Observations, Insights and Suburbia
Yeah, I know, I have written about this before: about how we need to refresh our perspective on a daily basis. I realized how hard it is to maintain this ethos the other day as I was travelling into the District of Columbia with my son at the wheel.
As we go about our daily routines I think our brains fall into complacency mode. It makes sense, I suppose. Not being a brain scientist but having read research on the matter, our brains seems to accommodate to the sameness of the routine and seems to block new inputs.
In any case, here is the situation. My son was driving our new Mazda 3 (btw, an awesome "little" car) and as we entered DC and we are sitting at a traffic light he makes the observation that the light posts for the traffic signals are placed on the street corners to the left and right and do not hang over the center as in most suburban environments. While this observation may not seem radical to most, to me it is since I had missed it.
First it shows that suburbia is a different environment than urban. Secondly, for those of us that have grown in suburbia only ( I have experienced both) this makes navigating urban environments an experience that needs to be learned and mastered by engaging our new perspective filters.
So what are the lessons to be distilled here for innovation and the search for new insights? 1) never fall into complacency mode. 2) constantly develop observation skills by asking questions, by looking around, by searching for patterns and differences; 3) have people with different background and experiences "observe" the same set of inputs; 4) move from suburbia to urban environments before our "street sense" is fully strophied :-)
As we go about our daily routines I think our brains fall into complacency mode. It makes sense, I suppose. Not being a brain scientist but having read research on the matter, our brains seems to accommodate to the sameness of the routine and seems to block new inputs.
In any case, here is the situation. My son was driving our new Mazda 3 (btw, an awesome "little" car) and as we entered DC and we are sitting at a traffic light he makes the observation that the light posts for the traffic signals are placed on the street corners to the left and right and do not hang over the center as in most suburban environments. While this observation may not seem radical to most, to me it is since I had missed it.
First it shows that suburbia is a different environment than urban. Secondly, for those of us that have grown in suburbia only ( I have experienced both) this makes navigating urban environments an experience that needs to be learned and mastered by engaging our new perspective filters.
So what are the lessons to be distilled here for innovation and the search for new insights? 1) never fall into complacency mode. 2) constantly develop observation skills by asking questions, by looking around, by searching for patterns and differences; 3) have people with different background and experiences "observe" the same set of inputs; 4) move from suburbia to urban environments before our "street sense" is fully strophied :-)
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