Why Cross Pollination
Bees and Birds do it naturally, we can, too. It is called “Cross Pollination” It is a known truth that “Offsprings produced are healthier” similarly cross pollinated ideas have high potential to become “Breakthrough Innovation”. Whether you’re a Product Designer or a research lab or an educator, the gospel is that if we mix things up we’ll get a creative ferment.
Combine diverse ideas
To embrace the most important part of the creative-thinking process, being able to connect and combine esoteric ideas and contexts. It stimulate our creative energies along with our ability to restructure the problem and thus ignite our engine of Innovation. Essentially, in order to come up with entirely new ideas, we need to be able to reorganise and rearrange the things we know and the tools we have. Reorganize and rearrange the things we know and the resources we have in order to come up with brand-new ideas.
Recycle Ideas — Build on existing ones
In this world, nothing is really new, it’s just a constant rehash of existing or old ideas. The ideas we conceive are influenced by our preconceptions, of whatever we absorb from what happening around us and whatever we think pile up in our mind. What’s new is how these old ideas are put together, mixed, mashed and clashed, and that’s what makes things creative, new and special. So leveraging upon existing ideas (our own and what we gathered) is another way to foster innovation.
Collaborate with diverse Group
If you choose the risky strategy of assembling a highly diverse innovation team, there are ways to maximize the chance of a breakthrough.
This type of cross-pollination is important for creative energy in our group or company, so make effort to involve talents with unusual skills, knowing that diversity in thinking will certainly influence the development of our ideas or products. Diverse set of people coming from different background, culture, demography, geography, age, language etc. help us to bring multidimensional perspectives.
Talk to People : Talk with as much people as possible
Embrace Criticism to get a different perspective
Involve with diverse skillsets
Metaphorically ideate
Metaphors and analogies are incredibly effective connectors, since they lead us to look at the problem in very different perspective. We can use a range of different metaphors to unlock a wider array of solutions for this problem. Connecting unexpected people, places, objects, and ideas provides a huge boost to our imagination. We can practice this skill by using provocative metaphors, interacting with those outside our normal circles, building on existing ideas, and finding inspiration in unlikely places. These approaches enhance creative thinking and are terrific tools for generating fresh ideas.
