You can use creative visualization to invent new products
or processes, or to solve specific problems. You can also use
it to do such inventing as simply as mental exercise, a way to
develop your brainpower. I do the latter quite often, because
my experience and skills do not include building prototypes,
preparing patent applications or marketing products. I prefer
to simply invent in my mind. Of course I do get to write about
my ideas on 999ideas.com and this site, so I do get to make some
money from these exercises as well.
By the way, despite having what I think is a decent brain
and mind, I have trouble with visualization. It just isn't something
which comes naturally to me. It is worth the effort though. Let's
look at an example or two of how you can use the process. But
first, a video:
Here's the basic idea: Sit in your favorite chair, on the
roof of your apartment building, or on the top of a grassy hill--whichever
works best for you. Close your eyes (optional, but it seems to
help), and visualize all sorts of crazy images and scenes. A
small voice recorder makes it easier to take notes, but otherwise
have pen and paper ready to write down a few ideas that occur
to you as you do this. Afterward you can try to work with them
and develop them into something practical.
Just before I wrote this I spent ten minutes laying in bed
visualizing crazy scenes. I saw houses floating in lakes, giant
turtles climbing Mount Everest, and restaurants floating among
the clouds. Upon working with these images for a few minutes,
I had the following ideas.
Sky Restaurants
The view is often limited in flat areas, but what if restaurant
patrons could float above it all and take in the view while eating
in the sky? My idea was enclosed dining areas which are carried
into the sky using tethered balloons filled with hot air or helium.
The food would be prepared in a building on the ground and sent
up with customers, who would get an hour of air time before being
reeled back in.
Crazy? Perhaps. But my wife and I recently went to a restaurant
in Denver which has cliff divers and gunfights to entertain diners,
and it has been a success for 36 years so far. You can see my
interview with the diver on another website here: Restaurant
Cliff Diver
Lake Homes
Houses floating on lakes made me think of the houseboats which
are used in southern states, in part to avoid property taxes--and
for the view and lake access of course. The idea I got from this
was for floating platforms which allow any normal modular home
to become a house on a lake. Modifications of water and sewer
systems would be required, but I think there is some potential
in this concept. Buying a modular home and setting it on a lake
using one of these platforms might be cheaper than even the price
of just a lakefront lot, let alone a home on that lot.
I had a few other ideas that didn't seem as viable. That happens.
Perhaps only one in a hundred ideas resulting from this process
will be of any value, but ideas are easy enough with techniques
like this, so just have more until you find a gem or two.
Quick Review of the Process:
Allow your creative visualization to get wild, and imagine
the details if you can. Most things you visualize won't suggest
many ideas (the turtles climbing Everest did nothing for me),
but again, that's just not a problem. Visualize many things and
you'll have many ideas, and one or two may be good. In the process
you at least get a good mental workout.
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