What do you see?
I used to conduct creative camps back when I first got into the creative coaching field. These camps were more about personal creativity than creative thinking in business, but, the majority of attendees were people from the business world, so I guess it’s okay for me to use one of our camp exercies to make a point at this blog.
This exercise I intermittently called “guitar case history” or “coloring inside the lines.” In the exercise I’d give participants a worksheet and a box of crayons. The worksheet had a dozen guitar case outlines, each at different angles; each with a little number next to it, 1 - 12. The assignment: what do you see in this shape? (See worksheet and various executions below.)
To complete the exercise the campers had to fill in each guitar case with a concept, in order; 1 followed by 2, etc. These were very bright people.
We would then hang our worksheets on the wall and just check out what each other did. Invariabley there would be a good amount of duplication among the subjects in numbers 1 - 6. The visuals cliche’s dominated the early work; a Coke bottle, a two-scoup ice cream cone, a funny shaped tennis racket, a double-bulge light bulb. One time even a yellow Tweetie Bird showed up four times out of 25 people, all in the first or second executions.
But in the later executions, this is where we started seeing more creative solutions. One of my favorite solutions was the “dying man” at left. (See more examples below.)
The points of the exercise were fairly basic; 1) observe the guitar case shape and see it as something else, and, 2) don’t just consider a few ideas, because early ideas are less likely to be duplicated.
And, that’s basically the message here. If you’re looking for distinctive ideas make sure you look at many ideas, and beware the early iterations, as they are more likely to be the same as your competition. Think about it. In competitive markets our ideas are one of the few ways for us to have an edge.
In Do-it-yourself Lobotomy terms we are using 100MPH Thinking™ (a combination of volume and speed) to get beyond the early obvious ideas.
If any blog readers want to play this little game just download the worksheet, get your self a box of crayons (or maybe a graphics program), and give it a try. If you want to send your best solutions to me include a link in a comment at the bottom. I’d be happy to post them and maybe give a prize to the best. (That is, if this is the kind of thing people do at a blog. This blog thing is very new to me. And if you think this is a stretch for a blog about creative thinking in business, let’s just let this be one of the “benefits of perspective” instances I discussed in a post a few weeks ago.)
The prize? How about a real guitar case that used to belong to Jimi Hendrix? I’ll see if I have one lying around the house.
If any of you work with students, or know someone who does, this might be a fun assignment for them.
For more exercises like this see the book “Visual Literacy” by Richard and Judith Wilde. Depending on feedback and participation, I may include other of my camp exercises in future blog posts. Maybe start a whole separate category of posts.
Now, some samples from the exercise:
hands
lipstick (yeah, I thought it was a cigarette, too.)
raindrops (using all shapes on the sheet)
trumpet
horse’s back side
black power
Worksheet:
(Click on the image to download it full size.)
“Strating” typo noted. Although someone mentioned it could be a guitar player’s subconscious joke. Strat, as in Stratocaster guitar. Yeah, that’s exactly how I intended it.
© 2007 Tom Monahan, all rights reserved.
