Читать книгу Non-Obvious 2017 Edition - Рохит Бхаргава - Страница 48

Photo: Curated collection of articles after a year of gathering stories.

Gathering is the disciplined act of collecting stories and ideas from any interaction you have with people or experiences.

Do you read the same sources of media religiously every day? Or do you skim Twitter occasionally and sometimes follow the links to continue reading? Regardless of your media consumption, chances are you encounter plenty of interesting stories or ideas. The real question is, do you save them?

The key to gathering ideas is making a habit of saving interesting things in a way that allows you to find and explore them later.

My method involves always carrying a small Moleskine notebook in my pocket and keeping a folder on my desk to save media clippings and printouts. By the time you read these words, that folder on my desk has changed color and probably already says “2018 Trends” on the outside of it.

In my process, I start the clock every January and complete it each December for my annual Non-Obvious Trend Report (Part II of this book). Thanks to this deliverable, I have a clear starting and ending point for each new round of ideas that I collect.

You don’t need to follow as rigid of a calendar timetable, but it is valuable to set yourself a specific time when you can go back and reflect on what you have gathered to uncover the bigger insights (a point we will explore in subsequent steps).

IDEA SOURCES—Where to Gather Ideas

Personal conversations at events or meetings (ask lots of questions)Listening to live speakers or TED Talks (write down memorable quotes)Entertainment (TV shows and movies that actually make you think)Books (Nonfiction and fiction)Museums (the more obscure the better!)Magazines and newspapers (as unexpected or outside your realm of knowledge as possible)Travel! (even if it doesn’t seem exotic or far away)

As you first read this list of sources, they might seem, well, obvious. It is rarely the sources of information themselves that will lead you toward a perfectly packaged idea or trend. Rather, mastering the art of gathering valuable ideas means training yourself to uncover interesting ideas across multiple sources and become diligent about collecting them.