Imaginibbles

Truly innovative thinking often occurs at the intersection of the seemingly unrelated. Either by accident or by revelation, a product is born.

In our day to day lives, we get stuck looking at the same information through the same lens. Sometimes, in order to get to the innovative we need to throw in some random thinking. As I talk about in the building block EXPAND, imaginative thinking comes from going wide with our knowledge and then finding new ways to connect the dots.

Recently my son received a book filled with random facts. The next day, as I sat down to work through a business challenge I was having, a huge light bulb went off. To give you an inkling, I was grabbling with a new product I am trying to develop. I’ll tell you more about the product when I have it in hand! As I was thumbing through this book, I read a piece about Stonehenge….
“Stonehenge is a mystery – on a grand scale. An enormous ancient monument, Stonehenge was built in Southern England over 3,000 years ago. The monument consists of many large stones, some weighing up to 100,000 pounds, arranged in circular patterns. It may have been used to observe the movements of the sun and moon – and then to create a calendar. No one really knows.”
- Exert from The Biggest Book of Questions and Answers
It was the piece about large stones in a circle that gave me an idea about how to best represent the 7 Building Blocks To Imaginative Thinking™ in a real and tangible way.

I’ve added a few other exerts and pieces of random information for you to apply to your life and/or work.

Try this….
1) Write down your challenge or what you are trying to accomplish
2) After reading each piece of knowledge, brainstorm around these 2 basic questions
a. What could I learn from this knowledge?
b. How does this apply to my challenge or idea?

It may not seem obvious at first but I bet you’ll come up with some incredibly innovative thinking.

Dream big. Dream often. Dream in color!

Exerts from book:

What is the difference between a sea and an ocean? Seas are smaller. A sea can be part of one of the four oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic). Other seas such as the Caspian are surrounded by land

What is octopus ink? It’s a smoke screen. The ejected ink doesn’t dissolve quickly. It floats in the water in a cloud shaped somewhat like an octopus. The idea is to confuse its enemies and over its escape.

Why is it considered unlucky to open an umbrella indoors? Umbrellas were first used by African royalty to shield themselves from the sun god. To open in the shade was an insult to the god. To open one indoors must have been worse.

Why can I drink something really hot, but if I spilled the same thing on myself it would burn? Your mouth has air conditioning! As you sip hot liquid, air comes into your mouth along with it and cools the drink. Your saliva mixes in and cools it further.

What is the most powerful muscle in your body? Your jaw muscle – and it’s because exercise makes a muscle stronger! Talking and chewing exercise this muscle more than any other.

What is St. Elmo’s fire? Sometimes a flammable mass caused by electricity in the air appears at the tops of tall objects during thunder storms. Long-ago sailors who noticed this strange light above the masts of their ships named it after their patron saint, St. Elmo.

Book is the Biggest Book of Questions and Answers.