If you read essays, articles, or books about creativity, you will read more than once that reading magazines you wouldn't normally read can help you be more creative and come up with new ideas. Go to your local newsstand and pick up some magazines you wouldn't normally read. Read them to find ideas, connections, and trends.
This is a common example of how we can use something outside of ourselves to spark our creativity.
I've seen this idea a lot of times. I've suggested it myself. I've done it more than once. But no one has ever shown me an example of how to do it.
Up to now.
This week, I was on the road and found the April issue of Wired Magazine in my briefcase. I had picked it up a few weeks before in an airport because "The New World of Games" was written on the cover, which caught my attention.
Even though I'm not a subscriber to Wired Magazine anymore (I used to be), and you might not be either, I think you'll find both the process and the results fun and interesting.
What I Do
It's easy to get creative ideas from reading a magazine. Get a magazine, a highlighter, and maybe some paper or your Journal. Then start to read. Don't just skim or read the things that seem interesting to you right away. Read all of it. Read both the news stories and the ads. And as you read, you should ask yourself things like... What does this make me think about? What does this have to do with my problem, situation, or challenge? What can I do that they didn't? What can I do with this? How can I use the advice or stories in the article (or ad) to improve my life?
These aren't the only questions you can ask, but they should get you started. You can start this creative journey with a specific problem or challenge in mind, or you can do it just to see what ideas come to you by chance. Either way is fine.
In this case, my journey was random. I wasn't thinking about a specific problem or challenge; I was just reading to see what I might find.
Read the rest of this article to find out how.
In the rest of this article, I'll talk about some of my ideas and where they came from. I want you to keep reading to see how I work and what ideas or insights you can get from it. In other words, I want you to use the method I just told you about for the rest of this article!
You could also go to the library and get the April 2006 issue of Wired to see everything I'm talking about.
My Travels
A sidebar on page 26 asks, "Is a half-hour show too long for viewers today?" Three people answer, and each has a different point of view. The first thing I thought was, "That's an interesting question." And my second point was that the answers were mostly about how good the story was. People will watch if you tell a good story (we watched Titanic for more than three hours!) So, this is an interesting question, but it's not quite right. The important question is whether or not the story is good. This has to do with my job because I train people. I need to know how long people want to learn in one sitting, etc. Do I think things are getting different? Sure I do. But people are still people. If they are busy, they will worry less about time. In the end, the right question is how to get people interested, not how long the experience is. This is true whether it is through a story or great interaction in a learning situation.
On page 29, Lexus has a four-page ad for a Charlie Rose-hosted PBS show. It has interesting bits from two of the shows in the series. This article was so interesting that it almost made up for the cost of the magazine. It was much better than most other articles I've read. It reminds me that advertising can be useful and that if we educate and inform others in a useful way, we might do a better job of marketing, persuading, or selling than if we try to market, persuade, or sell.
On page 56, the author talks about a movie that is based on a Beastie Boys concert. This movie was made from footage taken by 50 fans at a concert with cameras the band gave them so they could film the whole thing. This movie was made by putting together more than 100 hours of raw home video footage. Even though I don't have a Beastie Boys album and haven't been to one of their concerts, this idea has me completely hooked! It appeals to me because the band came up with the idea and put it into action (collecting the footage) in just three days. 3 Days. This has made me think about how long it takes me to do something or whether I'm willing to do it quickly. It also shows how important it is to let your customers be a part of how your product or service is used. The last few days, I've thought a lot about these two thirds of a page.
... page 66 In the magazine, the Play section has pictures and short descriptions of new toys. One on this page is called the Storm Tracker. It's an umbrella with a bulb at the end of the handle that connects to local weather forecasts wirelessly and tells you if you need to carry it by how much it blinks. The more it blinks, which can happen up to 100 times per minute, the more likely it is that it will rain. Even though I don't think many people would pay $99 for this, the idea that a small "non-computer" device could give us data that we might be able to use was interesting to me. Even though I don't make these kinds of products, I'm very interested in how these kinds of technologies might help, affect, or change performance and learning in the future. The Storm Tracker has made me pay attention to this question and think about it.
I can get through less than half of the magazine with these examples, and I didn't even share all of my ideas from the first 66 pages!
Instead of reading more in this article, I'd rather you read more on my blog, where I'll be posting more of these short pieces.
I hope that following me on my journey has been interesting, and I hope that the examples I gave above gave you some ideas. More than that, though, I hope I've persuaded you to pick up a magazine you've never read before and try this method for yourself. If you do, I promise you'll learn something. Along the way, you might solve a hard problem or find an amazing chance.
