That idea is stupid. Are you sure about that?
Do you know where the hell is Matt?
Consider the story of this 31-year-old from Connecticut who in February of 2003 quit his job and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia. A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave him an idea: "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It's actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, Matt uploaded the video on his personal site so that he family and friends could see it.A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on until it came to the attention of the people at Stride Gum. They asked Matt if he'd be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they'd be paying for it. They said yes.
In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal. This second video made Matt even more quasi-famous. In fact, for a brief period in July, he was semi-famous. Matt was known as "That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I'll send you the link. It's funny."
Things settled down again, and then in 2007 Matt went back to Stride with another idea. He realized his bad dancing wasn't actually all that interesting, and that other people were much better at being bad at it. He showed them his inbox, which, as a result of his semi-famousness, was overflowing with emails from all over the planet. He told them he wanted to travel around the world one more time and invite the people who'd written him to come out and dance too. Stride thought that sounded like yet another very good idea, so they let him do it. (The result is the video at top.)
How many times have we dismissed someone else's thought? How many times have we allowed others to trash our ideas? How can the design process innovate if it thinks in terms of cancellation? In what ways you think designers could better collaborate to consider more the ideas of others?
Hey, in the end? who knows? Your idea may take you travelling all around the world. ;)
I could dance like that if I felt like it? No, but seriously. I can?t even count the number of times I?ve dismissed other peoples? ideas as being ?stupid.? What?s probably worse is the fact that I have a much harder time counting the number of times I?ve dismissed my own ideas as stupid. How ironic it is, then, that the design process still manages to innovate!
The way I see it is that the design process operates on several different levels of cancellation. I think that when thoughts and ideas enter the brain, they are subconsciously sorted according to logic and reason; that is, the most illogical ideas are dismissed as the impossible and then as the ideas become more logical and rational, they seem to the thinker to be all the more viable. Now obviously, this would happen on a scale of billionths, even trillionths of a second? so you don?t realize it?s happening, but it?s definitely happening. Otherwise, why wouldn?t you hesitate when someone presents an idea that may be slightly possible? What if I told you that it was because reasoning is built to delineate fallacies? What does the brain do? It reasons. It burns, it must be hot, that whole thing? catch my drift?
Naturally, then, when ideating, the designer innately drifts toward the more valid ideas, the ones that will definitely work or will possibly work. What of those other ideas, those deemed too farfetched? They?re probably stored away in a folder named ?Junk,? if you want to compare the brain to a computer. Once again, how ironic that quite often, we run out of ideas, or the rational ideas fail. We have no choice but to turn to those ?Junk? thoughts. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don?t. So maybe we shouldn?t call them ?Junk? ideas at all.
Do I think that this could be of great assistance to designers? Of course. Recall the Deep Dive video highlighting Ideo?s design process. More designers need to work like Ideo. They took every idea, every thought, every innovation, and laid them all out on the table for consideration. Slowly but surely, the ideas were all weeded out or combined until eventually an intuitive, innovative, and successful shopping cart was developed. So I inquire, why don?t we all work like this? The point is that an idea should not be dismissed simply due its sheer ?stupidity.? I?m not saying that everything is always possible? but sometimes, the most ethereal ideas are the ones that work best.
Posted by Marc A. Helke on September 26, 2008 at 01:08 AM EDT #
I like to think of myself as an open-minded person. However, many designers, including myself, tend to have strong opinions about everything. These strong opinions and thoughts can make it difficult to be open to other ideas besides our own. Many designers tend to think that their ideas are superior to others. I think this is only natural, seeing as we all have different styles of work and different ways of thinking. Our minds are used to our way of doing things, and unfortunately they seem to be trained to think of others? ideas as inferior or stupid. I?m not saying that this is always the case, however I think it is very important to address this issue with design students, who are just beginning their design careers.
How can we make progress in the design world if we always cancel out others? ideas? If we don?t listen to or consider different ideas from our own it is inevitable that we won?t grow as designers. Our design style and thinking would never progress, and eventually would become irrelevant. Our ideas would be one-dimensional, boring, and repetitive. A lot of the time a second opinion or new idea for a project is just what?s needed. Designers need to learn to listen to other ideas, even the ones that might seem crazy or stupid.
In the end, I think a collaboration of ideas works best. All ideas should be taken into consideration when working on a project. It is imperative that designers be open to ideas that they would have never even thought of. It creates a healthy working environment and generates more effective and progressive designs. In addition, by taking other ideas into account you are opening your mind to all possibilities and broadening your range of design thought, thus allowing yourself to produce more creative and innovative designs.
Posted by Hayley Helmstetler on September 28, 2008 at 07:05 PM EDT #
When first starting a project designers? start with sketches and ideas drawn or written, in a sketchbook of sorts. These first ideas are sometimes off the wall or mind numbingly boring. People share their ideas to help each other out but more often than not these key ideas are dismissed, because of ones arrogance or closed mind. I think that one of the main reasons that we need to go to school is to learn to listen to other peoples ideas and thoughts in order to improver our designs.
History has proven this to be true time and time again, we as the human race need to learn from our peers and predecessors. For example, in the late 1500 early 1600 the Catholic Church outlawed Copernicanism. The beliefs of Copernicus, mainly that the sun was the center of the solar system. His idea was just thrown out by the church. However, Galileo Galilei was able to prove that the earth did in fact orbit around the sun, thus the earth is not the center of the universe. Even though Galileo was forced to recant his ideas, and spent the rest of his life in house arrest, he did not disregard the ideas of other intellectuals. Who are we to tell other that they are right or wrong, with out proven fact.
When we work in the studio, sharing ideas is encouraged because without this constant flow of ideas we would be unable to make any progress. Who is to judge if my idea is better than your idea? Nobody, because they are both different solutions to the same problem, but a combination of the two ideas might be more suitable for the client. This is why companies like Ideo listen to one another and everybody sits at the round table.
I would like to challenge you that in the week to come you will not just dismiss other ideas. It dose not matter if you think they are stupid or that your idea is the best in the world, because chances are someone thinks that way about your idea.
Posted by Ian Hampson on September 29, 2008 at 03:18 AM EDT #
I think this video is very important in showing how important the design process really is. This emphasizes that no matter how out of the ordinary the idea is, if worked on and improved it can be turned into something truly meaningful. If I were to go up to some random person and say "Hey, would you ever consider paying me to travel across the planet and film me doing a silly dance?" They would most likely laugh in your face. But that is because the average person has not been trained to embrace a new and fresh idea. Creating new ideas is much more crucial to the evolution of our society then only accepting our current norms. I think the challenge that has been presented in this blog is a lejitimate one, and that I will try my hardest to accept any and all ideas(mine and others) that come my way.
Posted by Gregory Hayter on September 30, 2008 at 01:22 AM EDT #
Everyone has had an instance where they dismissed someone else?s idea or had an idea of their own dismissed. I think this rejection comes from that fact that, deep down, everyone thinks they're right. Why? Because all we have to generate ideas is what we already know. Personal experience and the knowledge we have of another?s experience give us a starting off point. The kicker is that everyone has had a different life and background; therefore, our ideas aren?t all coming from the same base. Thus, our ideas can conflict with someone else?s and when someone challenges what we know we get defensive.
?Fear of the unfamiliar? can be seen daily, on our news, in newspapers, in our daily interactions with other people. For our caveman ancestors, the unfamiliar was often deadly or dangerous so they avoided it. Back then it was important for survival, but maybe this trait has simply been passed down to us. We reject what we don?t know or understand.
As designers it?s so important to be open. Often we have to work together as a team in order to accomplish a goal. Odds are that one person isn?t going to have the best ideas all the time. By listening to others and being open-minded we grow and learn because we?re being exposed to things we might not have ever imagined.
What can sometimes be even harder than accepting another person?s ?stupid? idea is trying to work with our own ?stupid? ideas. Our experience has taught us what works, so why not stick to that? It can be difficult to allow ourselves to loosen up and move past what we?re comfortable with. Innovation can only happen if we shake the fear of trying something different and potentially dumb and just go for it.
Posted by Katlyn Griffin on September 30, 2008 at 03:45 PM EDT #