When talking about modern “Eureka” moments, turns out that theyre not typically experienced in the bathtub or while sitting under the apple tree, these days they happen a lot in coffee shops or bars over a conversation perhaps. Its interesting to compare how and where ideas surface has changed with the progression of time. Back during the days of the telegraph and the telephone every invention and idea was the brainchild of a solitary mad man or arguably mad man. But since then the platform that leads to idea generation has changed drastically, best ideas are formed in collaboration. The whole concept of multi variable linear algebra was discussed by two mathematicians over a meal which resulted in them collaborating over a 3 year time to come up with a final paper that exposed the world to this methodology to make possible the optimization of absolutely anything.
The main point is that with time ideas have changed in nature how they are formed and how they seem to take shape. Any powerful idea now has the potential to involve the world thanks to social networking websites and such. Idea generation has evolved from being a private internal process to a more invigorating public involvement process and it is important to make note of the basic elements that lead to idea generation as emulating these elements and exposing ourselves to them may allow for better idea generation. This concept seems to be well understood by planners of our D studio course and I know this because of the physical structure of our classroom. Its specifically designed to allows us to communicate and collaborate. These teamed with coffee and cupcakes in my opinion provides for the perfect pedestal for ideation.
Its good that we have figured out what works. But its not enough. We need to know why it works. Steven Johnson in his TED talk explains why this model of communication and collaboration works well for idea generation. He says that since this model mimics the process that goes on internally in our brain every time an idea is generated it is effective. Simply put – when the external process and the internal process are of the same form idea flourish. Another important concept that he discusses is that ideas flourish within us much before we actually acknowledge it with that Eureka moment and he disregards the idea that an idea occurs as a flash or at a sudden stroke of time. It happens continuously rather than instantaneously, it has an incubating period where fragments of the idea linger around in the mind and we acknowledge its presence suddenly only because of a trigger factor. What sets off these triggers? More ideas and mistakes do. You may wonder why? It is because every time a mistake occurs it exposes a problem area and its human nature to answer a question. So a problem occurs, this gives rise to the question how can we solve the problem? And boom – the answer is that Idea.