To produce a creative inspired mindset, begin by changing your perspective, urges Andy Stefanovich in ‘Look at More: A proven approach to innovation, growth, and change’ (www.josseybass.com). Changing your perspective, as he explains, is all about your openness to new perspectives, situations, or ideas. “It relates to your comfort and ability to incorporate alternative points of view when generating new ideas. It also indicates your general interest and curiosity about things.”
Women’s preferences
For instance, you can ask a completely new audience for ideas, as Volvo did by forming an all-female design team to explore women’s preferences when it comes to buying a car. The team’s design had many innovative features, recounts the author.
The foremost feature that the design spoke of was a transmission that needed service only about every 30,000 miles, because women did not care for working under the hood. “The car sends a radio signal to the nearest dealership when it’s time to bring it in, so the dealer can call the car’s owner and tell her that it’s due for service.”
Other features included ‘theatre-style back seats’ with seats generally in the ‘up’ position so as to leave lots of floor space for shopping bags and boxes; more easily cleaned interiors and exteriors with removable and washable upholstery and carpeting, and paint with non-stick properties; buttons and control mechanisms gathered in one central location; a cap-less gas tank because women found dealing with the gas cap a nuisance; and lots of storage space such as a large central compartment to fit a laptop bag and a special compartment in the doorjamb to hold wet umbrellas.
Though such a car was not actually produced, the exercise completely changed the way Volvo talked and appealed to women, the author observes.
Abstract connections
At times, the source of your inspiration may be abstract, says Stefanovich. Such sources are the ones that on the surface seem completely unrelated to your objective, but the connection might be metaphorical, random, or non-existent, he instructs.
As an example of abstract connection, the book mentions a winner in the 2006 Red Dot international design award, which stood along with Apple’s iPod Nano: Bionic wrench of LoggerHead Tools – an innovative blend of pliers and the adjustable wrench which eliminates the need to carry around many different tools because it adjusts to fit many sizes.
Would you believe that the inspiration for the winning wrench came from a camera lens? “The engineer who designed the tool is also an amateur photographer, and the spark came to him while watching the way that shutters and lenses close in toward the centre. Like all inspired innovations, this design came about through understanding the power of connections – seeing something new or looking at something familiar in a new way.”
Recommended read to stimulate your creativity.
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