Creative combinations

Like associations, combinations lie at the heart of creativity. Many creativity experts, artists, and inventors believe that creative products come into being through combining objects, concepts, or ideas.

Take the iPod, for example. In 1979, Sony released the first Walkman (remember those?). Among its fans was the late Steve Jobs, who believed that creativity is “just connecting things.” The first iPod was a combination of the Walkman and digital music compression (MP3).

The Walkman itself was a combination of a cassette player and the idea of portable music.

The first smartphones combined a mobile phone with the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA).

The iPhone combines smartphones, MP3 players (such as the iPod), and a touchscreen.

In popular music, a mash-up is a blending of two or more songs.

In art, combine painting is a combination of paint and objects such as clothing, bits of paper, stuffed animals, and various found items. The result is a combination of painting and sculpture. (See the illustration above.)

Musical styles, painting techniques, scientific concepts, architectural designs, or ideas from any field can be combined.

Emergence

You might have noticed that none of the objects and concepts mentioned are simply combinations of existing elements. Instead, the elements combined to create something wholly new, something much more than the sum of its parts. We call this emergence.

The phrase ‘snake oil’ is an example of emergence. ‘Snake oil’ refers to fraudulent products, but neither snake nor oil means anything near this. ‘Couch potato’ is another one—neither couch nor potato is about being sedentary. Also consider ‘yellow belly’ (cowardice) and ‘smart phone.’

On the other hand, a phrase such as ‘singer songwriter’ carries almost no emergence: each word can be associated with similar concepts, and nothing new is created.

Combinations in creativity

By now it should be obvious that combining things might lead to new products: the examples above are proof of that. Two more examples:

• Aerosol paint is the combination of aerosol cans and paint.
• The first shopping carts—invented in 1936 by Sylvan Goldman—combined wire baskets, wheels, and folding chairs. The folding action of a telescope (appropriate called telescoping action!) was added later to store the carts more efficiently.

But there is more to combinations in creativity. In creative problem solving, combinations can be deliberately created and used to tickle the imagination.

Related to the problem

What can be combined? Words, images, ideas, and objects can all be used in combinations. There are two types of combination: elements that are related, and elements that are unrelated to the problem.

Suppose you want to offer customers a unique selection of pencils. What could you add or modify to existing pencils to create a useful, original, and desirable pencil? You first make a list of pencil attributes that you could consider—perhaps shape, material, colour, length, weight, point, lead, price, ease-of-use, grip, durability, hardness, self-sharpening and so on. You can also add elements from the problem or problem statement, for example add, modify, unique, useful, desirable, sales.

Now combine the words in groups of two (for instance, shape point) or three (for example, weight unique material). Suggestive, aren’t they?

These are all examples of using related elements in combinations. Research suggests that related elements can result in practical, useful ideas, but perhaps not many or very original ideas.

Unrelated elements

Using unrelated items with problem elements can produce very strange combinations. Suppose you draw the random word ‘language’ from a dictionary and combine it with ‘useful’ from the problem statement. What comes to mind when you see ‘language useful’ or ‘useful language’? What about a pencil that warns you when you have made a spelling mistake? (This idea needs some work ….)

Another way to use unrelated elements is to compile two lists of random words that are unrelated to the problem. Then you combine each word on the first list with words on the second list. The result can be scrutinized for ideas.

According to researchers, unusual and unrelated combinations can evoke more ideas than related combinations, as well as more original ideas. These ideas might, however, be less practical or useful than ideas from related elements.

Tarot and combinations

And finally, how can we use combinations with Tarot cards for solutions?

When stuck, simply draw a random card and compile a list of words inspired by the card. The list can include keywords usually associated with the card, or any other words evoked when you look at the card.

To generate even more random combinations, draw two cards, make a list of words from each, and combine.

Example: Seven of Cups

Suppose we draw the Seven of Cups. Keywords for this card could include imagination, ideas, illusions, choices, fairy favours, desires, castles in the air, contemplation, debauch (Crowley’s suggestion, of course), scattered, distractions, indecisive. We can also include items such as castle, snake, dragon, jewellery, and wreath.

We get some unusual phrases when we combine these words with the ‘pencil problem’ above: add distractions, unique fairy favours, dreams weight, indecisive durability, contemplation castle, imagination dragon, modify debauch….

Combinations and your imagination

Combinations might have one more use in creative problem solving: they can make you more creative. Not only do they get your imagination going (the more bizarre the combination, the better), but research suggests they can also make you more creative in whatever creative activity you do next, even if that activity is work on a different problem.

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Recommended reading:

• Kaufman, J. C., & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.). (2010). The Cambridge handbook of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Kohn, N. W., Paulus, P. B., & Choi, Y. (2011). Building on the ideas of others: An examination of the idea combination process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(3), 554–561. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.01.004
• Kohn, N. W., Paulus, P. B., & Korde, R. M. (2011). Conceptual combinations and subsequent creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 23(3), 203–210. doi:10.1080/10400419.2011.595659
• Mumford, M. D., Baughman, W. A., Maher, M. A., Costanza, D. P., & Supinski, E. P. (1997). Process-based measures of creative problem-solving skills: IV. Category combination. Creativity Research Journal, 10(1), 59–71. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1001_7
• VanGundy, A. B. (1988). Techniques of structured problem solving (2nd ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
• Wan, W. W. N., & Chiu, C.-Y. (2002). Effects of novel conceptual combination on creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 36(4), 227–240. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2002.tb01066.x