Creating Concepts and Connections

First thing is to find inspiration from field to cultures other than your own and I mean by design and effortful, purposeful search of inspirations from other fields of cultures and then to dare to explore the connections that you find when you do that. Some of the ideas that you come up with are going to seem a bit crazy or at least weird. Don’t kick them out of your head just yet. Let them sit there for a while and then get rid of them but let them sit there for a while. Just allow yourself to explore the connection a little bit further than you normally would have. That way you might come up with something that sticks and that could create something that’s groundbreaking.

-Frans Johansson

This quote is taken from Frans Johansson's presentation at InterSections 07, 'Innovation at the Intersection of Discipline and Culture'.

It reminded me of how we created concept ideas at early stages of this Microsoft project. After a long time deliberating and creating what resulted in very few ideas, we came up with the idea of creating a 'Wouldn't It Be Cool If...' board. On this board we noted down not concepts but ideas that we thought would be 'cool' in relation to the project. Ideas included:

• wouldn't if be cool if my Grandpa could still fly a plane
• wouldn't if be cool if people learnt from my Granny instead of telling her what to do
• wouldn't if be cool if my Granddad and i shared similar interests
• wouldn't if be cool if my Grandpa could beat me at computer games
• wouldn't if be cool if i could understand what it was like to live untill i was 78
  
• wouldn't if be cool if my Gran could meet new people all over the world
• wouldn't if be cool if i knew what it was like to raise my parents

We put this list up on the wall and got other people to contribute to it including people from other disciplines, groups in our class and lecturers. We found it really helpfull to come up with these new ideas because it allowed us to step away from the confines of the brief and just have fun exploring what could be done. Some ideas were a bit less sensible than other but were included them nonetheless into our list of concepts.

The real task came when we had to tie our ideas back to the brief. This was an interesting process because through making connections with the brief we saw ways that the more quirky ideas could be adapted and changed to suit it. Some of our more sensible ideas were lost and so on untill we ended up with our final concept.

Even now it has changed so much from what it was (a sort of social service park bench) to what it has become (Molly and Gerry). I am really looking forward to seeing how we can expand our current prototype by combining our ideas with that of the Interactive Media Design Students we are now working with.

Ultimately though it still a working progress though so if you want to see what happens next then watch this space!

-Tim