Brilliant ideas are all around us. The challenge today seems to be identifying those that can actually provide some insight into the questions or issues that we are facing.
To sort through the chaff, I find I will listen to the recommendations by colleagues, clients, family, friends and trusted interweb sources. They’ll often mention magazines, books, blogs, websites, events or simply ideas that are inspiring them.
Three of these little gems have really impressed me this year.
the design files
type blog
www.thedesignfiles.net
Caste your mind back to a time before the internet… drift … drift … drift … Did you ever cut out photos, ads, illustrations, products, etc from magazines and keep a file of your cherished desired items? No? Oh well, I’ve been a long time fan of The File and I love seeing what’s in Lucy Feagin’s File on all things designie. She interviews all sorts of creative types about their work and life and also features interiors of homes that are alive with their occupants’ obsessions, passions and personalities. One of my favourite posts this year has been on notebooks (you know, those things some of us still scribble in) but I’m just as taken by the furniture, fabrics and art of local makers. Lucy is truly gifted in finding the gorgeous and often simple objects that make our spaces full of wonder and beauty. [the design files: recommended by Kate James]
dumbo feather, pass it on
type mook
www.dumbofeather.com
I’m fairly new to the dumbo feather world but it is certainly a place that I intend to regularly visit. dumbo feather is a mook (sort of a magazine, sort of a book) and each quarterly issue features the stories of five ‘remarkable individuals’. There a side-articles within each feature which draw out some of the ideas touched on a little more. I find as I bounce from one article to the next, I keep being struck by a strange feeling. It’s the feeling that something very special is being said. It’s the feeling that this little mook is quite brilliant – not only in the people and ideas it gives space but how it does it. It looks and feels beautiful. [dumbo feather: recommended by Kate James]
fear.less
type online mag
www.fearlessstories.com
Fear is one of those things that most of us are well acquainted with. It holds us back, makes us do stupid things and usually oversteps its purpose of keeping us alive. So this magazine, that features the unique stories of people overcoming fear, is such a treasure. I like it because it has interviews with people I greatly admire such as Robert Thurman, Sharon Salzberg, Karen Armstron, Ben Zander and Howard Zinn as well as people I’ve never heard of who are just getting out there and living (as the blurb says) ‘remarkable lives’. fear.less is a free monthly online magazine that you can download or view online. [fear.less recommended by Christine McDougall]
How stories can help you remember what’s important
Sometimes I discover new ideas or designs or artists or writers through these publications, but mostly they help me remember.
I’ll be looking through the photos of someone’s home in The Design Files and remember that I really like a particular period of furniture design, or art, or fabric or the way light can be used to change the mood of a room. I remember how physical objects impact upon my space.
I’ll be looking at an issue of fear.less and remember that I really quite like the way Seth Godin formats his ebooks in landscape so you don’t have to scroll down and down and down and down. Or, I’ll remember that ebooks don’t have to look like books but can have their very own style which makes them easy to read and easy on the eye.
I’ll be looking at dumbo feather and remember that writing doesn’t have to be so minimalist. I’ll remember that stories that inspire don’t have to be “woo I’ve made it. I’m so cool.” but can have doubts and obstacles and heartache. In fact they are better if they do because they are more realistic and show the resilience and creativity of the human spirit. In the face of all this crap, this person continues.
It’s brilliant ideas like this that help me remember what’s important, and being aware of that makes all the difference in how I work and live.
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OMG! What am I doing with my life! The DIY Life Guide to creating a life and work you love
Free ebook for subscribers
With the silly season fast approaching, I thought it might be timely to share with you my little all-in-one resource for those who may be scheduling some existential angst or career crisis over the coming months.
This 30-page ebook helps you work out what you want from life and how you can start making it happen. You can work through the eight steps in an afternoon or use it to guide your change over the next eight weeks or eight months.
Each of the steps, from defining your vision to working out what you’re doing about it today, comes with exercises and/or worksheets to help you get your thoughts (and what your committing to!) on paper. Some of the exercises are old friends (hello Future Letter!) and some are new to The Studio (such as Discovering Your Strengths, FeelThinkDo, and more).
You can get access to the free download of OMG! What am I doing with my life! The DIY Life Guide to creating a life and work you love by subscribing to Brilliant!
If you’re a current Brilliant! subscriber, you’ll receive your direct link to the ebook in this month’s Brilliant! newsletter in your Inbox tomorrow.
If you would like to receive monthly updates of what’s new in The Studio, just subscribe to our monthly ezine, Brilliant! Ideas for Work and Life.
Steven Johnson’s TEDtalk: Where do good ideas come from?
Finding innovative solutions to problems is a common challenge in work and in life.
I find in most circumstances the way to proceed is often clear or doesn’t take long to become clear through asking a few simple questions. But other times no matter how many lists of possibilities I roll through, the answer doesn’t appear.
A current situation for me is the naming of a new project. I am fairly clear in what I want the name to communicate but do you think I can find ‘the name’? The frustrating thing is that I know it exists, it’s just not existing in my view yet.
With this in mind, I watched the TED talk, above, by Steven Johnson (a different Steven Johnson from last month) entitled “Where good ideas come from”.
Johnson is interested in the environments that allow high levels of innovation. He believes that, contrary to popular thought, most good ideas aren’t lightbulb or eureka moments but instead, an idea is a network cobbled together from all the other ideas around it. Good ideas come from the ideas having a space to mature and, in his words, have sex with other ideas.
Johnson uses the example of the first British coffee houses’ influence on the Age of Enlightenment. The introduction of caffeine into a population used to alcohol as their beverage of choice, along with the space where these newly stimulated minds could come together and debate, argue and reason with each other, set forth a subculture of ideas that changed history.
Johnson is also keen on the concept of the slow hunch where an idea has a very long incubation period. As an example, he refers to Darwin’s evolutionary ideas, which existed in his writings well before he presented them as a clear theory.
So what’s this mean for us? How do we tap into these idea networks? Do we need to imbibe stimulants in the company of others to find our solutions?
While I’m quite fond of an occasional caffeinated beverage in a public house, I don’t think it’s necessary. For me, the key is asking the question and then being open to the ideas around me interacting with the original idea. So that might happen by having a conversation with a friend or colleague, reading a paper or a magazine, participating in an online forum, wandering through the library or just sitting on the beach.
It’s about creating the space for the idea to form.
Which is what I think Johnson is getting at – whether it’s a physical space, social space, mental space or temporal space.
So where does that leave me with my project name? Well, I’ve been asking lots of questions of lots of people lately but it’s all come back to “Here’s my dilemma. What do you think?” The answers have been diverse and sometimes unexpected.
While I still don’t have “the name”, the process has been excellent for helping me clarify the boundaries as well as the possibilities for the project.
Perhaps all I now need to accept is that this project may need a slow incubation.
Or a lot more caffeine.
Or mindfulness.
Or trips to the beach.
Or…
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This is one of the four basic questions I always ask someone who wants to change some part of their life or work.
I find that we can be very good at detailing what’s wrong or what we don’t want or how things should be different, but very few people are clear about what they do want. Even if they are clear about aspects of it, there’s no overall vision for how it is integrated with the rest of their life.
So is it any surprise that we have difficulty making decisions when we have nothing to guide us?
Today’s Studio treat is an exercise that is surprisingly simple and yet quite powerful. The Future Letter asks you to write a letter, dated one year hence, to someone you care about. It asks you
What do you want your life to look like in twelve months?
How will you feel?
What will you be doing?
and other questions to help you get all those hopes and dreams and possibilities that have been swimming around in your head written down.
It also helps you to start bringing your values to life.
This exercise will be enhanced if you’ve already done your Wheel of Life, Sorting Out Your Values and your MyLand Visualisation but you can also just dive in to the Future Letter and explore your values and life domains more fully later.
