Small group ideation

To challenge individualist conceptions of creativity to argue that social interaction, communication, and collaboration are key elements in creative thought and practice. In this vein, Tyler Cowen, writing in Bloomberg Opinion suggests that "When working on any kind of problem, task or question embed yourself in a small group of peers with braodly similar concerns". This is because, Cowen continues, "The group will give you ideas, feedback and help keep you focused on the issue at hand. The personalities and framings of the other group members will make the issue seem more vivid. After all, there are few problems you are better off facing alone".  Cowen's piece of advice stems from what has been dubbed in Silicon Valley  "the small group theory". For a second near-universal piece of advice, Cowen suggests: "Get a mentor". That is, someone who has more knowledge, general or special, and experience than yourself. The advantage of a mentor,, says Cowen,is that "Aside from providing teaching and advice, the mentor, like the small group, helps make an issue or idea more vivid: A living, breathing exemplar of success stands before you. The mentor makes a discipline feel more real and the prospect of success more realistic". In short, Cowen's advice seems worth trying. After all, ideators must always be open-minded in their approach to idea generation and communication. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-07/the-only-two-pieces-of-advice-you-ll-ever-need?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Delivering design through sketching

"To sketch is a mental exercise", says Santiago Calatrava, architect, sculptor and painter as well as structural engineer.. "It's a mental exercise that goes directly fromy our mind into your hand in a very spontaneous way. And probably one of the most effcient ways to capture the idea and the vision you have in your mind. And also to analyse it, to investigate, to let it change and transform.The drawings, in the beginning may be very imprecise but with time they become more and more precise and, maybe follow much more the intuition. And then with time, they become more and more construction drawings". He continues: "I started in an art school, then went into an architecture school, and then an engineering school. For me, the work as a sculptor proceeds architecture. I was proceeding to find my own language, independent from schools, independent from tendencies, independent from any dictate, thinking that I have the right to say whatever I want to say in my own manner. I like the idea of being an artist but being an artist doesn't mean living in another world but working very hard and thinking and analysing that this what you are doing can have also a higher signification. I mean, simply doing a platform, where people will wait to get a train  can be also a beautiful place. Just that. But, finally, it is a work that you have to deliver, and work that goes over hundreds and hundreds of sketches". And so, given the proliferation of digital design tools, Calatrava proves sketching has not lost it relevance although there are anecdotal reports of a decline in freehand paper-based drawing ability among today's design students. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9qSRbUDWEI

Ideas incubation

Ideas may be percived as "thoughts at speed". Yet producing ideas too fast when trying to resolve a given problem might be detrimental to innovation because some of the best solutions don’t come "all at once" but after a longer incubation period. Therefore, resisting the temptation to find a solution quickly and instead keep searching for more ideas can lead to more innovative and far-reaching solutions.That is, to avoid premature ideas, better then for ideators to arrive at tentative decisions and then intentionally delay action in favor of additional incubation time. For example, the incubation phase was most important to Le Corbusier's creative process in which the elements of a given problem were let to simmer. That is to say, the architect stored the assigned task in his memory while, during the incubation period, he carried out research and documentation necessary to master the elements of the problem. Only then did the idea emerge, become precise and concrete, as evidenced in his notebooks and tracing-paper sketches. Or, in Le Corbusier's own words; a spontaneous birth (after incubation) of the whole work, all at once, and all of a sudden.