You hear all the time about people that think outside the box, in fact, if you check google you will find 538,000,000 results for that phrase.  I am good with this as it signifies people being creative in the way they approach problem-solving, which is a good thing.  We say think outside the box all you want, it’s fun.  Some of the world’s best creations were created by thinking outside the box.  Without this concept, we would never have had pet rocks, robot vacuums, bidets, and cronuts (if you haven’t had a cronut, it’s a croissant donut and is one of the best ideas in the history of ideas).

The problem with thinking outside the box is that you have to start with something.  When you realize the truth that there is no box, you can start literally anywhere.  No more how do I get there from here conversations, you now get to ask, “how do I make magic happen?” Everyone loves a magician, right? Thinking without a box allows you to be open to ideas that are so preposterous that they might just work. Big ideas are created when you wipe the board clean and start from scratch looking at a problem. The biggest enemy to this way of thinking is the phrase “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”  Yet for some reason, it keeps needing to be redone.  I wonder why?

When OG media sits down to solve a problem or look at ways to help a client, we start with where we want to go, not where we are. In one of my favorite movies, Patch Adams, some crazy old guy keeps asking everyone how many fingers he’s holding up, they are all wrong, and he insults them for being wrong.  The answer is to not look at the problem, look at the solution.  If you look past the problem and you will see the solution.  If you start with a box, the solution is a bigger box.  Just like if you are a hammer, everything is a nail.  If you think slightly different, the results are limitless.  So, here at OG Media, we say ditch the box, or just give it to your cat, they will find it so much more useful than you will.