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Cross-pollination. The most important skill to develop after taste.

11/10/24

This blog post idea came from numerous discussions with friends, wife, colleagues whenever the topic of coming up with new ideas came. Last week was one such evening discussion with folks at work for an upcoming hackathon.

Nike's shoe designers took cues from traditional knitting techniques to create lightweight, breathable shoes that fit like a sock. Flyknit was born!
Tesla took radar technology typically used in places, to create foundation systems for autopilot features in their cars.
Instagram took short-lived content inspiration from Snapchat, shortened the interaction lifecycle and applied in their already popular photo-sharing platform. Instagram stories is now one of the most popular features of the platform.
Roomba creators took principles from robotics (movement automation, obstacle detection) and applied them on a consumer device. To clean floors!
DJI drones cross-pollinated filmmaking and robotics. They married drone technology with camera stabilisation (borrowed from steadicams used in filmmaking) and well.. sort of revolutionised aerial cinematography.
Fitbit, the OG fitness band, took health monitoring (heart rate, activity tracking) from professional sports and cross-pollinated with consumer friendly wearable. They made health data easy for everyone to understand, not just athletes.
The Shinkansen Bullet Train’s design was inspired by the shape of the kingfisher bird’s beak after an engineer observed how birds dive into water without making a splash.

Cross-pollination works because it brings fresh perspectives from unrelated fields, pushing the boundaries of innovation.

Few things you can try:

I do myself as well to actively practice.

Use index cards. Easier to physically mix & match.
Take subscription of Curiosity Stream or search on YouTube by default instead of Google. I do this mostly before sleeping.
Keep a notebook with you at all times. Take notes, doodle, scribble… anything. Get a passport sized notebook so it's easy to carry in pocket.
Keep improving your taste while at it.
Observe everything — nature, public spaces, people. Take a lot of random photos that you find interesting. My phone has 13K screenshots and 30K photos (probably 50% random stuff I find interesting).
Log them somewhere shortly after. I try to use my Instagram/ Twitter or this blog to do that often. I'm not that disciplined about it though.