A Fresh Perspective

Some words just go together don’t they? If I said “Fish and . . .” most people would finish that simple phrase with the word “chips”.

Lots of words lead us on like this. Speak the last ‘missing’ word out loud while you read the next few lines:

• “I do love a bacon . . .”
• “I’m just popping out to the Post . . .”
• “Can I see your driving . . .”
• “I like to exercise in the swimming . . .”
• “We need to buy a new washing . . .”

It’s more than likely you finished those sentences with the words sandwich, Office, licence, pool and machine.

Word Up

Okay, I provided a little bit of context that could have suggested the second word but they’re so well known and well used that the endings were easy to predict.

Each of the single words are identifiable and have purpose and meaning on their own but are also instantly recognisable when used together with their popular partner. (A flashback from the classroom tells me the new word they create together is called a compound noun.)

Bacon Sandwich, Post Office, Driving Licence, Swimming Pool, Washing Machine. Yep, all good, nothing to scare the horses.

But what about 'Pasta' and 'Wall'?

Or ‘Food’ and ‘Architect’?

Those two words are mutually exclusive right?

Think again.

My wife's cousin Jashan is a Food Architect and he builds walls made from pasta.

Starfish And Coffee

I’ll say that again. He’s a food architect. That’s an amazing thing right?

He’s a fully trained architect in the traditional sense of the word, working with the standard materials you’d expect like stone, brick, wood, plaster, concrete and steel.

But he’s also super creative and his favourite material to work with is actually food. Take a look at his Instagram. It’s amazing.

He organises loads of really creative things to do with food:

• Personalised 3D printed desserts. You can have an edible version of your own desk for pudding!
• Al Dente Walls - thanks to Jash there are now restaurants with whole walls made from recycled pasta
• Group eating experiences like ‘Eating Without Eyes’ where the guests dine while blindfolded!

He’s just told me that he’ll be paying a visit to the UK in November and that is very good news. I really enjoy his company and hearing his insanely creative perspective on things.

Jashan always inspires me to view things afresh. Not least the area where I live. He loves Redhill in a way that always makes me look again at my underachieving South London suburb. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same way about this identikit commuter town the way he does but his enthusiasm does make me reconsider now and again.

Take A Look At Me Now

This week’s top tip is to get yourself a fresh perspective. Why? Because a new way of looking at old things can really help to revitalise and to push yourself away from predictability.

But how do you do this? It’s not always easy just to simply take a fresh look at things.

Well, maybe it is for some people. Jashan seems to do it naturally. Not for me though. I need to work at it.

I’ll use different ideas to achieve freshness.

• I use my Holiday Spectacles now and again.
• Sometimes I’ll purposefully do things the other way around to see what it suggests, like going round the supermarket the ‘wrong’ way.
• Or choosing an ingredient I’ve never heard of and then having to find a recipe to use it.
• Or follow roads, paths and bridleways that I’m unfamiliar with. Although I get lost on my bike so easily that this is standard practice anyway.
• Or trying to use my left arm as the dominant limb for a day. I tried it once. It’s horrible. And impossible.
• Or randomly choose a page from my copy of ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’ and then listen to the whole album. Os Mutantes is all I have to say about this (page 135 if you must).

One Point Perspective

So here we are talking creativity and new perspectives and I’ve only just mentioned music. Tut! There are loads of ideas you can nab from the annals of rock and roll to revitalise your perspective.

Take David Bowie for starters. A master of creativity and reinvention he would sometimes write lyrics using the ‘cut up method’.

He would take a pair of scissors to newspapers and magazines and randomly slice out lines, words and phrases, mix them up and then reassemble them to create interesting lyrics.

From these he’d get yet more fresh ideas for songs and themes explaining “if you put three or four dissociated ideas together and create awkward relationships with them, the unconscious intelligence that comes from those pairings is really quite startling sometimes, quite provocative.”

He wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the only one. Bob Dylan did it. John Lennon did it. Kurt Cobain did it.

For Radiohead’s Kid A album Thom Yorke wrote lines on paper, dropped them into a hat and reached for them at random while the band played around him.

Flexible Strategies

Brian Eno from Roxy Music and uber producer for U2 created special cards especially to force new perspectives. They’re called Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas and they’re still available to buy online.

Apparently there are more than 100 cards, each with a suggestion to do something different in order to generate a new or fresh idea.

If U2 are struggling in the studio Eno literally takes his cards out and instructs the band to ‘change instrument roles’, ‘work at a different speed’ or ‘play in the darkness’. (I think that means play with the lights out, not to leave U2 and join The Darkness instead).

So if you’re looking for inspiration for yourself or your team or even whole organisation then try doing something else. Something new. Something different. Something unexpected. Take something old and use it for something new. I’d love to hear what you come up with!