I love to read Fake Steve (note that if you are easily offended, Fake Steve is not for you). It's likely you've heard of it, but if not, it's journalist Daniel Lyons impersonating Apple CEO Steve Jobs via blog. Hilarious.
It's spilling over with idea inspiration. My favorite part about it is that it delivers real news about technology in a way that is much more entertaining than if I found all the articles he references on my own.
Recently, he wrote this post on Robert Metcalfe and others. Funny, if insulting, as usual, but this paragraph got me thinking:
I call it the "one pair of glasses" theory. You see it all the time. People know one thing and they think that this one thing can be applied to every problem, because it's the only way they know how to look at the world. They've got one pair of glasses.
This gave me a good concept for idea transformation. Instead of having just one pair of glasses, get yourself a bunch.
Let's say you need some fresh ideas for your business. Think about ideas that have been successful in a totally different industry. Look through those "glasses" and write down all the ways those ideas might work for you. Then put on "glasses" from a different industry and repeat. Repeat as many times as you like, with as many pairs of glasses as you can find. Then go back, pick the best ones, and refine.
Of course it doesn't have to be industry glasses. It could be product glasses, or style glasses, or profession glasses, or competitor glasses, or any other kind of glasses you can think of.
How many pairs of glasses can you look through to get new ideas?
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