Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Imagination

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, imagination is encircling the world.    - Albert Einstein


Speaking of imagination, it could remind us of the childhood. As children, we are conditioned to imagine, explore and create with cues from our environment and ability to discover and question it. When growing up, do we automatically lose the “imagination power”? Is that because the adults get stuck in conventional wisdom or restricted by the outdated rules? Children are not afraid of blurting out their thoughts. But adults are normally scared. Adults know the world and set the limit to stay in their comfort zone, or disable their "imagine-ability"subconsciously. Imagination sparks creativity, and creativity is #1 wanted skill for digital professionals these days, which questions should you ask to assess a person’s imagination?


Do you only believe in what you “see,” or do you always have an abundant imagination to see invisible and discover more possibilities? Imagination is the seed to grow innovation. An open mind leads to imagination, and Imagination leads to discovery. Discovery is both an event and a process. Imagination blooms at the beginner’s mind; they enjoy experimenting and discovering; there’s no rule to limit their imagination. Knowledge is fundamental for making imagination to reality. But without the imagination to "believe in the possible," innovation may not happen. To put the other way, innovation starts with an idea. Imagination can be seen as helping one expand the initial idea and building a set of hypotheses about how the product of the idea will look like, and how the customers will react to the product. Sometimes it is not possible to "see" the facts because they exist in different planes. And until you deal with facts from different sources that relate essentially to the same matter, the patterns are not apparent. That said, imagination is the "magic" force to push up and boost creativity.


Is imagination the key that transforms knowledge from folly to wisdom? Our knowledge is always based on what's known. It's information that's been discovered. However, in order to take any entity to a new place, imagination has to be exercised to uncover and create something new. At the highest level of imagination engagement, we become driven to leverage our imagination into creative or innovative results. Knowledge is important, but having a lot of knowledge about something can be a box that closes one's mind to innovation in that area. Openness is the most difficult thing to refresh your mind. And once you accept openness, the second most difficult thing is practicing it. Knowledge can be useful in trying to understand if what's imagined can be achieved. But if there's a paradigm shift then the knowledge can be a hindrance, especially today, the knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened, and people have to learn, de-learn, and relearn all the time. An entrepreneur may not have all the domain knowledge that required transforming an idea into a product, but he or she needs to be able to coordinate the resources from the different knowledge domain required to transform the idea into a product and market.


Will imagination only make you a “day-dreamer,” or it indeed evokes your passion for pursuing the dream? As with so many human behaviors, there is a gradient at which there is a threshold or tipping point where thought materializes into action.When our imagination is engaged, our passion flows, and our impulse to act is low. The higher the level at which we are engaged and stimulated to imagine, the more likely we are to take action. Imagination inspires your learning attitude as well. Often imagination and knowledge need to go hand-in-hand.A great wealth of knowledge fuels imaginations. This, in turn, becomes things which can be useful. Our imagination lets us dream of where we could go, knowledge helps us to understand how and what forces we are dealing with in our journey. Imagine what can be accomplished by increasing knowledge and applying it to what one has imagined. So a responsible use of knowledge is not an impediment to the imagination. Knowledge should be helpful for imagination - it helps to widen the fields and the scope. It gives wings to the imagination. More importantly, be proactive to pursue your dream by creating the future and roll your imagination into reality.

Free mind fertilizes imagination, imagination seeds creativity, and creativity grows into new knowledge. True thinking is the child of our imagination. Imagination is the fountain of thinking and creative communication is the way to convey your thinking vividly. Do not limit your imagination, let your imagination roll up, and reimagine the abundance of possibilities.

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