Last night I sat on my deck with a friend watching the storm go by to the north. It was putting on quite a light show, so I grabbed my camera and began to shoot. I managed to get some good shots, but it was only dumb luck. You see, no matter where I pointed the camera the good strike would be elsewhere in the sky.
Then it struck (a thought, not lightning); that's how ideas are, at least with me. An idea can come from anywhere at any time, but often I miss it. I'm busy looking somewhere else in the sky through a tube. You know, you get it in your head that the solution to whatever the challenge will be within certain parameters, so we confine our "search" to a specific area. But, if we take the tube away and allow our peripheral vision to work we stand a much better chance of "catching" an idea.
I wasn't thinking about a topic for a blog entry last night when this notion hit me, but I was receptive to ideas. I try to stay that way, in the now, noticing what's happening around me, open to a new thought or a new spin on an old one. Marketing ideas are no different. I think the most successful campaigns probably started with an obscure thought out of the now, just there in the corner of a person's eye, then developed into reality. Too Zen? Maybe, but I hope you get my drift. (Get my drift? What am I, in the 80s?)
Be receptive today. Take off any blinders you may be wearing and relax and enjoy the show that happens everyday all around you. The ideas will come when you least expect them. Oh, yeah, you may want to write them down. I carry a couple 3x5 cards with me all the time.
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