Unscrambling Words. Unscrambling Ideas.

I was talking with a friend about Scrabble (always one of my favorite subjects), when it hit me as a perfect metaphor for creativity and idea-getting.

Here’s what I learned:

Words only fit with what’s on the board. Ideas only fit with a sound strategy.
You just can’t place any ol’ tiles on the board. Like ideas, they need to fit within a context. They need to work for what you’re aiming at.

The words are there. The ideas are there.
The idea is to find them among the great unscrambled. They are there.

Toss around the letters. Toss around thoughts.
Take a look at the puzzle in your mind from different angles, with different combinations.

Let it sit.
At some point in Scrabble, you just need to let the word come to you. In creativity, the idea often comes out of nowhere (if you put your mind in the right place to receive it).

Bingo!
50 extra points. A great idea.

#creativity #ideas

Twitter Brings Baseball Back to the 1930s

I’ve been following the local Little League all-star team as it makes its way through the regionals (last step before Little League World Series). Since the games are not on television or radio (or broadcast on the Internet), I’ve been following the action through the tweets of a local sports reporter (Pat Pickens).

It reminds me how Dutch Reagan and all of the other play-by-play announcers handled their craft decades ago, as they actually followed the game remotely by tickertape and then put together the “broadcast” of the game.

As soon as I see an update tweet from the Little Leaguers, I imagine how that play would have been called by Dutch and how he would have filled the time between batters and innings.

Ah, the era of imagination.

Lessons from an MRI

I had the (mis)fortune of having an MRI taken today and I knew going into it that I would probably have a blog post at the end (everything is okay; just my thumb). I had the sense that in lying completely motionless for 40 minutes, I’d find some metaphors for life in the digital and social world.

I did:

Lots of noise out there. If you’ve had one of these, you know how noisy they are. Lots of different noises – all loud – from all directions. Just like today’s socially connected world. Learn to filter out what’s not important and focus on sound, not noise. (although it’s quite difficult to filter out the MRI noise, there are spaces of quiet)


It’s nice to be still once in a while. Okay, I was forced to be immobile for 40 minutes, but I found this to be the only “still” time today. It also turned out to be my most productive thinking time all day. Life today moves fast; find your still thinking time. If just for a few minutes.


Everything is connected. While it was just my hand being looked at, everything needed to be still. Couldn’t move my head or my body. It’s funny how things in life are connected and intertwined, sometimes in an uncomfortable way.


Use your lifeline. I never had to squeeze the emergency button, but it was nice to know it was there. Even if you don’t have an emergency, lifelines can be vital. Identify yours – a mentor, a partner, a trusted advisor.


And remember, even in an MRI, there‘s a light at the end of the tunnel.

eb