How do new ideas happen?

Have you ever had a new idea? Happens all the time? Used to happen more? Been happening more lately? What do you do with new ideas? Do you remember them? Forget them? Do you think you’ll remember them and then end up forgetting them? Do you write them down in a notepad or something like that, or on your phone or tablet?

Idea management is a complex process, and it doesn’t come easily. With a little discipline and attention the ideas can be captured during the brief period that they’re resting on your shoulder, before they fly off again to be forgotten forever.

But what about the nature and mechanism of innovation itself? How does innovation occur in the first place? The structure of innovation is rarely neat and tidy, and rarely in whole units of what one might consider to be an innovation. Anything new that has been thought of has almost certainly not been thought of in one entire chunk of innovating. Starting from a clean slate and ending up with a fully formed idea ready to implement. Oh no, not like that. Maybe in fiction, but it certainly doesn’t happen like that in reality anyway.

In most cases, a person coming up with what others might classify as an innovation have been exposed to the problem space for some time. Working in the world of that particular problem. Struggling with defining what the problem is, how big it is, what it is, what it isn’t, what it should be or could be or must be. The problem’s territory or world is what I might term the problem space, in which the innovator resides, often for some time, and the solution is the eventual target. In other words, things rarely happen overnight. They might seem like it from the outside, but to the person innovating, they’ve probably been within the problem space for years, even before they realised that there’s even a problem to solve.

The other interesting structural characteristic of innovation is that, again, it doesn’t occur as a whole unit, it almost always consists of mostly stuff that you already knew, or stuff you already have, or stuff that is already in place. The moment of inspiration isn’t to have the entire idea from scratch, the moment of inspiration is more usually to suddenly realise that what you already have, already know and already did can fit together in a way that you simply hadn’t seen before. A new arrangement. An arrangement that allows an advantage or solves a problem or enables something further to happen. You look around, there’s nothing magically novel that wasn’t there a minute ago, except yes there is - a new configuration, a new way of putting it together, a new way of utilising or processing or perceiving it all. You had what was necessary all along.

In fact, it’s even more surprising than that. Not only did the innovation spend a long while cooking in the problem space before it surfaces, and not only did the innovation consist of a new way of looking at what you already have, but in most cases, the solution that’s staring you in the face isn’t even a new one. Chances are, you’ve even had this idea before. Several times over, in fact. You had it, forgot it, later you had it again under a new configuration, forgot it again, and so on. Finally, it persists and at the moment of insight you suddenly see it for the value it really offers. (This time you write it down). That’s insight. It’s called insight because it points in. A sight that points inward. Inward at what you already know, already have and already do. The realisation of a sudden clarity in sight. Yet, you had it all along!

Sequence is important

The order in which we do things is very important. Initial conditions are important. What happens next is important. I’m not any kind of cook, but I imagine that cooking is probably like this too — you can’t just empty all the ingredients at once into a receptacle and cook it and end up with a three course dinner. Or maybe you can, I’ve no idea. I doubt there’s really an endeavour in life in which it doesn’t matter at all in which order you do things. Not important activities, anyway. Even making a cup of tea is a religious matter — milk in first or last?*

Let me ask you a question. What comes next:
1 2 3

If you answered 4, that’s a perfectly logical response, but if you answered 5, you’re also correct.

How is 5 the next in the sequence? Well, we might be just beginning a Fibonacci sequence. Let me present it in a more correct way:

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 and so on.

Let’s say you have the first number — 0.
Let’s say you put in a second number — 1.
These two numbers represent our initial condition.

Now, take the two most recent numbers, add them together and this is your next number. Take the two most recent numbers, add them together and this is your next number. Take the two most recent numbers, add them together and this is your next number. And so on. This is the process we will apply.

Well, life’s a lot like this. We have initial conditions, and we have processes.

The initial conditions may be the way we’re born, for example. We’re born into certain families with certain belief systems and certain attitudes to wealth (or more usually, a lack of it), and certain ways of looking at the world, wherever in the world we’ve had the luck to be born. Or, you could think of initial conditions as where you are now. What you’ve got now. What you start with if you were to start now. If you’re about to embark on a big change in your life from now on, you have to take it from where you are now, who you are now and what you’ve got now. Those are your initial conditions.

The processes we might also call strategies. A strategy is simply a predictable repeatable already-defined approach to doing things, applied no matter what. Occasionally we find the strategy doesn’t work effectively so we have to do something on the spot, something exceptional, some made up fix, instead of following the plan, just enough to get us back to the strategy. We call these tactics.

A tactical approach deals with cases as they occur, each in a specific way.

A strategic approach deals with everything according to a defined process.

With the Fibonacci sequence, the strategy is simple, as I said above, “take the two most recent numbers, add them and this is your next number” and then do it again and keep doing it. No matter what the last two numbers on the stack are. Doesn’t matter. Don’t care. As long as there’s two numbers on the top of the stack, we’ll take them, add them, push the result onto the top of the stack, and then do the whole operation again and again. That’s the strategy. That’s the process. That’s the thing we do in life. If you have a specific approach to life, if you respond to things that happen in a characteristic way (you know, according to your character), if you have your way of doing things, then you have a strategy and you’ll do it no matter what, to whatever happens. Doesn’t matter, don’t care, just do the strategy as usual, it got us this far so it must be the correct thing to do.

If you change the strategy to a different strategy, let’s say, “take the two most recent numbers, divide the newer one by the older one and chuck away the remainder, and this is your next number” and you run this strategy over and over, you will get a totally different result. You’ll end up at a different destination, even from the same beginnings.

As I say, life’s a lot like this. There are people with comfortable beginnings, and people with tough beginnings. There are people who have a certain strategy to what happens in life, and there are other people who have a different strategy to what happens. Some people seem to have no strategy, treating everything as it comes on a tactical basis but in reality, this is some kind of strategy in itself (not a particularly strong one, though). Change one part of the initial state of the fibonacci sequence and apply the same process and you get a different result — try this:

Instead of 

0 1 1 2 etc

run it beginning

3 1 etc

see what you get. Same process, different initial conditions. Totally different destination in life. Busy millionaire instead of daytime telly on the sofa. Unfortunately, we can’t very well do much about who we are, the family we’re born into, the country, the economy, the educational opportunities planned from birth, etc. We can’t even do much about where we are today, retrospectively — we can’t go back to yesterday and make a change. We take it from where we are now. What we can change, though, is the process in our lives. The strategy. We can re-strategise any time we like, and if we like the results, stick to it as though it’s a proper strategy and we meant to do it like that all along. The strategy we live by is a specific sequence. Put the milk in first, every time, or put the milk in last, every time? Or put the milk in first if it’s a teapot and last if it’s a teabag in a mug. It’s a sequence, it’s a process, it’s a strategy.

* The answer is last, if you’re using a teabag, first if you’re using a poncy teapot — the teabag requires tea to brew at pretty much boiling point. If you let cold milk cool the hot water before it has a chance to perform the action you just end up with tea-coloured hot water instead of a proper cuppa. However, if you think you live in the Edwardian era and use a teapot, then the brewing occurs in the teapot, unhindered by the cooling effects of cold milk, and therefore the tea can be poured into cups that already have a bit of milk. This would have been a necessity in the olde times as the bone china in those days was quite prone to fracturing with contact with boiling hot water, and the milk in the cup helps avoid this outcome. As you see, the initial conditions followed by the sequence of the process consequently applied is important. Especially with tea, which is of course of utmost importance.

Trim the fat

How much stuff have you ever bought, and simply stored in a cupboard or attic (whatever a cupboard is — a board for cups?). How many of us have an attic full of crap of various grades, from ‘it’ll come in useful’ to ‘I don’t want to chuck it away but it’s in the way down here’, to ‘I was saving this to give to someone’ and even for the technophiles among us, the “magic attic” phenomena, related to the “magic drawer” which is the place where stuff that doesn't work gets put and a year or so later it comes out and magically works again, or usually not.

Okay, forget about attics, a lot of people don’t actually have an attic and have to leave stuff cluttered around the living area in drawers, shelves and corners. What about closer to home a bit, what about your phone? Or your tablet. What about the amount of apps we download through the play store or App Store because it was free or seemed useful or was cool a the time. How many apps have you got on your phone or tablet that you never use, have never opened, and can’t even remember what it does? Apps that you daren’t even open in case you actually do find out what it does. Apps with a clever but meaningless name, and a cute but meaningless icon. Apps that you thought were going to enhance your life but just got stashed away in case it might be useful in the future, or suchlike. How much stuff have we got like that our lives?

Recently I went on a cull on my iPad to get rid of the apps I don’t ever use, have forgotten what it did, or can’t figure out what it does from the icon or name. If I never used it, will I miss it? Of course not. Out it goes. This is a traumatic enough thing to apply to our phones and tablets. Maybe we should be brave and apply it to our attics, cupboards, corners and rooms. Trim the fat.

For now, though, maybe I should get rid of what isn't immediately useful. For example, in my fridge I have a rare roll of Kodak infrared 135 E6 film. My film scanner is broken (it’s in the magic attic) and I haven't shot film on my cameras in over a year, and will never, pretty much guaranteed, ever process E6 film again. Why do I keep this several-year-old expired but “valuable” roll of infrared film in the fridge? In case it comes in useful! We'll, so far it hasn't —maybe I should go on the evidence and chuck it out.

At the moment I’m on a well earned break from my business start ups, enjoying the weather down in Cornwall for a few days, maybe when I get back to London the first thing I’ll do is to throw out that symbolic roll of E6 infrared film and feel the relief.

How old are you? No, not you, but you. Everything you know is wrong pt 1

How old are you? Since the clock was punched the moment you popped out, that age clock has been ticking away. Seasons, years, winters, summers, holidays in the sun, holidays in the rain, christmases in the grey, school days all fabricated and fictitious, work days one after the other we’d rather forget. How old are you, then?

Well, you yourself might be that certain age on the tip of your tongue (or if you get to a certain point, you have to think to yourself whether that was actually plus or minus a decade, I forget). But many of us have encountered that urban legend floating around our infosphere that states that as our cells are under a process of constant renewal, our bodies are no more than about seven years old.

This is a nice thought. Wrong, but nice. Like most things you thought you knew, this is of course nothing more than consumer-grade bullshit. Nobody questions it, because nobody wants to. It’s a nice cosy thought to think that we’re fresh and young and anything wrong will repair itself in a few years, hence, the myth is kept alive because we want it. Well, there’s nothing wrong with a little utilitarian bullshit applied here and there — there’s obvious value in it, in this instance. It makes you feel better — warm, cosy, radiant, healthier, and to continue the stream of denial, makes you able to face situations you might not otherwise feel up to. After all, you’re almost brand new. That’s valuable — a delusion that’s of value — nothing wrong with that. Except that it’s wrong, of course, but a lot of things are wrong. So what, it feels good.

Scientifically, we do age, cells do get replaced, but to say that we’re a whole new person every seven years or so is false. Some cells are replaced entirely, within weeks. In the stomach, for example. Other cells are replaced almost not at all, in the eye, for example. Our brain is a network of cells forming neurons, most of those once dead are not going to make a return. We are born with more brain cells than we will have for the rest of our lives. On average, yes you might be able to say, ‘a mean of something like every seven years’, but it’s a fairly useless average, if the range is so wide.

It is more useful to think that the brain itself, although constantly dying, is forming new information connections out of what remains. It is forming new levels of information from the incoming information, in the form of understanding. However, sometimes those things we thought we understand turn out to be not the case, and we have to change our mind about some things. This is kind of like what we thought was appealing about the body renewing itself ever few years or so. Except this time it’s true. If you accept the stance that everything you know is probably wrong (and we’ve all been there) then it’s a nice notion that what we knew that turns out to be wrong is, if we wait a short while, going to be replaced by a new idea that’s closer to being correct.

What about our attitudes and responses? The same thing applies. You might have had a response that has been reiterated over the years, for example, the way you respond to your partner in an argument. Who knows, it might turn out that the way you were responding was actually wrong all along. That can be replaced with another new fresh response, probably a bit better and more recent, new and advanced than the old one, which, as we realise, was wrong.