Card #4 – ”Look Elsewhere” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

You can’t see the good ideas behind you by looking twice as hard at what’s in front of you.

Finding new ideas is like prospecting for gold. If you look in the same old places, you’ll find tapped out veins. But if you venture off the beaten path, you’ll improve your chances of discovering new idea lodes.

The inventor Thomas Edison gave his lab colleagues the following advice:

“Make it a practice to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in it adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.”

For example, mathematician John von Neumann analyzed poker-table behavior to create the “game theory” model of economics.

Designer Charles Eames borrowed from his experience making custom-fitted plywood splints for wounded airmen during World War II to create a new line of aesthetically stunning chairs.

Football coach Knute Rockne got the idea for his “Four Horsemen” backfield shifts while watching a burlesque chorus dance routine.

Ancient Roman cryptographers modified the 12-sided dodecahedron to create an intricate coding system that allowed military commanders to send secure messages to each other.

World War I military designers borrowed from the cubist art if Picasso and Braque to create camouflage designs for artillery pieces and tanks.

Contemporary military designers borrowed from the geometric fractal designs of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot to create more efficient camouflage designs for uniforms.

— Where else can you look for ideas?

— Think of a letter in the alphabet. Now think of three places that begin with that letter. What ideas might you find if you went there?