The Challenge of Making It New

Most of the ideas that people have are not new. They may be new to that person, or new to the situation, but so often they are reproductions of other ideas, other situations, other solutions.

There is nothing wrong with this.

We are social creatures. We learn from each other, our successes, our failures.

The challenge of this in the information age is making an old idea seem new by giving it a new context.

For example, the color RED is, for lack of a better word, RED. Nothing about this color inherently changes when we move it around, place it against other backgrounds like purple, green, or black, but our experience of it does.

Changing the context of a particular idea can help you change its overall meaning and significance.

For example, what can we learn from juxtaposing Pay-Per-Click advertising and a Kindergarten classroom, the social hierarchy of a pod of Dolphins and a team of developers launching a new product line.

By looking at things from these different perspectives, we are able to see new connections between two seemingly unrelated things. New ideas are often old ideas viewed or applied in a new context, but it is only by expanding our perspective that we are able to consider these different ideas against one another and benefit from the fruitful connections that our human brains will ultimately make between them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *