Mashups for the Right Brain.

We live in a left brained adult world where use of the right brain and its creativity is: often expected, but not nurtured; usually criticized, but not praised; sometimes recognized, but not rewarded.

As children, we played with our right brain and a world filled with innocence, curiosity, imagination, and originality. As adults, we work with our left brain and a world filled with plans, deadlines, competition, and criticism. It is easy to lose whole brained balance and to forget how to "think outside the left brain."

With conscious effort and "thought breaker" exercises, questions, and "aha experiments," we can bring right brain play back into our thinking, our ideas, our solutions for a more creative life.

Read this whimsical short story about growing up in a left-brained world and discovering a life more happily creative ever after: Play With Your Right Brain.

Creative cross-fertilization is an individual effort to refocus or change focus with an information input so as to improve your creative output. It helps creativity and original thought to think across different and diverse subjects and disciplines. It helps idea generation to read or process information for random fun and interest, and not just for focused work. Creative cross-fertilization offers: food for the brain, a muse for the mind, and mashups for the right brain.

A mashup is where two or more unrelated (or sometimes related) things come together to form something new, possibly different, most likely unexpected. While mashups are most often used to describe music (when two songs are mixed or mashed together), I like to think of a mashups as the mixing of anything, including topics of thought, to form new thinking or ideas.

For example: when creatively blocked, a visual artist may go for a walk and let the physical environment stimulate new and creative thinking. Or, a business person may casually read about a subject of special interest and this may trigger an idea for a new marketing strategy at work. Or, an aspiring chef may be inspired to mix cooking styles and ingredients from two diverse ethnic groups to form a unique fusion dish.

As seen thru the variety of examples presented on this lens, these mashups represent the creative output of numerous creative and inventive minds. In addition, the creative mashups of others can provide inspiration and creative cross-fertilization for your own creative process.

Your own personal effort to mashup your thinking offers an opportunity for you to "play with your right brain" and step out of the rigors and logic of the left brained world...to "think outside your left brain."

Enjoy the mashups presented below. Try my suggestions to mashup your own thinking. And, please provide feedback, share this lens, and help me build this community of mashups for the right brain.