According to Steve Jobs, the essence of creativity is to make a connection between (sometimes) two unrelated items.
In an interview in Wired Magazine in 1995, he explained this process:
“Creativity is just connecting things.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.
It seemed obvious to them after a while.
That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity.”
But what if, rather than relying on creative people you could show people how to connect two different thoughts, experiences or products and create something completely new?
What if there is a tool that could help you do this — on demand?
Well there is.
It is called Ideas Blitz.
In the Blitz process one of the 5 steps is Connect (the others are start, enhance, evaluate and action).
The online tool simply helps you to connect your initial ideas (from the start phase — 9 ideas in 2 minutes).
You can Connect ideas in two ways using the Blitz tool:
1. It can be through Logic (and/or)
In this process you simply move the ideas back and forth (through the arrows) until you see a logical connection between 2 ideas. You then click connect and you create a new one which you can then enhance, evaluate and action.
2. Via Random
In this process you click on the random button and your ideas (and the ideas of your partner if you are working with others) are randomly linked. This step forces a connection between 2 ideas, in doing so it forces you to open up your mind to new possibilities.
For example, how could you connect Breakfast and writing a new blog? This makes me think of writing about food, or wine or investigating whether people write better when they are on a full or empty stomachs? Actually this sounds like an interesting blog or article idea.
I love this part of Blitz as it is often a great source of originality. Sometimes it does not work but then again I have not wasted or risked anything — it is all upside.
The connect phase is often where your Blitz process comes alive.
You will amaze yourself and others with your creativity.
You can become an idea generation machine.