Thoughts on Research and Creativity

Ok,  so you've got a project you've just started or a conundrum you have to get sorted.  It's a tricky one but it's going to be huge.  You're onto a winner.  How often have you started off with this attitude but ended up with mediocrity?  There are several factors that will define if you're heading towards stardom or the middle of the road with your creative endevours.  An important piece to look at is research.

Creativity is the bringing together of ideas in novel, interesting and useful ways to create something new of value.  Research is key here as it is a vital source of those ideas.  How creative are you in how you search for those ideas?

Here are some general strategies I like to use when researching:

Search Engines

Most likely a search engine will be one of the tools you choose to make use of.  But using one effectively is an art, especially when it comes to creative endevours.  There are many factors that search engines use to rank sites and pages but one of the heavily weighted ones tends to be how many other sites link to it.  Sometime a site ranks highly simply because it was there first and got a lot of links.  Also the most common ideas will tend to rank highly, yet if we're seeking to be creative then we want to find uncommon ideas as well.

• Don't be afraid to delve several pages down the search results.  Often you can find some really interesting material down on the lower pages.  Delve down past page 10 and things tend to get interesting.
• Think of all the different perspectives you can take and try a variety of phrases for an idea or topic.  Try and think of obscure ways to describe the topic and see what results it brings in.
• Tools such as Google Suggest can give you ideas for searches you may not have thought of.  Keep an eye on what it is suggesting as you type and don't be afraid to experiment.  As you get ideas from what is suggested, change what you are typing and see what the new suggestions are.  Sometimes I play about with the suggestions for quite a while, changing and adapting them and getting all manner of ideas for areas to look into.

Social Tools

Tools such as Twitter, Reddit and Digg can be useful for finding out what others are finding interesting with respect to a particular topic.  So let's say, for instance, that our project was to come up with creative ideas for making a better unicycle.  I would head over to Twitter and do a search for unicycle.  Searching through the results gives me some interesting areas to investigate further.  For instance I can see that commuting on a unicycle is popular, there seem to be several people riding unicycles in the hallway at college and someones considering riding their unicycle on a treadmill.  Now this gives me some interesting thoughts on what I could do to improve the experience.

Competitions

No matter what your creative project involves, try and find a competition or sport that has similar aspects.  Then look into the people that are at the top of their game.  There you will find some great ideas on how to approach things.  These people tend to be rather creative and will find novel ways to solve the problems they face.  You may not find a competition exactly in line with what you are doing but there are competitions nowadays for nearly anything you can think of, so you can probably find something of value in some way. 

If you have a novel or interesting approach to the way you research we'd love to hear about them.  Leave a comment below and join the conversation.

You're on your way to becoming a Highly Creative Person.