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Creative Think

Roger von Oech's thoughts about creativity, innovation, and fun things to stimulate your imagination!

Today marks the second anniversary of the Creative Think blog. I've written 300 posts and received about 2,500 comments. It's been an interesting experience and I've gotten to meet many people from all over the world.

To mark this occasion, I thought that I'd take a card from my trusty Creative Whack Pack. Here goes. It's Pause for A Bit. Let's see what it says.

Poet Doug King on the value of incubating: "Learn to pause . . . or nothing worthwhile will ever catch up to you."

Allow the Muse to whisper in your ear. How would your problem benefit if you paused in the next hour? Day? Week? Month? What might you gain or learn?

What can you back away from? What issue would benefit from a pause?

This seems like pretty good advice. So I think I'll pause for a bit and let a few worthwhile things catch up with me!

[If you're looking for some good creative thinking ideas: click here and scroll down, and there and scroll down.]

A Fun Map of Economic EquivalenceSeptember 24

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved maps — studying them and trying to figure out the mysteries that lay behind their representations.

Then I stumbled on this map. And I thought, "What is going on here?" If you haven't seen this before, take a few moments to study it and see if you can figure out the key.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The First Right Answer: It turns out that it's an "economic production equivalence" map. The country whose name is inside of each state has a GDP that is approximately the same as the state in which it is placed.

For example, California and France have approximately the same GDP. Some of the "equations" are off by as much as 20%, but I think this map paints a fascinating picture, namely one of the US as an economic powerhouse.

I just love it when someone's able to show me something that I've seen many times before in a fresh way!

The Second Right Answer: By joining together states and countries with similar GDPs, the map creator (perhaps inadvertently) has given us a big plate of "forced connections" to stimulate our thinking. This is one of the places I go with it:

Ephesus and DidymaSeptember 22

We've spent the past four days in Ephesus and Bodrum on the southwestern Turkish Aegean coast.

Here I am in Ephesus putting the Ball of Whacks in its rightful "classical" position atop a pedestal. [Yes, I can be a goofy tourist.]

Alas, there was no mention of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus in the Ephesus Museum (he lived in Ephesus circa 550-480 BC). But Heraclitus probably looked like the guy on the right (with his girlfriend on the left).

At the Temple of Apollo in Didyma. Medusa, who turned others to stone when they gazed at her, is herself set in stone. She is quite impressive in person (about 1

King Kong Is Where You Find HimSeptember 18

You know how it's possible to find different forms and shapes when you look at clouds? The same thing happens with rock formations. After I landed on my recent balloon trip in Cappadocia, I saw this form in the horizon.

That looks familiar, I thought. It was none other than King Kong on top of the Empire State building! What do you think?

It may not be the Virgin Mary in a tortilla, but it is pretty cool.

Cappadocian Balloon RideSeptember 17

Wendy and I are in the Cappadocian region of central Turkey. The landscape here is quite amazing: it's filled with fairy chimneys, lava flows, caves, and ancient underground cities.

To better explore it, we took a hot air balloon ride this morning. (This was our second balloon trip: the first was 20 years ago in the Masai Mara in Kenya).

We lifted off right after sunrise. Here, a sister balloon rises with us. If you've ever flown in a balloon, then you know just how quiet and peaceful it is.

Thirty other balloons flew with us this morning -- and they each caught a different set of wind currents.

Flyin