Thinking Outside Of The Bin

Coincidence. Sometimes wonderful. Other times, darn right annoying. Yesterday was the soft launch of Like Minds, a gathering of like minded people around creativity, technology and social media. And yesterday was also the day that Exeter City Council put out a new recycling campaign.

I call it thinking outside of the bin. And the reason is this: I’m a firm believer that great ideas don’t come from where we expect them to. Great ideas come from unexpected places. From adjacent disciplines. From conversations that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.

That’s what Like Minds is about. Gathering people who think differently. Not people from the same industry, or the same background. People with different lenses on the same world.

The magic of a good gathering isn’t the speakers. It’s what happens between the sessions – when a designer talks to a scientist, or a marketer talks to a musician, and something new emerges.

Think outside of the bin. The best ideas are rarely found inside it.