I'M BORED ...

It’s rare to hear this childhood plaint these days.*

Or is it?

What percentage of adult work these days is spent doing mindless stuff like expense accounts, surfing the Internet, or zoning out?

Simply put, those activities are our way of expressing boredom.

Or are they?

Today, more and more psychologists are advocating that we give our brains some downtime to improve mental health and allow ideas to incubate.  After all, they point out, Archimedes discovered the ‘volume parity’ principle while bathing.  Sir Paul McCartney composed the “Yesterday” tune in his sleep.  Of late, the media is zeroing in on Americans’ propensity to not take vacations, noting that 61 percent of us work during our time off and, in 2013, each of us banked five unused vacation days.

Do those facts and figures point to our compulsive busynesses, powered by technology?  Our guilt if there’s nothing to do?  Or to behaviors that the workplace and, often, state of the economy seem to mandate?

We’d say ‘all of the above.’  The idea of doing nothing might be anathema.  On the other hand, what better place to start unthinking than at work?  See it now:  Five-minute think breaks every so many hours.  Coffee (and tea) interludes without staring at anything.  Electronics unplugging once a day for x number of minutes.

Stop.  Pause.  Breathe.  Create.

*We’ll guarantee you’ll never have to hear Mom’s rejoinder:  “Go hit your head against a wall, then.”

OF MARS AND FELINES

End-of-year musings are not natural to us.  We typically prefer to ponder events when they’ve occurred, as our “get it off your plate” psyches demand.  [No psychologists, please!]

But annual round-ups are part and parcel of the news media’s job, along with listing the 10 best and 100 worst of anything.  In particular, Bloomberg’s Businessweek catches up in December, tapping corporate celebrities and trends to forecast and prognosticate the next year and beyond.  In late 2013, Barry Diller was among those offering insights; two of his (edited) sentences grabbed us:  “We’re in a world now where it’s not enough to be smart.  You have to be curious.”

That statement was enough for a pause.  Is curiosity a trait we demand in ourselves, and within our business?  What will it gain us?  How often are we driven to explore the unknown … or do we just subside in a state of ennui?  And how will we be rewarded for incorporating this quality into our personalities?

Look no further for a tangible example than NASA’s Mars Rover, named Curiosity (of course).  It’s now exploring the ups and downs of the Red Planet, to better identify if that far-away sphere has any habitable -for-humans spaces.  Of course, it’s a robot, powered by science people who truly live to investigate.

On the other hand:  Other historical “let’s explore” precedents with not-so-successful outcomes are Eve and Pandora, much like the old saw that curiosity killed the cat.  What we’re supposed to learn from this is that all sorts of unexpected disasters will fall to curiosity-seekers. 

We disagree.

Risks begone!  We personally seek out those who have a passion for learning, and exhibit a sort of metaphysical wonder about the world.   Poking around in new tech stuff (like Twitter’s Medium).  Researching, say, average readership for annual reports.  Even working within a new industry.  All that piques our interests, holds – and then asks for more. 

Curiosity is a powerful way to experience, one that, to be honest, will help continue to shape our marketing and design, communications and change perspectives.

STORMING AND FORMING, JAMMING AND SLAMMING

It started, innocuously, with an ad exec detailing his brainstorming process in 1953.

Thanks to Alex Osborn and his Applied Imagination, millions have faithfully followed his prescription for ideation.  Simply put, the greater the number of ideas generated, the more likely a winner or two will emerge.

Today, that’s so outdated.  Pundits and scholars alike poo-poo that methodology, each group creating their own version of the ‘storm. 

Some contend the fault lies in the admonition to “withhold all criticism until later.”  Others chime in, asserting that a constructive conflict is necessary to create healthy (or unhealthy) discussions.   What will matter most is the composition of the group, say psychologists, since great output is heavily reliant on different perspectives.  After all, they emphasize, discussions in a familiar setting with comfortable work colleagues do not lead to innovative solutions.

The extreme perspective:    Groupthink doesn’t work well.

How do we get inspired, anyway?  Many count on innovation communities, where conversation flows and participants are free to join (or not).  The pinnacle of that is jamming, a process first popularized by IBM in 2003 when figuring out its values.  Rules of the road, of course, accompany the jam: small teams, clear definitions, opt-in attendees help unearth new ideas.

In our opinion (and you just knew we had one!), more than the architecture and lists are the freedom and space to create.  We’ve held solving sessions in all formats, from traditional to online discussions.  What drives us to the right solutions, in most cases, is our focus on different industries, different experiences, and, yes, the unusual associations between the two.  Sometimes, it happens in one meeting.  Sometimes, outside that venue – in a shower, on a morning run, reading at night.  It’s not something that can be mandated within a certain period.  It just, er, happens.

As easily as peanut butter and jelly- jam.

AND IN THIS CORNER ...

We’re no Luddites, really.

Between us, we count three tablets, four laptops, two PCs, and multiple smartphones.  We’re trained to use every Microsoft program available for download or cloud tapping.  We’re conversant with all things ITrendy, even, to some point, debating the worth of Outlook against Entourage, cloud versus portable HD storage, and the like.

Yet. 

We’ve noticed that lately, the media’s been packed with rants about technology’s mesmerizing effects.  About un-story-like (but unfortunately true) tales of PowerPoint that perplex and bore.  About how much time is wasted by Reply to All, High Priority e-designations, and smaller-than-small mouse type. 

In this corner, the avengers:  More than one firm has hired a start-up to measure exactly how its employees are using technology at work.  [Shades of Big Brother, eh?]  Others restrict the use of certain features or applications.  And still other businesses IT avoidance on certain days, during specific hours, even at special occasions.

What all these solutions to our tech OCDs miss are the threat to our thinking.  Sure, many of us compose on the screen, with blinking cursor always at the ready.  There are some projects, though, that just demand some peace and no visual effects:  When pondering the creation of a marketing campaign (in the midst of analytics) or simply free-associating to capture ideas and, eventually, viable recommendations and solutions.  In those cases, that mouse becomes our enemy and the PC shut down, the immediate cure-all.

We like the elegant twist of Intel.  Its 14,000 employees have been blessed with four hours a week to think through “stuff,” excused from emails and meetings for all but the most urgent of reasons. 

To that we say, Amen … and why not longer?