Manifesto for Envisioning
Updated: Apr 29, 2022
Turning creative ideas into innovative solutions
Creativity is the ability to make the invisible visible by taking what is not to create what is. It manifests what is inside you and around you by transcending the obvious, ordinary, and routine. It connects the past to the present by putting things together in new ways. Creativity is the belief in yourself and your ideas, always moving forward and never giving up!
The Unknown Origins Dream Make Do Creative Process is about making new connections between past and present ideas and infusing economic, political, sociocultural, and technological perspectives in parallel to produce new business models, products, services, or experiences. The steps in the process involve discovering and developing insights, applying divergent thinking to analyze a problem, generating and evaluating ideas that can become concepts, experimenting, prototyping, constructing, and making a plan of action.
Envisioning is the collaborative engagement of applying the creative process to navigate new frontiers by imagining and turning creative ideas into solutions that solves a specific problem or improves a situation.
The three fundamental principles for turning creative ideas into innovative solutions are:
1. Magic takes planning.
Every single creative will tell you that there is no on and off button for creativity. It is a constant that happens naturally, by design, or by accident in our everyday lives. Though the creative process may seem magical, especially where ideas can come from and how they are brought to life, proven techniques, tools, methods, frameworks, and approaches to the art and science of applied creativity make it happen.
It does not mean being fooled into believing that it is simply about following a process and expecting creative results as an outcome. It is all about people and the execution because people with a vision combined with passion and drive make things happen. To pursue your idea with conviction and resilience, be skilled in your craft, and expedite with quality precision to bring your vision to life. Have true grit to slay the naysayers, push through adversity and ambiguity with leadership, make sacrifices, and execute your ideas in a disciplined way.
Ideas only change things by creating new and original products, services, or experiences with commercial and societal value. It is about discovering and developing insight, involving divergent thinking to analyze a problem, generating ideas, constructing and critiquing a plan of action, and bring it to life in a purpose-led and mission-driven way.
2. Always persist in the face of setbacks and never give up to turn your dreams into solutions.
The creative process initiates and transforms an idea into actualization by bringing it to fruition through three steps—Dream, Make, and Do. Blending the art and science of creativity by balancing creative thinking to create, interpret, and express art with critical thinking to explore an opportunity or problem, define and test a hypothesis, and answer questions.
The sequence is iterative and constant, and the alchemy lies in bringing it to life with purpose and impact, by encompassing divergent thinking, perceiving patterns that are not obvious, creating and expressing art through a concept, method, solution, design, work of art, or physical object. It applies techniques that drive evolution, synthesis, re-application, reinvention, reimagination, disruption, revolution, and changing direction.
Anticipate future trends inspired by industry developments, culture, and aesthetics connected to emotions, imagination, and elegantly composed creative solutions. These are structured within a cohesive and proven framework that combines qualitative and quantitative research methods, practical insights, and techniques, informing, framing, and guiding the choices you make, either individually or collaboratively, between self-organizing multidisciplinary teams, start-up businesses, and large organizations. Generate ideas, develop concepts, and bring them to market efficiently.
The "Dream Make Do" Creative Process
DREAM
Think like an outsider with childlike imagination and wonder in the spirit of "imagine if...," "what if...", "wouldn't it be great if...," to gain an analytical, external view of the challenge. Then dream purposeful breakthrough ideas and brainstorm ideal solutions without frontiers to find the future. Use divergent thinking to conceive creative and radical ideas. Freeing your brain tends to apply its own experiences from your mental reservoir of thoughts, expertise, and instincts by drawing on insight, know-how, and past experiences to dream up novel ideas. Then remove yourself from the idea to seek broader perspectives and take a more integrative approach before honing it further.
MAKE
Take what is not and make it by applying a Do-It-Yourself sensibility using convergent thinking to review and select the best ideas and then rapidly prototype and construct the plan to bring it to life. Validating your idea against alternatives allows your imagined solution to align with your vision. For example, as an entrepreneur or business leader, this will typically entail researching the idea's hypothesis, such as your business model's viability and technology feasibility. Depending on the results, it may involve having to rethink, rip it up and start again, or soldiering forward with the wind firmly in your sails, precise and assured by what you're doing.
DO
Turn ideas into solutions. Review the solution to identify improvements, make eliminations, fine-tune, remove obstacles, mitigate risks, and bring it to life with your audience and markets, whether your solution is a new business, brand campaign, a physical product, an industrial design, song, film, story or painting. Finalize the solution and bring it to market by activating all relevant distribution platforms and channels.
3. Lead without frontiers.
Creative leaders have confidence in their ideas and never give up on bringing them to fruition. It means leading without frontiers by seeing around the corners and fearlessly navigating into the future by continuously managing innovation that powers the products ands services you design, make, sell, and the businesses you run.
Are you ready to redefine your future?
Who you are and what you are looking to do:
I am an artist, entrepreneur, or business leader looking to stimulate my business, product, or service vision and provide leadership by exploring the art of the possible.
I am a marketer taking a holistic approach to learning from and applying innovative practices to create, communicate and deliver new offerings in the market.
I am a product developer looking to develop a new product or service or enhance an existing product or service into a current or new market.
What outcome will you get, and how long does it take?
A visual record that captures the desired vision and roadmap on how to get there. Expedited in a multi-disciplinary collaborative workshop between 2-4 days.
Contact Unknown Origins on an envisioning engagement.
Learn more about how to create without frontiers by unleashing the creative power within us.
Buy now: "Creativity Without Frontiers"
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Creator
Roy Sharples
Founder and CEO of Unknown Origins, a creative studio on a mission to save the world from unoriginality by unleashing the power of creativity. Author of "Creativity Without Frontiers: How to make the invisible visible by lighting the way into the future."
Photo credit: Brian Smale
Attitude. Imagination. Execution.
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