turning Archives | Eiffel Over

March 24, 2021March 26, 2021

Inspiration from balance : when the day = night

This week day equalled night.

I see the seasons as sine and cosine waves. Peaks and troughs for different phenomena offset from one another.

At the summer solstice, the hours of day light peak, but the rate of change of day light is zero. Nothing much seems to change.

At this time of year the hours of daylight are only half way between their winter and summer extremes, but the rate of change is at its maximum.

For an instant everything is in balance, when day equals night. But there is no pause. This is also the time of maximum change. We are now moving away from balance at the highest rate of the year.

Close up it is moving rapidly but taking the longview there is dynamic equilibrium.

I find lots I can draw inspiration from in my creative and design work at this time of year.

December 10, 2020December 15, 2020

Asking what if – change the frame for new ideas

Oliver Broadbent climbs through a picture frame to illustrate the concept of asking what if

Asking what if. It’s my go-to technique for stimulating rapid idea generation in groups. In this post, the latest in my series on creative thinking tools for projects, I am sharing another tool for Turning the Kalideascope. In other words, mixing up what we know about a project to help find new ideas. In this post I explain the thinking and then I share a method for facilitating this approach in groups.

December 9, 2020December 15, 2020

Use your Professional Palette

Picture shows Oliver Broadbent pretending to paint the camera from which he is being photographed. Used to illustrate the concept of using the professional palette

We move now in my series of posts on tools for creative thinking from gathering inputs to stimulating new connections. This is what I call ‘Turning the Kalideacope‘. The first technique is called ‘Use your Professional Palette’, and it builds on a technique for Filling the Kalideascope we discussed yesterday. It also provides a bridge from gathering inputs to processing them. First, let’s talk about the pre-requisites.

December 1, 2020December 1, 2020

Creative inspiration from December

A new month, new good intentions. Just like when I started a new exercise book at school, when I would commit to being extra neat (and then forgetting about it a few days later). It’s good time at least to think about how the advent of December can influence your creative work.

November 24, 2020December 13, 2020

What’s the least effective thing I can do to tackle the climate crisis?

I am grateful to the participant in this morning’s climate coaching call who reminded me of the power of asking the opposite question to the one you are trying to answer. Instead of asking what’s the most effective thing he could to tackle the climate crisis, he asked what’s the least he could do. Sometimes it is much easier to define what we shouldn’t be doing than what we should. But from this point of opposition we can get some clues about what we should in fact be doing.

November 15, 2020January 25, 2021

Build a Kalideascope for creative thinking

In my last post I cited James Webb Young’s definition of an idea as being a new arrangement of existing elements. He goes on to suggest having an idea is like using a kaleidoscope. As I explain in this second video on creative thinking, in my teaching I encourage participants to create their own kaleidoscope dedicate to generating ideas – a Kalideacope.