My Stanford Adventurous Thinking workshop concludes with Parkour, the last of the Five Ways thinking tools and definitely the most extreme.  Parcours: ‘l’art du replacement’ is about getting from A to be in the most efficient way possible.  Most importantly it's about never looking backwards, and never doing what's conventionally been done.In Adventurous Thinking terms that means turning a genre on its head.  Taking the cliches and norms of a scenario and completely inverting them.  The immediate results of inverting a norm feel gimmicky and easy to dismiss, but working hard, against your better judgement, to see an inversion through can deliver innovative leaps and bounds.   As Jacques Derrida said of his disruptive deconstructionist philosophies, "If this work seems so threatening..this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, incomprehensible or exotic (which would allow them to dispose of it easily), but...competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction in its re-examination of the fundamental norms and premises of a number of dominant discourses..".  Phew.  OK - let me show you how my current students broke that into solutions for two real-life work issues.

        1. Making the Transition from Restauranteur to Techie.  Students suggested the conventional route would be to find highlight any tech-worthy experience within the subject's past, as well as interning and finding contacts within the desired tech field.  Inverted, the advice became:

• DON'T note similarities.  Highlight the differences between your expertise and the "typical" tech employee as a thinking advantage;
• Become a food industry expert through social media and make your advice available to the industries you seek to work with so that you are on par with the experts there;
• Look harder at the food industry and consider what tech help it needs - apps, backend services - and design them.
  
  2. Increasing Submissions to WikiHOW .  Conventional solutions included more outreach, making submissions easier and reminding people how useful this anonymous, free information is.  Inverted, the advice became:
• Pay professors and industry experts to contribute and tier information into "Expert" or "Maestro" levels;
• Create social profiles around prolific "experts" and allow them to share their contributions across social platforms;
• Encourage manufacturers to reward consumers for posting "how to" entries using branded equipment, tools, fixtures and fittings;
• Create a mobile-friendly template for short SnapChat-style How To videos.
• Parkour thinking is a terrific way to group-problem solve because it is equal parts crazy and constructive, with the extra benefit of team-building.  And for anyone who hasn't seen it - here is the definitive Everyman's Parkour.

This David Hockney artwork has hung over my desk for five years now.  Pearblossom Hwy uses collaged photos in a modern cubist technique to express the wandering eye of the passenger on a long road trip.  Unlike the driver, the passenger is not bound to watch the road.  Bored, distracted, they can stare into the horizon or hone intently on some roadside detail.  If ever an image captured a restless, curious mind this is it!
I am always inspired by the movement of this piece and the way it captures a multifarious perspective.  That's why I've chosen Pearblossom Highway as the focus for my first foray into interactive media via thinglink.
At my workshops and speaking gigs this year students and audience members have asked me to send out regular posts with hints and exercises in Adventurous Thinking and the Five Ways.  Problem is, I couldn't work out how to convert that circular Five Ways perspective into a 2D blog format.  Until thinglink.

​ The hearts represent exercises, great articles and a bit of surprise and delight.   There's tons of room for improvement and I would really like my own icons, but I think I've discovered how a multifarious perspective can be express regularly on a screen.  What do you think?

This month my feature on the Future of Design runs in Voyeur magazine.  Read it here!

In my upcoming interview with multifarian and toy guru Dan Klitsner we discuss the production of the fabulous Perplexus maze games which were designed in conjunction with sculptor and art teacher Michael McGinnis.  I don't want to give away too much content but here are a couple of Michael's sketches for the original perplexes game as well as one of the original balsa concept models..  As you can see he, like so many multifarians, is a hand sketcher.

I headed out to the Farallon Islands last weekend to spot seals, humpback whales, sea lions and potentially sharks (well we saw them on the radar anyway...).  An incredible landscape.

We've completed the third interview in my Multifarians series, this last with serial toy inventor Dan Klitsner. What a legend!  Who WOULDNT want the job that involves playing all day?  Here is a snippet of what we have coming....and in a fascinating insight...Dan revealed that his dream job (wait - toy design is not the endgame??!!) is to travel to exotic locations and journal the experience for the other travelers.  WOW.  Didn't see that one coming....but Im going to share just one of Dan's journal drawings and you will see how his sketchy future is looking bright!

During my interview with Jay last week he was talking about the huge influence Ralph McQuarrie's drawings have on his own work.  I was curious - hadn't realized that the artwork I had seen was pre movie...just assumed it was generated FROM the scenes....Ralph was a designer at Boeing and you can certainly see his understanding of mechanics and engineering in these masterful, inspirational images.  You can find a snippet from the interview here.