Working in a Cubicle or Cube-kill? September 17, 2010ArchivesOff

Working in a Cubicle or Cube-kill?

By Joey Reiman

The workplace is the last place where you’ll find real live thinkers. Ideas don’t like offices and no insights come from off sites. The cubicle should be spelled CUBEKILL because ideas die in those cells. Time to think outside those boxes!

 

Here are the last five places where you can do that:

1) The Car: Turn off the radio and turn on the wheels in your brain. As someone who is paid for his big ideas, I think of MPG as Millions Per Gallon! On the road we are both relaxed and alert. Our brains are geared for this neutral mode. Ideas start popping up everywhere. And stop signs are gifts to let you write down those thoughts. 

2) The Shower: It is enclosed, private, has great sound and it’s warm. It’s a womb for ideas! That’s why we have so many in the shower. I actually installed a shower in my office with the letters T-H-I-N-K etched in five tiles. Baths work too. After soaking in a tub all day, Archimedes conceptualized “volumetric weight.” Leaping out of the bath he screamed “Eureka!”

3) The Ladies Room: Rodin’s famous statue “The Thinker” assumed the position for good reason. Sitting on the can is a time of release in more ways than one or two. This can be a time for deep contemplation rather than just a waste.

4) The Park: Nietzsche would take long walks in the park to generate his super thoughts. Unfortunately many of us have NDD – Nature Deficit Disorder. But nature has all the big ideas. Imagination was born here. Get outside your head and head outside.

5) The Church: I was born Jewish, but when I need a big idea, I go to church. Nothing beats a place of worship for divine inspiration because the architecture is built on getting as close to the heavens as humanly possible. Hence the tall spires.

 

When Albert Einstein was interviewed at Princeton University, he was asked how he spent his day. The professor calculated that 20 percent of his time was spent teaching his students. He spent 80 percent of his time looking out his window. Ponder that!

 

Joey Reiman is a leading authority on marketing and the creator of Ideation. He is CEO of the global marketing consultancy BrightHouse and teaches purpose and ideation at Goizueta Business School, Emory University.

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