Raspberry beer and the sources of new ideas
Here’s a thought about creativity and innovation:
I had a raspberry flavored beer for the first time while on my trip to the Netherlands (not necessarily the one that I have pictured to the left). It was delicious – I’d never tasted anything like it in my life. It was like carbonated raspberry juice without any trace of beer taste. We do not have fruit-flavored beers in my part of the world unless it’s a microbrewery product or else it’s an import. Our beers usually taste like… well, what we think beer tastes like in Canada.
If I was a brewer or marketer and I really, really liked this beverage, I’d be asking a ton of questions about this beer: who makes it, where is it made, who drinks it, are there any other beers like it, etc.
This is one of the values of travel, either for business or for pleasure: discovering new things either by chance or on purpose. You can’t help but discover new things while traveling in a foreign country.
In my readings, and my own practical experience, on creativity and innovation you really need to expose yourself to new things to help generate better new ideas. By nature I’m a creature of habit in many ways. However, I try to learn new things, experiment with doing old things differently (ex: cleaning a room, organizing books or files, driving from point A to B, etc.)
One of the problems that I have with trying to be efficient all the time is that when you arrive at the best or optimal solution you assume that it will always be the optimal solution. When other conditions change, sometimes there’s a new optimal solution. Or, in the case of travel, sometimes you discover something new that changes your way of thinking about what’s best, efficient, or optimal.
If I hadn’t come on this trip and tried a different beverage, I wouldn’t have written this post.
Food for thought.
Image by MontageMan
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