(Office space at Pixar Studios)

I led a session on lateral thinking at work today. Jump tracks, provoke, go against logic and experience, get that Eureka effect.

Lateral thinking is about starting with irrational relationships, illogical thoughts, crazy ideas, unreal suggestions and working your way back to logic and reality. Because if logic is all-dominant in our minds, there would be no creativity.

Logic cannot beget originality. We only 'see' new things when we get an 'out-of-logic' experience or when we open ourselves to inspiration, 'mad' thinking and the possibility of mistakes or unexpected events happening.

This is also usually why the most intellectually defensive people are usually also the least creative. Because if you spend your time defending a position and seeing all new positions against your own, you always "end up" where you started. The same position, the same dogma.

But let another view transport you into another thought-world and ideas come aplenty. Maybe this is why people in the creative industry have offices which resemble playrooms.

Some people do not like new ideas. But that's another issue. Still, if you don't enjoy creating (or experimenting with) new theories, it's unlikely you will welcome them when they show up.

Creativity. Newness. Hey, even our world is 'far out'. Outer space has no boundaries. Neither does inner space. Intelligent Design?

No, Infinite Design.