Insights
Asking ‘stupid’ questions might be your smartest move yet.
Creativity often flourishes where we least expect it. And sometimes that means asking stupid questions (spoiler alert: they usually aren’t stupid).
There's no such thing as a stupid idea. No, really.
Every great idea at some point sounded like an absurd comment most people would have left in their heads.
“What if people could travel in the sky?”
“Every sports team should have a large dancing character”
“You know what this coffee needs? A pumpkin.”
The thing is, dumb has never been the opposite of smart. It’s how you get to smart.
Working in a creative industry has made this painfully clear. For every perfectly-crafted piece of work you see out in the world, there are hundreds if not thousands of terrible ideas that came before. That’s why I don’t buy the notion that some people are creative and some people are not. There are just people with varying willingness to be wrong.
If accepting yourself as a creative person is making you sweat, it’s okay. Embracing the silence after you say an original thought is a muscle that takes time to develop. But once you’re numb to the pain of creative rejection, it’s rather thrilling.
Let's try it together.
For the sake of this exercise, we’ll pretend our creative brief is to come up with an answer to the question: ‘how do we sell this lemonade?’ The obvious answer would be to put it where people walk by. It’s not wrong, but we can do better.
Now let’s think.
What if we convince people that lemonade is part of a balanced dessert?
What if we pretend it’s coffee?
Maybe we write a children’s book about a little boy who’s best friend is a glass of lemonade.
Do we accept Monopoly money during the third minute of every hour?
This is the part where we both know nothing here is good. You don’t need to smile, nod, or even pretend to compliment my thinking. I’m okay :’)
Let’s continue.
What if we put a Nike logo on the cups and charged more?
Could we make every word autocorrect to lemonade so people start to crave it?
Who drinks this stuff anyways?
Does life ever actually give you lemons?
What is Jennifer Aniston up to these days?
Are we getting closer or further from a good idea? Probably further, but at least we’re thinking.
If you think I’m gonna crack some genius solution right here in this blog post, you’re so sweet. But we’ll have to wrap this up.
My point is, dumb questions are a shortcut to smart answers. So regardless of what your goal is or what your job is, have fun with it. Say a few unexpected ideas out loud and enjoy the polite smiles.
PS – if anyone would like to team up and illustrate a book about a little boy and his lemonade bestie, please get in touch.