One of my favourite books has always been “A Smile In The Mind”.
It’s also been one of my most valuable.
I always use it when I need to get out of a rut.
It’s a collection of the best and wittiest graphic thinking.
But although I’ve owned it for fifteen years, I never read the foreword.
No one reads forewords.
Then this weekend I noticed it was written by one of my heroes, Edward de Bono.
So I read every word.
It’s brilliant, so I’ve typed out a shortened version here.
“Thanks goodness the brain is designed to be uncreative.
With eleven items of clothing to put on there would be 39,916,800 ways of getting dressed.
The brain is designed to make patterns, to use them and stick to them.
That is why we can get dressed, eat breakfast, cross the road, and do more or less useful work when we get to the office.
Creativity, concept formation and all the wonderful aspects of the brain are nothing to do with these established patterns: they arise from the brains defects as an information system.
I believe that design as such is grossly undervalued in our society and education – because the awful Greek gang of three led us to believe that analysis and judgement were enough.
But most of the major problems in the world will not be solved by further analysis.
They need design.
Then there is the visual element.
I have always thought it is a pity that the world is run by literary blokes because the visual side is so much more powerful and constructive.
Finally there is wit and humour.
Many, many years ago I stated that humour was by far the most important behaviour of the human brain.
People thought I was being provocative.
I was not.
Humour indicates a self-organising information system that leads to asymmetric patterns.
Humour is the exact model for creativity.
In both we access from the far end a pattern that cannot be accessed from the near end.
Suddenly it makes sense.
For hundreds of years we have believed that if something is logical in hindsight then logic should have been enough to get the idea in the first place.
This is complete and total rubbish in a patterning system.
Most of our thinking and education is based on this absurdly false belief.
In this book there are multiple examples of playing around, jumps, sudden insight and so on.
Then comes the connection and the link back to the communication purpose.
The definition of a provocation is simple: there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said.
This is totally contrary to our normal permitted habits but we now know that provocation is mathematically essential in a self-organising information system.
Contradictions which we are told to avoid in the world of verbal logic do not exist in perception, which is based on water logic rather than the rock logic of fixed identity.
So this book tells us a lot about wit, design and communication but it also contributes to that growing feeling that traditional analysis, judgement, contradiction–avoidance and argument habits are insufficient to deal with a changing world.
The opposite of traditional logic is not irrational chaos but the more powerful non-linear logic of perception.
Only perception gives value to life.”
Edward de Bono
Dave,
Is this a case of the perennial question, ‘Where are we going?’.
The answer being, ‘We’ll know when we get there’.
No set pattern just a process of movement.
john p woods - 29 August 2012 1:41 pm
Dave
Logic dictates Mister Spock would give Mister de Bono 1 of those Vulcan send u 2 sleep grips.
Beam me up a banana, Scotty.
Grilla Login - 29 August 2012 3:06 pm
Thanx, Dave. Now my head hurts.
Rob Hatfield - 29 August 2012 3:42 pm
I’ll have to check this book out Dave. Have you read De Bono’s ‘Serious Creativity’. Do check it out if not – amongst other things it explores and perhaps expands on similar themes around this idea of creative solutions being obvious based on hindsight, and the need to disrupt the normal pattern / ordering process of the brain.
Simon Sanders - 29 August 2012 3:56 pm
Hi Simon,
I’m a big de Bono fan.
I’ve been to lots of his talks.
We once got him in for a day at GGT to lecture our agency and clients.
The most important thing he taught us all was ‘po’.
It ushered in our most creative period.
Dave Trott - 29 August 2012 4:37 pm
TLDR
Ed - 30 August 2012 10:26 am
Watching the World go by does it for me Dave.
The old girl who suddenly lifted her legs in the air
riding a moped when the lights went green in Tunbridge Wells town centre.
The Moscow ice cream seller who watched my ice cream
slide off it’s stick on to the pavement and smash
just as I’d bought it and simply smiled at me to say:
“You ‘aint gettin your money back mate”.
The Scotsman who sold me a one line poem for a quid
at Mornington Crescent tube station
and once I’d read it he snatched it back.
I haven’t a clue what ‘po’ is.
Why not enlighten us ignorant few?
Kev - 30 August 2012 7:21 pm
Kev, have you not been spending enough time with the kids lately? Time on the swings in the park, chatting over fairy bread or just flying a kite. These moments are important and teach us much as Mr De Bono understands, there is much to be learnt from Po from Kung Fu Panda.
A childlike innocence, orphaned, physically challenged and living in a dream state can allow us to ignore worldly norms and behaviour to create and be, whatever and whomever we choose.
Po is wise.
Be the Po
Know the Po.
Peter - 31 August 2012 12:54 am
Kev,
here’s what I wrote about PO:
http://davetrott.campaignlive.co.uk/2011/04/05/po-cars-had-square-wheels/
and here’s what wikipefia says about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_%28lateral_thinking%29
Dave Trott - 31 August 2012 9:03 am
Peter, Kevin + Dave – There’s also Tinky Winky, Dipsy + Laa Laa to consider.
Grilla Login - 31 August 2012 9:55 am
Kevin + Dave – the order was random (I’ve never thought of u as Laa Laa, Dave).
Grilla Login - 31 August 2012 10:01 am
Nor u as Dipsy, Kevin.
Grilla Login - 31 August 2012 10:03 am
Thanks for that Dave.
PO could have been anything,
and, of course, it is.
Your story explains why
Alex Taylor,
Paul Arden,
Richard Myers,
Bill Gallacher,
used the expression
“Keep going”…
Because that’s what I do
whatever the challenge.
Sounds daft to everyone,
but I’ve just plastered the small bedroom ceiling.
It’s so flat you could play snooker on it.
It’s that sense of achievement
I see this prevalent in the 2012 Paralympics
which makes these games even greater than the Olympics themselves.
As Boris said:
The Olympics are about what we do.
The Paralympics about who we are.
Imagine a shot of Usain Bolt with the line
“Now do it again without legs”.
That’s the real British spirit.
These people are amazing and so are we.
It seems a shame some people can only come up with
‘neither clever nor funny’ (Arden) ideas which poke fun at the inflicted.
Kev - 31 August 2012 1:30 pm
Hi Kev,
Paul instinctively used to do something similar to PO.
When he was stuck he’d say “Look out the window and the first thing you see is the answer.”
Then he’d see (say) a drainpipe.
He’d say “A drainpipe is the answer, now let’s work out why.”
And thinking like that would force you out of the rut you were stuck in.
Dave Trott - 31 August 2012 2:01 pm
Hi Dave,
I am using humour to try and get my son a start in advertising, I read this blog quite often. I have started a website http://mrscostelloe.com to try and get him a placement as a copywriter/ tea boy, do you have any advice or feedback that may be able to assist him?
Regards,
Mrs
Mrs Costelloe - 2 September 2012 11:15 pm
Nice one Marcus.
I very nearly sent Mrs Costelloe a link to a booklet and a podcast.
Dave Trott - 3 September 2012 8:58 am