Sunday, January 31, 2016

Week 4: reading reflection

I think one of the strangest things to get used to is turning problems into opportunities. It makes perfect sense--it's one of those "oh, duh" moments--but I'm used to having ready-made solutions at my disposal. Advertising sells me solutions for problems I didn't know I had (Spicy Shelf! Snuggies!) so how often does an organic problem in need of a solution arise? 

Next to never. But those rare opportunities do exist, and I'm feeling more prepared to identify, solve and capitalize on problems. I can't figure out if I'm an adapter or an innovator but perhaps people can be a healthy dose of both. I think grey areas are fairly common through all aspects of life, though we like to categorize things as one or the other, not in-between. Outliers are hip now--Malcolm Gladwell even wrote a book about them--but the shift from sticking to the status quo to being yourself has been subtle until recent years and still faces opponents. 

I have to disagree with "we've never done anything like that before" alone being an idea killer. Admittedly I'm headstrong and few of the deterrents listed in the reading would stop me from pursuing an idea, but simply stating something has never been done before isn't discouraging. "Where do you get these weird ideas?" That's harsh. "We've never done anything like that before." Okay, no big deal, let's do it.   

Can I mention that I love the creative exercise "think of and write down all of the functions you can imagine for the following items?" Oh, well, I suppose this being my blog and all nobody is going to stop me. Let's try our own. Think of and comment below all of the functions you can imagine for the following items: 
  • A wooden pallet
  • Leather scraps
  • A medium-sized ceramic pot
  • A brown paper bag
  • A detail-oriented but lazy staff member

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