Y'all. Being at home by myself is so easy! I genuinely love it.
But being out in the world—phewww. I'm someone who overthinks
eight ways to say "good morning" to a stranger in the coffee line. So a day's worth of interactions is a mental triathlon.
So why do it? Why meet new people, make time for Zoom coffees, join networking events—especially when I have to-do lists that need done?
Belt out the chorus
Once a month, I help organize an open mic for poets, storytellers, musicians, and singers. We gather in a downtown gallery to share our art and co-create a night of ephemeral magic.
Seasoned performers, first-timers, and everyone in between stretch their creative muscles in front of a supportive community. It takes courage and vulnerability to step up to the microphone. But it is oh so worth it.
New ideas materialize as people forge connections. One person's performance can inspire a series of poems, songs, and stories on a similar theme. Spontaneous sing-alongs connect us to each other as we belt out the chorus together. And partnerships are formed between people meeting for the first time.
Circles of exchange
“Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries.
Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created.
Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before.”
- Margaret J. Wheatley, writer, professor, speaker, and consultant
Different pools of knowledge
“Over the course of years of studying innovation,
we’ve found that there’s great power in bringing together people who work in fields that are different from one another yet that are analogous on a deep structural level. Such as makeup and surgical infections, surprisingly. Or inventory management and robot games.
Or malls and mines.
Ideas from analogous fields turn out to be a potential source of radical innovation—for two reasons:
(1) People versed in analogous fields can draw on different pools of knowledge, and (2) they’re not mentally constrained by existing, “known” solutions to the problem in the target field.
The greater the distance between the problem and the analogous field, the greater the novelty of the solutions.”
- Adapted from “Sometimes the Best Ideas Come from Outside Your Industry” by Marion Poetz, Nikolaus Franke, and Martin Schreier, in Harvard Business Review
Great job!
Way to take a pause and give 3 minutes to your practice of pursuing awesome
by exploring this issue's theme. You rock!
Thoughts about this theme?
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