Thursday, October 23, 2014
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Anticonventional questions and Anticonventional Thinking (ACT)
Anticonventional Questions
ACT takes questioning to a more creative level. It recognises the importance of asking fact-finding, analytical questions. But that is not enough. ACT also asks feeling questions and anticonventional questions. Let us look at each kind of question. But first, a reminder of terminology. In ACT, a transcendental situation is any situation in which we have decided to take unconventional, creative action.
Analytical Questions
Analytical questions should start with the five whys. This is a simple matter of asking "Why is this situation transcendental?" Once we have an answer, drill down by asking why and why again. This process will be familiar to any engineer or parent of young children. Other analytical questions include:
- What has caused this situation to occur?
- Who is affected by the situation?
- What are the constraints we face in implementing a solution?
- Do our competitors face similar situations? If so, how are they responding?
Analytical questions help clarify the situation and ensure you are addressing the correct issues.
Feeling Questions
Feeling questions enable you to understand the emotions of all involved; something that is often not addressed in business creativity and innovation with its focus on analysis. But understanding these feelings is critical in terms of understanding a situation as well as seeing the situation from new perspectives. Feeling questions include:
- How do we feel about this situation?
- How would we like to feel?
- How do our customers feel?
- How would we like them to feel about our creative action?
- How do the relevant decision makers feel about the situation, eventual actions we might take and the potential risks?
It is usually a good idea to ask, "why" after each of these questions in order to elaborate upon the answer. Feeling questions might, for example, indicate that while a plan to automate processes is a winner from a cost-savings and efficiency perspective, implementation of the plan will almost certainly cause a lot of unhappiness among staff affected by the change as well as customers used to human interaction with your company.
Indeed, any big business change is likely to cause feelings of uncertainty, which will make it harder to win people over to your creative vision. Addressing feelings while analysing a transcendental situation ensures you also address them when building a vision of the action you will take in the situation.
Transcendental Questions
Transcendental questions are great fun and enable you to see a transcendental situation in new ways. They also enable your mind to build connections between the transcendental situation and other information, thoughts and situations. These connections make developing ideas into truly creative visions much easier!
Transcendental questions include:
- What colour is the situation?
- What would happen if we introduced a group of cats and dogs into the situation?
- What would McDonalds (the fast food chain) do in a situation like this?
- How does the situation feel about itself? Why?
Warning, asking and answer transcendental questions may lead to laughter and less than serious answers. Do not panic. This is a good thing! It means that people are relaxing, letting their guards down and, as a result, putting themselves in an optimal frame of mind for creativity!
As a side note, if you ever meet an interesting person at in a social situation and want to get to know her (or him) better, ask transcendental questions. An interesting conversation is almost certain to ensue!
Mix and Match
It is best to mix the various types of questions as you progress. Sometimes a silly answer to a transcendental question will result in insight that enables better answering of an analytic or feeling question. If you are a facilitator, you can make cards with various questions on them, shuffle them and ask each group to go through their set of cards, one at at time, and answer the questions on them.
Take Notes
Needless-to-say, as you ask and answer these questions, take notes! Do not just write down the answers, but also note insights and inspirations that strike you as you answer the questions.
Try It
One of the great things about ACR and its various elements is that it is very easy to try -- and this three stage questioning is no exception. Give it a try right now! Think of a transcendental situation that is relevant to you. Now answer these questions:
- Why is this situation transcendental?
- What would happen if you did nothing?
- Who is involved in this situation?
- How do they feel about it?
- How would you like them to feel about it?
- What colour is the situation?
- What would happen if you made it blue?
- What constraints do you face in implementing your ideas?
- What time limits do you face?
- Who must approve this situation?
- How do they feel about the situation?
- How are they likely to feel about the big, creative vision you expect to propose? Why?
- How would your grandfather deal with this situation?
- What does the situation smell like?
- What would happen if a gorilla entered the situation?
- If you had to build this situation with Lego bricks, what would it look like?
- Shrink the situation so that it fits into the palm of your hand. What does it look like now?
Summary
In anticonventional thinking, before you start playing with ideas, you need to understand your transcendental situation deeply. One of the ways to do this is by asking three types of questions about the situation:
- Analytical questions
- Feeling questions
- Anticonventional questions
By mixing and matching these questions and answers, you better prepare your mind for building big, unconventional creative visions.
One last note, questioning is just one part of gaining deep insight into a transcendental situation. Meditation, reflection and keeping the situation in the back of your mind for a few days are other actions you can and should take.
--
Monday, May 26, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Exercise I read yesterday.
Depict tension or a contest/struggle by using only squares, circles and
triangles in a drawing.
triangles in a drawing.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
STUFF
With the influx of innovation, and design, etc., comes more products
that are silly, superfluous, and excessive. Notice the big push lately
in innovation, product design and "creativity"?
-tp
that are silly, superfluous, and excessive. Notice the big push lately
in innovation, product design and "creativity"?
-tp
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Creativity...
"I would never have let my schooling get in the way of my education. Observation was my conduit to knowledge, intuition my source of power." -Phillipe Petit
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Friday, May 2, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Madison Jerde, GRAPHIC DESIGN student, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
Khem: The Alchemy of Blending Tea (Packing Studio project)
Based on the principles of Alchemy, Khem is a brand that allows you to create and alter your own mixtures of tea.
Tea Container
Top of container
Individual Tea "section"
Based on the principles of Alchemy, Khem is a brand that allows you to create and alter your own mixtures of tea.
Tea Container
Top of container
Individual Tea "section"
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Brad Hokanson - The Creative Rule of 10 - YouTube
Brad Hokanson - The Creative Rule of 10 - YouTube
My professor at the University of Michigan Design School.
My professor at the University of Michigan Design School.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Labyrinth Pads
Today, I spotted a paperweight that has a labyrinth molded into the top. It comes with a stylus, so the user can trace the surface of the labyrinth. This is only a single, static labyrinth. You can make your own to trace by Googling "labyrinth", and printing up some of your own to trace with a pencil or your finger. You could pad a bunch of the images with padding compound, and use them and/or give them as gifts. Here is a link to making a pad: http://practicallyfunctional.com/make-your-own-pad-of-paper/ and another from Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5975531/make-custom-notepads-with-padding-compound
If you have some disposal income, you could have some rubber stamps made from the images your find.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Friday, January 31, 2014
It's just about the hours.
A friend wrote:
Yesterday i had a really terrible recorder lesson. After a week of very intensive practice, I just got in there and fell apart. Couldn't do anything right. So I had to adjust my intention again. My commitment is to play a certain no. of hours no matter what. That's it, just that. When I have a break-through it doesn't mean anything, and when I have a break-down it doesn't mean anything. It's just about the hours.
Yesterday i had a really terrible recorder lesson. After a week of very intensive practice, I just got in there and fell apart. Couldn't do anything right. So I had to adjust my intention again. My commitment is to play a certain no. of hours no matter what. That's it, just that. When I have a break-through it doesn't mean anything, and when I have a break-down it doesn't mean anything. It's just about the hours.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
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