Creating sustainable futures/CSF104/Inspiring/Having the right people

Coming up with new ideas is a challenge. Where do they come from? How did Apple come up with the idea for the iPod, and the iPad before anyone else? What was the inspiration for these innovations?

Creative solutions take imagination and an open mind. It requires us to suspend our judgment about the present, and imagine what could be possible, and what that might look like. It requires us to create a thinking environment and personal space for inspired thought and clarity.

Collaboration is a powerful way of developing new ideas. When done well, it provides a dialogue where ideas are exchanged, knowledge is shared and - when focused on solving a specific challenge - can result in imaginative ideas that borrow from numerous existing techniques to create new ones, or apply old thinking in new ways. For example, Canadian building company Landmark Group looked to the aerospace design industry when looking for ways to reduce waste and achieve consistently higher accuracy for designing buildings.