“In the organisation of the future, the decisions that matter won’t be taken in some high-tech war room, but on the front line,” says Tim Harford in Adapt. You, more than your CEO, will determine the success of your museum’s next grand project. True, she gives you the direction and funds and – if you’re lucky – the mandate and freedom to design mind-blowing products, but it’s your creativity, cleverness and skill that will make a difference in the end. Here are 7 ways in which I try to stay on top of things, and come up with great ideas for future projects.
Plan playtime
Is your calendar always full as well? Plan playtime. Playtime is not just time you leave empty to do whatever, that doesn’t work and you’ll probably sacrifice it to to-do’s anyway. Playtime is for instance 2 hours to go to a great store and look around, or an afternoon to go through your old notebooks.
Fill a random stuff folder
I have a folder called “playground” in the root of my project folders. It’s my digital scrapbook, full of random stuff. In it, I don’t worry about design conventions, budget, or even copyright (sorry!). It’s simply random stuff, like the pieces of an as of yet unknown puzzle. Look through it repeatedly, and maybe the picture will become clear.
Learn basic coding and design tools
The rapidest form of prototyping is the prototyping you can do yourself in playtime in the random stuff folder. But it’s not just knowing how to code a simple programme and design its front: simply learning about coding and design helps to spark creativity as well. Read the rest of this entry »
After the news that January 1st 2012 the Museum of National History, my employer, will cease to exist, I received countless heartwarming and encouraging messages from all over the world. I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank everybody for his or her kind words and pats on my back. Thank you, you are amazing!
It’s wonderful to know the international community of cultural innovators (if I may call you that) is a place where people share and care.
Many of you have asked me what’s next for me. Good question: What’s next?
In his wonderful book Where good ideas come from (video) Steven Johnson gives some guidelines – say, life’s lessons? – to stimulate creativity and develop a sense of direction to something truly worthwhile. If you haven’t yet, read the book.
What’s next for me is that I will do some of the things Johnson recommends to prepare for an as yet unknown adventure that will eventually connect keywords such as culture, society, innovation and people.
Some of these recommendations I can do myself; taking walks, writing everything down, making mistakes…
With some others I could use your help. Here’s how:
I’d love to discover how a wide variety of institutions work. Museums, archives, theatres, NGOs… What are your challenges? What makes you unique? If you can, I’d truly appreciate to come by and see what you do. In exchange I’m happy to share everything I know in a presentation, workshop, etc.
Innovation is scary. And the fear of innovation keeps many of us from innovating. So let me try to take a position and state that innovation does not exist. Only maybe once every hundred years something truly innovative happens. And then often by chance. Everything else we call innovation is only a remix of what already exists.
Creativity – together with guts the thing responsible for innovation – is something rare. A particular eye-opener to me was John Cleese’s ideas on the origins of creativity as can be seen in the movie below. Creativity is something magic. As opposed to having good ideas (every now and then), which is something you can learn. A skill.
I am not a creative person. However I do occasionally have good ideas. A good idea comes from taking what already exists and applying it differently. It’s why I always advocate looking beyond your own sector, travelling and meeting new people. This, and more, provides you with the building blocks of future good ideas. This is remixing. Whether it happens in the movies, as seen in the video above, or in your job doesn’t matter.
Recently I visited Park Güell, the famous Barcelonan park designed by Gaudí. If you haven’t been there, you might know it from movies such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona in which both Cristina and Juan Antonio use the park as a source of inspiration. Often in literature and motion pictures the park is a spot for inspiration and creative freedom.
In reality the park has turned into a horrid mass-attraction devoid of all artistic charm.
Those parts not covered in yellow under-construction tape, are crowded with photo-happy tourists. A strict guard blows his whistle every time a visitor steps out of line. Nowhere to sit down quietly and read. Nowhere to draw. Shut up, walk around quickly and move on. It made me think of some of the art museums I’ve been, those where a security guard tails you.
