Monday Vision: Collective Inspiration

We’ve stretched out from the holidays, warmed up (well, as much as a snowy New York allows you to) and we’re feeling super energized about 2011 and the exciting possibilities for us to demonstrate The Brilliance of Change™.

Last November we shared our thinking on Collective Innovation. We’ve extended this theme to Collective Inspiration and would like to share how we gather insight and inspiration that fuels design ideas. We’ve built our positioning and model around the collective concept, because we believe it’s the best way to keep insight, inspiration and ideas flowing while giving us the agility to adapt to change.

The concept of Collective Inspiration enables us to gather valuable thinking, on a global scale, from diverse talent (our growing Collective). This spans inspiration from people we either know well and respect for their opinions, or those we have carefully identified for their potential to provide us with new thinking. They simply fall into three types: thought leaders; creative consumers; and our design community.

Our Collective Inspiration is another way in which Monday Collective demonstrates its difference and value as we continue to collaborate with entrepreneurial thinkers to design meaningful change for brands and businesses. It’s a smart way of working because it taps into diverse thinking to open our imagination and ‘inspire’ design ideas. We then enjoy playing with the possibilities way before putting pencil to paper.

Now for some fun! We set the same challenge to four very different experts within our Collective – a graphic designer, a fashion stylist, a medical professional and a cultural observer. Find one piece of inspiration that represents ‘the future of natural’ to you and briefly explain why.

A: The company PET:Cell hand make jewelry from recycled plastic. They transform the humble PET bottle into beautiful and eco-friendly objects inspired by nature. Fashion stylist, NYC

B: The camouflage patterns and colors found in nature are so powerful yet sometimes overlooked, we should remember to look twice at the beauty that already exists around us. Graphic designer, NYC

C: ’Dandelight’ by Design Drift beautifully combines nature with technology by lighting up real dandelion seeds with an electronic circuit to create little light sculptures. Cultural observer, UK

D: Man-made synthetic cells, a kind of artificial life form to be used in the future to yield new biofuels, create clean water and possibly replace petroleum-based products like plastics. Medical professional, Australia.

Our culture at Monday Collective is built on gathering collective insights to create remarkable design. Great ideas can come from many places, inspiration should be encouraged from diverse sources. It’s what stretches our thinking and allows us, our Collective and our client partners to experience The Brilliance of Change™.

You’ll be able to see what we’ve been busy working on in a month or two when our projects start to launch, so please do keep your eyes peeled. In the interim, do send us your thoughts on the topic of Collective Inspiration, and if you have something that inspires you please join in the fun and share it with us at change@mondaycollective.com. We’ll be selecting our favorites for our Change gallery, credited to you of course. We’re keen to build this and if you’d like to see it grow, and benefit from seeing what others share too, please do contribute and join our movement to demonstrate The Brilliance of Change™.

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4 Comments

  1. Mark Barden says:
    January 10, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    Love this. our own experiences at eatbigfish endorse this method completely. Diverse opinions, colliding in unexpected ways, create new ideas. Very often organizations and groups don’t look and feel diverse, so it’s no surprise that new ideas struggle to be born. Two builds. 1) Attitude is vital. it’s like bread-making. the yeast of diverse ideas only makes the dough rise if all other ingredients are at the right temperature. Put another way, the environment and mood has to be right for the new ideas to form. reluctant participants, who won’t share generously won’t make anything new. 2) how to choose what’s a ‘good’ idea and what isn’t? without a strong sense of the identity of the brand or company, or the venture how will you know what fits? Know thyself. Otherwise it’s very subjective. Keep it coming

    Reply
    • MCo says:
      January 10, 2011 at 10:31 pm

      Hello Mark! Thanks so much for building on our theme today. Let’s bring on the lively debates and future challenges that ignite greater ideas. We’re big fans of eatbigfish, thank you!

      Reply
  2. coffee with julie says:
    January 15, 2011 at 11:28 am

    I’m waiting in suspense to see some of your projects unveiled! Will be interesting and fun to see what you’ve been working on!

    I am most inspired these days by environmental home design (design that takes into consideration the environment or land before even beginning to design a structure) and enviro-friendly design (building materials that are sourced from reuse, that don’t leach chemicals into our living environment, etc.)

    Best wishes to you on a wonderful 2011!

    Reply
  3. Monday Vision: Collective Inspiration II – says:
    March 9, 2011 at 8:06 am

    [...] by four white walls, struggling to push for that winning idea is not the way to design the future. Collective Inspiration and Creative Freedom is the way forward and allows us to gather new possibilities for design [...]

    Reply

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