Conceptual Collisions
As someone who does a lot of screwing around on the internet in the name of creativity, it’s always nice to read an article like this from Wired about the value of distraction (especially the kind you run into on social networks).
A random scrap of information can trigger just the right conceptual collision. It’s hard to know which scrap might do the trick, but that’s the beauty of social networks — they constantly produce potential sparks, for free.
In all seriousness, though, two things jump out at me about this: First, it falls into some of the thinking I’ve had about the role of serendipity tools in the creative process. What makes the web magical is it’s ability to deliver the information you didn’t know you were looking for and I absolutely believe you can optimize services for that (I’m working on one now). Second, and I think I’ve mentioned this in the past, I see a real connection between input and output: When I stop spending time on the web consuming content, I don’t think as well.
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Absof#%ckinglutely.
One grain of salt is that diversity of social network matters – there need to be some freaks and outliers in that network to make the random sparks really sing!
Oooh very intrigued to see what are you working on…
I really want to believe in the power of conceptual collision – there is something enormously seductive in this thought, especially for us strategy/creative types. But I think that right now and for the vast majority of people and the work force we are still at an early phase of hype, abundance and Twitter diarrhea, that conceptual collision is merely a romantic anecdotal evidence. For 95% of the people, it’s an escapist tool and from a rational productivity (booo!) point of view these social tools are by and large the opposite of productivity.
Thanks for the link, Noah. Amazing stuff