomed right in to a specific part? Move things around and see what could be possible.

Refine

Once you’ve explored some drafts, it’s time to choose one and go into more depth with it. This is when you can really focus in on the details and polish the work up. Every now and again step back and look at the piece as a whole to see if it still holds up or if you need to adjust or if in fact one of your previous drafts might work better in practice.

This is a brief overview of a process that can be used when facing a blank canvas. Try it if you get yourself in a pickle and adapt it to fit your workflow or discipline.