getFreshMinds.com | Ideas so fresh--they should be slapped!

Lateral Thinking leads to Underwater Hockey

Photo courtesy of the SF Sea Lions and the MN Loons. Taken by Adam Lau.

This past weekend, I spent 3 days playing in an underwater hockey tournament as a member of one of the Minnesota Loons teams.

“What in the world is underwater hockey???” you’re probably wondering. Right? I don’t blame you – it’s right up there with cheese rolling and ferret legging as one of the world’s weirdest sporting events!

Underwater hockey is a game where two teams of six battle on the floor of a pool to knock a hockey puck into a goal.  The hockey puck is weighted so it stays on the bottom – and it’s the goal of the players to spend as much time on the bottom – in play – as possible.

(Players train both to hold their breath longer and to quickly grab a breath while getting back down to the bottom quickly. They wear snorkels, diving masks, and fins – and teams are apparent by the colors of their sticks and caps.)

Still not picturing it?  Take a look at the championship bout at last weekend's CanAm Midwestern Championships:

What’s fascinating to me about this sport – besides it being tons of fun to play – is how the game began as an innovative solution to a snorkeling club’s problem!

The whole story reminds me of “PO”, one of innovation guru Edward de Bono’s creativity techniques.

“PO” is a tactic where you take a statement that leads to a dead end, and then revise it to figure out ways to move forward.

Still unclear? Let me teach you about this technique through underwater hockey’s creation story.

Almost 60 30 years ago, a new snorkeling club in England found themselves facing a vexing situation.  They had just spent all summer attracting new members to their club – and then it became too cold outside to actually go snorkeling! 

Not surprisingly, interest in the club quickly waned.  Plus, members who stuck with the club during the winter got out of shape and lost significant lung capacity because they weren’t motivated to work as hard in a boring pool as in the open (and much more interesting) water!

So, the snorkeling club's dead-end statement was “Our members don’t want to snorkel in a pool."

Is that statement true? Absolutely.  But it leads right to a dead end.  There's no point in coming up with ideas for snorkeling in the pool because everyone already knows their members won't like them.

In the creation story of underwater hockey though, several leaders of the snorkeling club decided that they wanted to push beyond that dead end.  So they challenged themselves with the statement “PO: Our members look forward to snorkeling in a pool.”

(Let’s all imagine they added the word “PO”.)

As a result, this avenue of thought is no longer closed off and they have permission to think of ideas for snorkeling in a pool.

Then, the snorkeling club members could start coming up with ideas for fun things they could do in a pool to get their members excited about strapping on their snorkels and spending time holding their breath underwater in the winter. 

And thus underwater hockey was born! 

Today, underwater hockey is played all over the world.  Local clubs scrimmage regularly, with teams in over 30 countries and dozens of clubs in the US alone.  And every 2 years, the best players compete to represent their countries at the World competition.

All because a new snorkeling club in England said “[PO] Let’s figure out a way to make our members want to go snorkeling in a pool in the winter.”  

Cool, huh?  Lateral Thinking definitely leads to fun possibilities!

Using Improv to Innovate (Review of a PDMA Event)

I just got back from a really interesting PDMA event (Improv for Innovation) on how to use improvisational skills to enhance brainstorming sessions.

Improvisation has a very strong connection to creative thinking because both require people to think in an open-minded "building" fashion.

In Improv, actors depend on the phrase "yes, and" to keep the action going.  "yes, and" means that they have to build off whatever the actor before them said or did - not matter what it was! 

So if the previous actor jumped off a cliff, or lost a leg, the next actor has to keep going in that direction - or they risk bring the play to a screeching halt.

Creativity has a similar need for "yes, and".  When someone voices an idea, and another person pipes up with "But that will never work!", it kills the will to innovate! No one wants to put forth an idea that will immediately be shot down - or invest time thinking in a direction if someone tells them it was all a waste of time and they had to start over!

So, I was really excited to go to this PDMA event and hear about creative thinking from a master of improv.

Stevie Ray of Stevie Ray’s Improv Company started off by talking about how our brains spend most of their time doing logical patterned thinking.

As a result, your brain doesn’t have to do mental gymnastics to drive to work in the morning, or while you’re thinking of the work you do every day.  Your brain knows how to get from Point A to Point B in a consistent, orderly and extremely efficient fashion.

That type of thinking breaks down though when you want to come up with fresh ideas. Then your brain travels down those same well-worn paths in your memory to generate ideas - none of which are groundbreaking at all.

Stevie Ray's solution was to use exercises to force your brain out of its normal pathways and into “whole brain thinking” (where your brain is engaged on all fronts and thus has the greatest innovative potential).  

Sounds like Lateral Thinking, right?!!!  Except Stevie Ray's approach is a little different.  He focuses on pushing your brain out of standard situations to where it has to be more aware and responsive to its surroundings.

One way he taught us to do that is to play games full of randomness.  Basically, when your brain doesn’t know what to expect next, it forces itself wide open.  The game we tried last night was called “Pass the Clap” where a group forms a circle and people try to “pass” a hand-clap along.  The goal is to have the person in charge of giving the clap and the person next to them (the receiver) to clap their hands at the same time.

It turns out, this exercise is extremely hard!  Both people had to pay attention with all their senses to time their clapping motions at the exact same time.  But it was also very energizing and pushed us out of our normal inhibitions.

Then Stevie Ray taught us how to get our minds into an innovating mode through an interesting spin off the "yes, and" improv technique.

In almost every ideation session, whenever someone comes up with an idea, someone else’s first impulse is to respond to that idea with a “yes, but…[insert reason that idea won’t work]”.

Stevie Ray’s exercise was to get everyone to respond to an idea by asking “what do you like about this idea?”  By asking even the skeptics to justify why an idea was good, the exercise pushed people beyond immediately dismissing that idea.

During the session, we spent a little time practicing this technique - and it was fascinating to watch people struggle! You could tell that the first impulse of most PDMA's attendees was to come up with objections to an idea - and this forced them to think differently. 

The one thing I noticed about this innovation technique though was that it was missing a step to keep innovation moving.  The tendency was for particpants to be too supportive: they would keep coming up with ideas why an idea was good, instead of supporting the idea and then coming up with another one.

My company, Ideas To Go, does a really good job of this with our similar technique called Forness Thinking. When someone comes up with an idea, we ask them what they like about the idea AND what they wish for to make it better.  And then we use that the wishes as stimulus to generate new ideas.

Overall, a fascinating evening on innovation! 

I highly recommend going to PDMA events in your city for anyone who is interested in learning about product development and marketing.  And if you want to see the creative mindset on display, check out a local innovation event.  Stevie Ray's Improv Comedy group performs regularily in the Twin Cities.

Solving Problems the Soviet Way

Tonight I'm going to a PDMA event about the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), which is a Soviet method of systematic innovation.  And last night, I went salsa dancing. Believe it or not, those two very different events are connected through one of my favorite creative problem solving tactics!

First of all, what in the world is TRIZ?

In college, I was lucky enough to briefly study TRIZ in St Petersburg under a handful of the Russian masters.  It was January, the room was barely heated, I was wearing 5 layers of clothes to stay warm and we had class for 8 hours a day - and it was one of the coolest (and coldest) experiences of my life!

The whole premise of TRIZ is that by breaking a specific problem down into its underlying generic problem, you will be able to uncover solutions that would never have otherwise occurred to you.

TRIZ was developed in the Soviet Union over 2 decades by a man named Genrich Altshuller who studied 40,000+ patents in order to reveal how invention runs in patterns. And it really works.

Unfortunately, as TRIZ is geared for technical invention, many examples are hard to follow for non-engineers (like myself).  So it doesn't get a ton of buzz.

But I'm a huge fan, because it really pushes people to look at problems in different ways.

So, let me give an example of how I just used TRIZ in my everyday life.  This is about as non-engineering as you can get!  (And how I'm going to tie this post into salsa dancing.)

The Situation: Yesterday, a group of friends and I decided to go salsa dancing.  As you can imagine, salsa dancing requires a lot of twists and turns so I knew I'd need to have secure shoes that move with me.

The Problem: Egads - in reviewing my salsa-dancing wardrobe choices, I ran into a huge problem!  My sneakers simply wouldn't cut it with my sparkly-gold/black skirt.  And my cute heels wouldn't stay on if I move too fast.

Whatever is a gal to do in this terrible, terrible situation?  Compromise on fashion for the ability to enjoy myself spinning in circles?  Or grit my teeth and wear something that didn't make me feel like dancing?

Oh no! Not me!  Instead I decided to use TRIZ - the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving  to reveal a solution. (Isn't that what every innovator does in a crisis?)

Thinking like a TRIZ practitioner, I realized that I wasn't trying to find a way to hold my cute heels on while I dance. Oh no: I was actually trying to find a way to secure loose footwear.

Think those are the same thing? Not at all.

When your mind gets stuck thinking about holding on high heels, your brain automatically searches for things that are related to high heels only.  

But when you expand the parameters to securing footware, that opens up many new possibilities.

Some initial solutions I came up with:

• Glue (ouch)...
• Duct tape (ugly and inflexible)...
• Elastic bands around the arch of my foot (hard to create)...
• Shoe laces (don't work with the heels)... 

Then, as I thought of ways to secure footwear, I realized I had recently seen a solution for this exact same generic problem in another part of my life!

As a hobby, I play underwater hockey, which has a lot of quick changes in direction as the puck moves back and forth. So, even though my flippers fit well, I constantly lost them if I turned too fast.

The solution I learned about from my teammates: little rubber straps called "Fin Keepers" that hold your flippers more securely to your feet.  

The y-configuration holds the bottom and heels of the shoe securely to the top of my feet, and makes them basically impossible to lose or have slip out of place.  

Doesn't that sounds exactly like the result I was looking for with my heels?  Hmmm....

So off I run to grab the fin keepers from my gym bag so I could figure out how to mimic their success with my heels.  As an experiment, I slipped them onto my heels - and (what do you know!) they held my footware securely to my feet! Problem-solved!

The trial...

To make it even better - the black rubber almost exactly matched the black of my shoes!  In fact, from more than 2 feet away, you couldn't even tell that the fin keepers weren't actually part of the shoe!  So, instead of trying to recreate the same functionality with other materials, I just wore my Fin Keepers salsa dancing.

The Result: The Fin Keepers worked perfectly!  My shoes didn't slip an inch all night, no matter how fast I spun! (And the only reason my friends noticed I was wearing snorkeling equipment on my feet was because I insisted on showing them.)

All because I went beyond thinking about how to keep my heels on when I danced to thinking more generically about the problem...!

Now, I can't wait for the PDMA event tonight to refresh what I do know about TRIZ, and to open my eyes to how I can use it more ways in creativity.  I'll be looking for more things to share for sure.

Never Stop Learning

Photo by Paleontour

One of the blogs I read, Think Simple Now, just wrote a great post about watching a man in his late 70's learn to use a brand new computer.

The Apple rep is showing him how to browse the web and set-up his first email account. The elderly man is diligently taking notes as the Apple rep gives him a tour of the fresh and foreign, online world with his newly purchased laptop...

...As the rep carefully dictates the process, the elderly man numbers “1, 2, 3” on a yellow pad, followed by step-by-step, detailed instructions.... Once finished, the elderly man articulately asks for advice on what other websites people would usually bookmark....

...[The elderly man says to the author after noticing her attention] in a polished, humbled tone, “Ahh… to be young again. I feel like I’m exploring in a desert…I’ve been here for 4 hours.” He smiles gently, his eyes gleaming.

The author writes about how inspiring it was to see someone so clearly out of his comfort zone taking on the challenge of learning a new thing - especially at an age where no one expects you to learn anything new.  And she's right - it is super inspiring!

And it's also a fact: if you want to keep having great ideas throughout your life, you MUST keep pushing yourself to learn new things!

Think about it.  New ideas come from making new connections between points of innovation in your brain.  Each new point of information that goes into your brain creates the possibility to connect with everything already in there.  And, as a result, your possibility for creativity grows exponentially every time you learn something new.

If you stop learning, you stop expanding your creative potential. 

All the possibilities you will ever come up with are already inside you.  You might still putter along for a long time, spitting out ideas based on sheer talent, but eventually that well will run dry.

So if you want ideas, go learn something.  It doesn't matter what it is - you could be learning about using a new technology or about the astronomical impact that salt has had on the development of empires.  All those things push the boundaries of your thinking, and give you that many more possible ideas.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go!

Even in a recession, it's not just about having the lowest price.

America - and much of the world - is in the midst of a recession.  Customers are only interested in purchasing items at the lowest price and the only way to thrive now is to slash prices to rock bottom. Right?

I don't agree.  Granted, people have less money to spend than every before. But I don't think that the fact we're in a recession means price cuts are mandatory.

Yes, customers always want to pay the lowest price (or not pay at all) for generic products or services. However, this has been around for a while - it's not just a result of the financial crisis.

In my opinion, the price of a product or service only becomes a major issue when creativity is lacking.

The key to justifying a higher price is to provide something that is of more value.

Customers are always open to paying more for a product or service that is more than a bare bones approach.

Take Apple for example. Apple can charge a premium price because they don't just sell computers and music players, they sell a beautiful-looking machine that is easy for people to use and that has a huge "cool" factor.

But is being cool enough to sustain Apple in a time of financial crisis?

I'll let you decide.  Keep in mind that Apple is one of the very few stores that didn't have a "we're-so-desperate-that-we're-practically-giving-stuff-away" sale after the holidays last year. And that people snatch up the new iPhones whenever they arrive.  And the fact that the blogosphere is drooling over the mere possibility of an Apple Tablet computer.

The same goes for nearly any product or service. There's a difference in buying a cup of coffee versus buying a cup of coffee made from organically-grown beans that are grown by a farmer's collective in South America that uses their profits to lift their community out of poverty. The coffee could have the exact same taste - but people will pay more for the second cup.

Or take the infamous Michael Graves toilet bowl brush, "an understated, well-designed work of translucent matte plastic and white bristle bristle" that Daniel Pink wrote about in A Whole New Mind.  A toilet brush functions exactly the same whether it's a $20 brush created by a designer or a $3 brush you buy at Ikea.  Functionality isn't what makes people spend 6x the price of the regular toilet bowl brush - they're paying for the look.

If you can make your generic product or service special - by making it beautiful, or making it so easy to use my 90-year old grandmother could install it, or by showcasing the incredible story of how it came to be, or even by just having such a great customer service line that your customers know they can always depend on you - it won't be necessary to have the lowest price.

The key is to find innovative ways to make sure your customers feel like they are getting value for the extra money they're spending.  And that takes creativity.

Change your perspective.

As a blogger and a freelance writer, I spend a lot of time at the computer.  Lucky, I don't suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, but I've had some stress issues with my wrists. Especially when I was trying to crank out my 130 page dissertation for my masters degree.

When I talked to the doctor about it, she told me that I should get some braces to wear at night.  She explained that they would prevent me from holding my hands in a stressful position, and allow my arms to heal overnight.  Then, during the day, I'd be able to type away.

I thought about what she said for a moment, then asked, "Could I wear the braces when I work instead, and prevent the damage in the first place?"

She gave me a surprised look, and then agreed that it would work.

And that's exactly what I've done.  Every time my wrists start to bother me, I slip on my braces and type away.  Since I can't hold my hands in a stressful position with the braces on, I can't hurt them.  It's a perfect solution!  (I even have cute wrist warmers to put over the braces so I can type in public without looking like an invalid.)

What was really interesting to me about this whole experience was that we had such completely different thought processes:

My doctor focused on how to cure my injury.

I focused on how to prevent it so I didn't get hurt in the first place.

Of course, it makes sense about why we looked at the problem from different angles.  Doctors generally deal with people who are already hurt, and so their focus is on curing.  Whereas, as the person with the injury, I not only wanted to fix it, I wanted to make sure it didn't happen again!

Now, everytime I wear my wrist braces, I'm reminded of that conversation - and I'm actually happy that I keep thinking about it.  

Why?  

Because it reminds me of a really nifty tool for creative thinking: changing perspectives.

Generally, when we think of ideas, we think of ideas as ourselves:

• "What would make something better for me?"  
• "What in my usual sphere of knowledge would work with what we're trying to accomplish?"
• "What do I think would be an interesting change?"

It works great, until we get stuck in rut and the ideas dry up.

To break out of that rut, all we need to do is to deliberately shift our thinking to look at the challenge from someone else's perspective.

Then, it's not just about what we know.  It's about what would make an experience better for a patient. Or how a interior designer would improve a car.  Or even (if we really want to stretch) what changes a toothfairy would make to a bed!

That moves our thinking away from our normal thought processes and towards possible better solutions.  Not all are winners, but it's always better to have a large pool of possibilities to choose from.

And, it's good not to get stuck in one way of thinking.  I definitely appreciate it when I can walk away from my computer after a long day of typing and have pain-free arms!

Have more ideas to get less attached.

When you have one big idea, it's really easy to fall in love with it. And that's where most people stop.  They get one really good idea, and are so excited about it that they start plowing ahead imagining all the possibilities.

That's risky though, because what if that one idea turns out to be not so good after all? 

What if you go forward with it, only to find that it is a total flop?  Or what if you tell it to a friend - and the look on their face makes you wish you'd never spoken up?  Or what if you try to develop it, and run into a brick wall?

It only takes one amazing idea to make all your dreams come true... but that doesn't mean you should have only one idea. 

Instead, you should focus on getting lots of ideas.  The more the better, in fact!  That way, you exponentially increase the potential of hitting a home run.

About a year ago, I challenged readers to think of 100 ideas for their next creative challenge.  It's a mean exercise that drains your brain totally dry, but it's completely possible.  In fact, getting the first 50 ideas is usually the hardest - after 75, it's practically easy!

But I bet no one did it.  Forcing yourself to think of 100 ideas sounds like torture, doesn't it?

Last week though, Seth Godin's group of Alternative MBA students challenged themselves to come up with 111 ideas each.  And they did it!  And to prove they did it, they posted the entire list of 999 ideas on their blog.

Here are 20 of their ideas:

• Local fresh restaurant that opens off-peak hours to hold cooking classes to locals.
• A party planner for kids birthday parties, but with educational and fun activities.
• Retractable spikes for boots to walk on the ice on sidewalks
• Chewing gum that is good for braces and dentures.
• Make your own batch of whiskey - takes 12 years, you pick flavors and types of oak barrels at the distillery, pickup in 12 years
• A half refrigerator/freezer/microwave in the trunk of a car. That way, wherever you go in the car, you can always have food handy.  How great for road trips.
• EZPass for humans on public transportation (key fob?)
• Roomba type toy for dog to chase around house. Should move faster, be fairly indestructible and make appropriate noises.
• Fish Burial Kit.
• Executive Power nap business - Locations where executives can take a 20 minute energizer nap during the day
• Pay at the pump carbon offsets
• Unique Bachelor & Bachelorette Parties - we work with you to design a fun, unique bachelor or bachelorette party experience
• A service where people are employed to talk specifically to antisocial or shy people at a party (they’ll feel better about themselves and will be more likely to open up next time with their new confidence.)
• Restaurant where you cook alongside the chef , choose your ingredients and learn a new technique.
• A personal education coach-they pick blogs, books, resources for you to learn based on your personal interests and career goals.  They gather all the materials and for you and make recommendations on the best way for learning the material.
• Build Your own Mardi Gras mask site.
• Create your own ice cream flavors
• Be a sports team mascot for day
• Netflix for home exercise equipment. Swap out your ergometer for an elliptical and then swap that for a treadmill.
• A perfect crayon box. com where customer is invited to create their own crayon box, picking his/her favorite colors.

As you can see, they're all over the map!  Some are good and have a lot of potential... and some are just silly.

But the best part about having so many ideas is that it's hard to get too attached to any of them.

That's good, because it allows you to pick out the best ideas.  And it also helps you push your creativity further - because letting yourself come up with "bad" or "silly" ideas is a good way to open up new possibilities.   Then, a stupid idea might lead to a great one.

So, whenever you start falling in love with an idea, take a step back and start thinking of more ideas.  You'll have much better results that way!

The challenge of stretching a mind beyond its original dimensions.

"A mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension. "
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sounds great and inspiring, doesn't it?  Except for one problem: stretching one's mind to take in new ideas is really hard!

When I studied German, my class found itself fighting a very difficult mental battle. No, we weren't reading Goethe or anything amazingly advanced. We had the worst trouble learning one of the most basic parts of German: the different noun forms.

Doesn't sound too complicated, right? Except that German uses a completely different system than English does. The German nouns have unique endings depending on their function in the sentence:

Nominative Nouns are the subject. (N)
Genitive Nouns show possession. (G)
Dative Nouns are for the indirect object. (D)
Accusative Nouns are for the indirect object. (A)

Raise your hand, native English speakers, if what I just wrote is basically all Greek to you!

(Actually, be glad it wasn't Greek!  That language is even worse, with 24 distinctly different ways to say the word 'the'.  I know this because I somehow thought it would be "fun" to learn ancient Greek!  I was wrong.)

Back to my grammatical torture.  Don't worry, there is a point to this. 

So, the fun of German is that you can have the same exact word--and have it spelled completely differently based on where it is in the sentence. 

For example:

    The friend  (N) gave the friend (A)   of the friend (G) to the friend (D).

    Der Freund (N) gibt  den Freund (A) des Freundes (G) dem Freund (D).

Those d words I italicized up there, they all mean "the" in German, by the way.  And that's only if the friend is male, and there's only one of him.  Change the gender, and it gets even worse.

Does your head hurt yet?  Good!  That's the entire goal for my evil grammar lesson.

In other words, I was torturing you to make a point!

It's extremely tough for native English speakers to get our minds around such a completely different grammatical structure at first. 

What makes it worse is that the Germans have absolutely no problem with it.  (A point that irks the hell out of me when a 2 year old speaks much better German than I do.)

When we try to force our minds to understand, they immediately start screaming at us:  "What do you mean there is more than one way to say 'the'???"

And then we experience the painful process of staring blankly at a piece of paper, completely clueless about what "the" to use in our simple sentence.

(At least I do.  You could easily be smarter than me.)

The reason this is interesting for creative enthusiasts is that this is a very similar process to accepting new ideas.

When someone comes up with a radically new concept, our minds automatically jump into "that won't work" mode. It doesn't fit with our current way of thinking and we have a hard time seeing how it can be possible.

That's why it was so hard for people to accept that the world was round.  That's why they couldn't believe that the earth actually moved around the sun, instead of vise versa.

Everything they knew told them that those new concepts were impossible.

Throughout history, there have been a lot of impossible things that were proved wrong.  And, each time, after the initial surge of rejection, those new ideas seeped their way into people's realities until they became accepted.

Each time, people's minds were forced (uncomfortably) to stretch far beyond their original dimensions.  And each time, those minds grew and expanded beyond what they had been before.

And eventually, a new idea became easy to think about, and easy to accept.

Just like I'm hoping my brain will eventually expand enough to accept the German language.

What to do when your well runs dry.

Thanks to MarkKelley for the photo.

There's no doubt about it.  Times are tough right now.  The economy is tanking, jobs are insecure, and the holidays are right around the corner.

This is probably one of the hardest times to think of ideas.  After all, the more stressed people are, the less able they are to think creatively.

Unfortunately, just because it's hard to think of ideas, that doesn't mean that you can just forget about creativity until times are better.  In fact, now's the time when great ideas are needed more than ever!

So what do you do when you need to come up with a mind-blowing idea... and you're coming up blank?  (Especially when there's a deadline and your boss is on your back?)  What do you do at those times? How do you manage to come up with innovative ideas when your well has run dry?

The answer comes from a similar strategy used in drilling for oil. 

You see, companies used to drill for oil by going straight down.  For a long time, they used percussion drilling - which basically means they hammered away at the ground to get as deep as they could get.  But, no matter how hard they hammered, the well would eventually bottom out and the oil would dry up.

Then, companies turned to rotary drilling, where drills would churn down to the earth, making a deeper hole.  That was more efficient, since they could get further down and reach more oil.  Drilling further down wasn't the best solution though, because eventually the well would go below the oil and hit rock bottom.

The real breakthrough came, however, when drilling companies realized how much they were missing.  You see, oil deposits can stretch for miles - but when a drill went straight down, the well was only tapping oil from the immediate vicinity.  

So, the oil companies changed their tactics.  Instead of drilling down for oil, they started drilling diagonally and even horizontally!

This "directional drilling" has several advantages:

• It provides access to a large-cross section of a well, instead of just a narrow, vertical shaft.
• It makes it possible to reach oil deposits that can't be reached vertically - like those under a town or a lake.


• It reduces the number of times oil rigs need to be moved.  When one well runs dry, another can be drilled in another direction (instead of moving to a new spot).

Drilling horizontally opens up new oil resources that would otherwise go untapped.  In other words, it can make dry wells fruitful again.

As creative thinkers, you can benefit from the exact same strategy.  When your well goes dry, it's likely because you've been heading relentlessly in the same direction and drawing ruthlessly on your resources.  This is the first thing people do when times are tough. 

The the oil companies can tell you why: it's because drilling straight down is a lot easier.

But that well will eventually run out - and probably right when you need it.  That's why it's important to be able to think "directionally" as well.

So here are three ways you can start drilling your idea well horizontally:

1. Take a break and do something different for a while.  Sometimes giving your brain a break will result in tons of creativity.  That's why so many people get their best ideas when they're doing something else.
   
   But if that's not an option because you need ideas now...
   
   
2. Use a creativity technique designed to break you away from your normal thinking pattern.  The Random Word technique, for example, will stretch your brain in many directions when it tries to associate a completely unrelated word with your challenge. So when you're stuck, try some Lateral Thinking, or get a Whack on the Side of the Head.
   
   But if you feel like you're totally out of ideas and just want them to be given to you...
   
   
3. Make your challenge generic and steal ideas from other areas.  Velcro came from the hooks that stuck burrs to a dog's fur.  Roll-on deodorant uses the same technology as the ballpoint pen.  Figure out what you need to accomplish, and look for others who are doing the same thing... somewhere else.

All three of those strategies will take your mind to new places and will break through your mental block.  They work because they're not hammering away in the same direction over and over again - they're drilling out a new direction of thinking.

So, even when times are tough and your idea well seems like it's reached rock bottom, it doesn't mean all hope for creativity is lost.  It simply means you need to get rid of your tunnel vision and start searching in other directions.

The perils of selling a product instead of a result.

Here's a worldwide tale....

When I was living in northern Germany last fall, the often-rainy weather meant that my sneakers just weren't going to cut it anymore.

So finally, I did the inevitable: I bought a pair of winter boots.  They're waterproofed leather with a rubber sole and fleece lining, so they're perfect for Minnesota as well.  They're not too pretty, but I usually stop caring about that when my toes are freezing.

When I was just about to pay, however, the saleswoman trotted out the dreaded question: "Do you want to buy a protection spray to keep your boots in tip-top shape?"

This question always raises red flags for me because it pulls at my deepest fears.  Obviously, I'm worried about destroying my shoes.  I just bought a nice pair that I want to use for years to come--and I'm an expert at finding mud puddles, scuffing toes, and walking on sharp things.

Then there's also the horrid moment of thinking "Haven't I heard this question before?"

And then I need to sit there, wracking my brain to see if I bought shoe protection last time, if I still have it, if there's any left, and (of course) if I'll be able to find it.

In the end, I say "Just the shoes, please."

Then I go home and spend the next hour looking through my basement, and calling friends to see if anyone has a bottle.  They're sure they do, of course--but no one really knows where it is.

A week after this original excursion, I went shopping with a friend to help him find a nice new pair of leather shoes.  We talk about the shoe protection spray and decide to buy a bottle to share. 

Except... don't his parents have some?  Probably... right?

Again, we walk away without buying the shoe protection.  Even though both of us wanted it.

Anyone else do that too?

So, here's a thought?  What if shoe stores stopped selling the product, and started selling the protection?

Think about it.  You've just bought a brand new pair of shoes and at the register, the salesperson asks "Would you like me to weatherproof your shoes for $3 more?  It will help keep the leather in good shape and you'll be able to brush dirt right off.  I can do it right now and your shoes will be ready to wear in two minutes."

Doesn't that sound nice?   Instead of a whole bottle-buying production (paying $10 btw for a bottle you'll probably lose) and the necessity of doing it yourself, you get instant gratification and shoes that are ready to hit the streets right away.

And this is a great deal for the store too.  Shoe protection sprays are a big money-maker, but they're not too expensive for the store to buy.  Since a bottle probably can protect at least 6 pairs of shoes, the store would "sell" each bottle for about $18 instead of $10.

Plus, the store could even buy bigger bottles and get an even-better price.

But the most important thing is that customers won't have to face that big moment of doubt and forgetfulness.

I didn't buy the bottle of protecting spray for my shoes.

On the other hand, I would happily have paid for my shoes to be protected from the elements.

It was the focus on buying the product that lost the sale.  If they had sold the result, I'd be a customer.