Mixed up? Good!
An increasing number of us now find our music on the web. Not only ordering our CDs from Amazon.com or the equivalent, but also downloading music directly from the web. Napster led the charge with free downloads, and now Apple and their iTunes/iPod combination owns nearly 70% of the legal download market.

Some of the most interesting work is being done in the penumbra of the legal world. "Mash-ups" are created by combining elements of different songs, often with the tune of one and the lyrics of another. The style really took off with the Grey Album, when DJ Danger-Mouse "mashed" the Beatles' White Album with hip-hop artist's Jay-Z's Black Album. Now, you can search the web for such funky combinations as Nirvana vs. Michael Jackson, the Sex Pistols vs. Madonna, White Stripes vs. In-Grid and my current favourite, Dusty Springfield vs. Run DMC in "Walk like a Preacher Man."

In this Outside the Lines, we'll further explore this key source of creativity, the combination of known elements in unknown combinations.

Do you know anyone who could add something a little unusual to their lives? Please forward Outside the Lines (in its entirety please) to anyone you think might be interested. This community grows with your help. As a thank you, I'll donate 10 cents for every subscriber to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. You can check out the great work they do at www.natureconservancy.ca.

I'd be delighted if you should wish to reprint any part of Outside the Lines in your newsletters and message boards, provided you include full authorship, copyright, and subscription information.

Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons

Don't take my word for it

"I invented nothing new. I simply combined the inventions of others into a car. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years earlier, I would have failed."
Henry Ford, car czar

"Where do good new ideas come from? That's simple! From differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions. The best way to maximize differences is to mix ages, cultures and disciplines."
Nicholas Negroponte, Professor of Media Technology, MIT

"Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity."
Michael J Gelb, author

"If you want to be creative, don't try to do something new. Doing something new means NOT doing what's been done before, and that's a negative impulse. Negative impulses are frustrating. They're the opposite of creativity, and they never yield good ideas."
Eva Zeisel, ceramicist

"Ideas come from everywhere."
Alfred Hitchcock, suspense-alist

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
Albert Einstein, thinker

The right combination

As Nicholas Negroponte says above, one of the greatest sources of inspiration and new ideas is the combination of familiar things in unfamiliar combinations. Another way of putting it: how do you take someone else's idea and use it for yourself?

Tom Peters has a great way of looking at this. Rather than falling for the "not invented here" syndrome, he suggests you strive for a "stolen with glee" approach. In other words, actively seek out an idea, insight or technology that you can beg, borrow or steal from someone else and make it your own. (William Inge suggests that originality is just unacknowledged plagiarism).

Here are some examples of ideas, insights and technologies that have been reimagined in a new context:

Velcro. In 1948, Swiss mountaineer George de Mestral became frustrated at the burrs that had fastened to his socks. While picking them off, he realized that he might steal the "hook and eye" concept to produce a rival to the zipper. By the mid 1950s, he'd finally created the product he named after a combination of "vel" (from velvet) and "cro" from the French crochet, meaning hook.

Silicon oven glove. At last! An oven glove that actually works. Not only does it protect you against burns, you can put it into hot water and, when dirty, throw it in the dishwasher. NASA originally developed silicon for their space shuttle technology.

easyHotel.com. In London, where hotels start at very expensive and go up, easyHotel.com has borrowed the idea of pre-fabricated rooms from the cruise ship industry. Set to launch in the middle of 2005, the rooms will start from just 5 pounds a night.

Dr Gouindoppa Venkataswamy has opened eye hospitals in India inspired, he says, by McDonald's. His goal is to "sell" good eyesight in the most efficient way possible. As a result, in 2001 his 5 hospitals performed 180,000 operations and although 70% of the patients did not pay, they still ran a profit.

My book, Get Unstuck and Get Going, is also created to make the most of this power of combination. It is created like a child's "flip book", with three horizontal flip sections. Each section has 50 pages each with a different type of information- inspiring stories, provocative quotations, and powerful models. This means the book provides 125,000 different combinations of provocative inspiration to help you get unstuck and get going on stuff that matters.

SOMETHING TO PRACTICE

You might like to download the Action Acceleration(TM) Sheet for free at www.GetUnstuckandGetGoing.com. Use this as your worksheet to practice this exercise.

Set a challenge in your mind. Where are you feeling stuck? What would you like to be different? It can be related to work or not, it can be big or it can be small.

Now you've set the challenge, use something from the story below to provoke new ideas.

Dell dominates the computer industry because it is ruthlessly efficient. At any one stage, it has less than two hours of inventory in its factories. Dick Hunter, head of Dell's supply chain says, "Speed is at the core of everything we do." If you had to do things 10 times as fast, what would you do? What would you stop doing? What would you do differently?

Now you've had some new ideas, what are you going to do? Work through the three final steps of the Action Acceleration(TM) Sheet and commit to doing something as a result of this brainstorm.



WANT TO LEARN MORE? HERE ARE SOME USEFUL CREATIVITY RESOURCES

Wired magazine article on mash-ups http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,63314,00.html

Go Home Productions, for downloadable mash-up mp3s http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk/mp3.html

Get Unstuck & Get Going - sign up for pre-publication specials and notifications here http://www.GetUnstuckandGetGoing.com

The Innovation Network. The founder, Joyce Wycoff, has been called "the epicenter of innovation" and has appeared a number of times in Fast Company magazine. http://thinksmart.com

Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys [Canada  US  UK] . A fabulous resource for all sorts of creativity games

Michael J Gelb, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci [Canada  US  UK]. Sets out seven principles of creativity, including an insatiably curious approach to life (curiosita) and the willingness to embrace uncertainty and paradox (sfumato)

Charles Panati, Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things [Canada  US  UK]

Comments? Feedback?
Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz

Norway beckons

I'm looking forward to the European ICF Conference in May in Tonsberg, Norway. I'll be speaking on the eleven levers coaches can use to make their business model really zing. If you're interested in hearing what Hendrick's' Gin, Prince, McDonald's, easyHotel.com and the Lakewood Church of Texas have in common, this is the workshop for you. Check out the conference site here.


If you're sure you can't get to Norway but would like to hear what I'll be talking about, click here (http://www.wsradio.com/coachingshow/march2005.htm) to listen to my interview on wsRadio.com. It's in two parts:  Get Your Coaching Business Unstuck and Your Coaching Brand Sucks! (and what to do about it).






Get Unstuck and Get Going - the book

Get Unstuck and Get Going will be formally launched at the Norway coaches' conference in May. That means you're running out of time to sign up (in a no obligation sort of way) for the pre-publication specials at www.GetUnstuckAndGetGoing.com.

Here's what people are saying about the tool:

"What's most useful and rewarding about Get Unstuck & Get Going is its simplicity. Those looking for an effective, straight-forward approach to making significant and meaningful changes in their lives will embrace this book."
Daniel A. Martinage, CAE
Executive Director, International Coach Federation

"Get Unstuck & Get Going is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It's a great tool to use for a mental work-out and to get unstuck!"
Helen Duguid
Former Head of Great Leaders at Microsoft UK.

"This toolkit for coaching is innovative, helpful and can really help busy people unlock blockages to achieving their full potential. It is easy to use and encourages positive self-reflection with inspirational passages from people who are role models. And it's a fun approach to very serious issues!"
Margaret Gildea
Director of Learning and Career Development, Rolls-Royce plc

People love that this tool combines the deepest principles of creativity and coaching, and it's a source of infinitely renewable possibilities. Because of its unique structure, you can generate 125,000 different possible perspectives with this book to any challenge you might have - and then work through the Action Acceleration(TM) Sheet to commit to doing something about it.







Michael Bungay Stanier helps people, teams and organizations to get unstuck, create possibilities, have more impact and more fun. You can find out more at www.boxofcrayons.biz or you can contact him directly at Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz or +1 (416) 532-1322.

To subscr.be to Outside the Lines click here. If you have any trouble accessing this link send a blank email to subs@BoxofCrayons.biz.

Outside the Lines is distributed on the 2nd Thursday of every month. Your contact information is never traded, never rented, never sold.

©Box of Crayons 2004-2005. Box of Crayons is a registered trading name of Maida CC Inc.


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