Oblique Strategies

I work on my own a lot. There are benefits. Above all, I choose the music. All day. Every day. And if there’s cricket on, I listen to that instead. Bliss.

But, even for an only child, I can miss human contact. Especially the chance to bounce ideas off colleagues. I have some sympathy with Marissa Mayer’s work in the office edict.

There’s another phenomenon I must deal with. Sometimes I’m the expert, the guru, the seen-it-done-it, not-to-be-questioned sage. Sometimes I’m the freelancer; here’s the brief, the scope, deliver these outputs. Neither necessarily builds in the challenge to get to a better solution.

Without colleagues to spark off, or sources of friction, how do I keep getting better? How do I not churn out the same product every time?

Enter Brian Eno. I listen mostly to 6 Music. They play great music, and he’s made a lot of it, so he pops up frequently. And I’ve heard him talk about his Oblique Strategies. These are designed to break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. I’ve been taking one each day with the instruction to trust the card even if “its appropriateness is quite unclear”.

First up: “Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities”. I was writing an EVP report. Not only was the appropriateness entirely unclear, but it felt like bad - absurd? - advice. But as I came back to it, it sort of came into focus. I kept a lot of specifics but I looked at what people didn’t say, what they alluded to, what it might all mean. It’s still all solid research, but taken that bit further.

Next: “Look at the order in which you do things”. Another report; this needed representative quotes to add meaning. It’s massively valuable, but by god, it’s laborious. I usually leave it last, and it’s a good sense-check. But I did it earlier, it became a more fundamental part of the report and it felt less tedious.

Then: “What to maintain?” I’ve been touting myself about a bit, and I have a lot of things to say. But what really makes people prick up their ears and say “Oh, really?” or “Tell me more…” Work to do but it may make my pitches more focussed.

The lesson: look for inspiration in unlikely places. (Just make sure that those places are likely to be more fruitful than Steve Wright’s “Big Show”…)