Three creative insights from "Imagine"

Jonah Lehrer's new book, "Imagine" is drawing quite a lot of attention for its take on the nature of creativity. Filled with observations backed by science, the book makes a number of counter-intuitive arguments. Writing at Fast Company's Co.Design, Paddy Harrington lists three such takeaways, which are "the importance of daydreaming," "successful teams are never too familiar with each other" and "bring in an outside perspective." On the last point:

We have a saying at Bruce Mau Design: 'Amateurs going in, experts going out.' For a long time, we struggled to articulate the benefit of being a 'nonexpert' in a field. We often talk about 'fresh eyes' in design. When you’re working too long with anything, by definition, you can’t 'see' it anymore. It helps to get a person unfamiliar with the work to give a fresh perspective. Well, it turns out that this is a fundamental pillar of innovation: Our habits form what’s called a ventral route. It’s like a rut in a road. It gets so deep that you simply can’t get out without outside help.

Read the whole piece.