Random Ideas from Charlotte

Ever since I thought of starting a blog, I dreamed of one day writing and posting my blog while travelling. Today I get to fulfill that dream on a plane as I travel back from a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina to my home just north of Toronto, Canada.

As the plane ferries to the runway to take off, my mind is full of ideas from conference sessions and the images of a city quite different from mine. Even though I have not drawn any conclusions there is a rich association of ideas.  

I love this place where the potential of ideas and images exists, and where I do not have to make them practical yet. The time for practical will come but for now I am happy to just let the ideas and images combine with each other in one way, then come apart and recombine in another way.  

One of these random idea combinations involves three images. The first is a picture of one playground manufacturers futuristic playground equipment. The second, modern art from the Mint Museum of Design. The third, a piece of public art in the financial district in Charlotte. I am taken by the three dimensional structure inside the structures.

A repeating idea from the conference sessions was that we need to challenge the mindset of 'we have always done it this way'.  How about taking a risk on even one new idea and seeing how it works out. I am guessing that the artists and playground designers understood this. 

My airplane is now in the air and I am watching the lights of Charlotte get smaller and smaller. It is amazing how different everything looks from thousands of feet in the air. When you look at things from far away, more things can exist in the picture at the same time.

How about people? Why did someone design and make these sculptures on the streets of Charlotte or in the museum that will stand unchanging for generations?

What are they trying to tell us about themselves? About ourselves...?

Another conference idea was that there is no everybody.  That is easy to believe looking at the sculptures above. 

But we need to make assumptions when we set out to serve a community. At the conference I heard that household structure and the generation that people belong to are emerging as the first factors to consider when we try to understand people's choices.

Fun keeps people coming back. But you need [boring] processes and data to be able to continue to deliver fun.  To the participant, fun may seen to be spontaneous and random.  To the organization offering the fun, fun is the result of deliberate actions and staff culture.

Or how can things that are all white look so different?

I could keep on combining random ideas and pictures for hours... until things emerge and gradually take shape. I hope that this sparks some random thoughts of your own.  You never know what may emerge.