An Old-Fashioned Way to Explain New-Fangled Creative Ideas

Put on your three-cornered Design Thinking cap.

I often say, “everything always connects.” The most creative (and successful) pluck out novel ways to make new connections, forging the path forward to innovative solutions, new products, and effective rebranding. The trick is to be able to quickly boil your big ideas down into bite-sized chunks to generate understanding and buy-in from your teams and client partners.

This is where the design thinking warm-up exercise “1718” comes in handy. I like it because it forces you to look around at objects and concepts that you encounter every day with fresh eyes. Have you ever tried to explain the cloud to a non-tech person? It’s a lot like that, only… go deeper.

Here’s how 1718 works:

Assemble your team — this won’t take long, and you can tailor the time however you’d like. You can do this exercise in ten minutes if you’re in a hurry and need a fresh outlook ASAP. All you need is someone to facilitate and pen and paper for participants.

Say to your group: You just met someone from the year 1718. In two minutes, illustrate and explain to them what [a modern invention] is. (The internet? Your client’s product? American Idol?)