Make Connections
Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.”
I don’t know how many people deliberately attempt making new connections, but it’s a good skill to develop. Multi-sport-athlete (world record holder!) and entrepreneur Laura D’Asaro pushes herself to make connections every single day. She is hands-down one of the most creative people I know, and one of the most inventive entrepreneurs I have met. In our fantastic conversation (available here) she described her process.
What’s your process for connecting things?
A couple of our favorites at the d.school are the Wonder Wander, Analogous Exploration, Divergent Diversions, and radical collaboration. Or you could tempt lightning with scrappy experiments.
The fundamental task of the innovator is to make connections.
As obvious as that sounds, I wonder how many folks go connection hunting.
Related: Seek Random Inputs
Related: Explore Analogies
Related: Divergent Diversions
Related: Recombine Existing Parts
Related: Tempt Lightning
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The quality of our thinking is deeply influenced by the diversity of the inputs we collect. Implementing practices like Brian Grazer’s “Curiosity Conversations” ensures innovators are well-equipped with a variety of high-quality raw material for problem-solving.