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| Edited By: Gayatri Menon |Source: DNA |Updated: Jan 01, 2019, 06:25 AM IST
Once again it is the time to bid adieu to the year gone by and welcome the New Year with expectant eyes. On my wish list for the coming year is working on innovation, which can be thought of as a means of staying one small step ahead of the competition or can be about flying ahead and paving a new way. Here are some steps that foster innovation and since this is also the time to make resolutions, hope some of them make it to your list.
One of my workshop participants talked about how in his society they decided to make a shift to solar energy for their community centre. They have stopped paying electricity bills and, in fact, are earning money by generating surplus energy which they are sending back to the grid. They would recover their investment cost much earlier than expected and are now planning to expand the model further. Questioning the status quo and taking a small step to alternate solutions can make a big difference. Innovation not only requires a creative idea but acceptance and implementation of the idea. So pick up great ideas, start implementing and sharing your experiences with others in the coming year.
Empowered people innovate. With the rise in incidents of agrarian distress and the ensuing protests, it is interesting to note that a lot of farmers sustain themselves from one crop to another. They cannot afford to take risks to try out new ideas for cultivation and for the food chain. The farmers who were destroying the pomegranates due to the low prices could not think of converting them into jellies, juices, health tonics, new unthought of products and get a better price for them. Neither did they have the know-how it. Empower people around you at the workplace and home by enabling them to take risks. Support them and watch a thousand innovations bloom.
Creativity is not an idea, it is a mindset. It is sad that we have created this big mental division between science and the arts. Einstein loved music, perhaps as much as physics and this is what made him say that the last leap of scientific discovery is not analysis but imagination. Cultivate creative interests not just as peripheral hobbies but as something close to your core and see how it changes your outlook and makes you creative in everything you do. To be creative is also to be liberal in terms of accepting diversity – there are many ways and not one singular conservative way of doing things.
The best ideas come from a playful, non-judgmental, supportive environment. Spend time with children. Sometimes they can be wonderfully perceptive while being creative. The other day my son asked me, “Why is the lion called the king of the jungle? I said it has always been so, what is the problem? But he wanted to know further. Why would the deer, whom the lion kills and eats for his lunch, consider him to be the king? Who should be the king: one whom you fear or the one who helps? Questioning of status quo can lead to interesting insights.
And most of all have fun and a very Happy New Year!
The writer is a senior faculty at the National Institute of Design. She likes to dance when she is too tired to stand
