Insight about Insights

In last week’s “The New Yorker” Jonah Lehrer has a fascinating article about “Why good ideas come us when they do?”. His key finding is that one needs to alternate between very strong concentration of solving a particular problem and forgetting about the problem. Most good ideas and insights are occurring when one least expect it, it’s happening when you distract yourself away from the problem after spending sufficient time on trying to solve it. It’s the right balance between conscious hard work and giving freedom and space to the unconscious to come up with ideas that are beyond the conscious limits of one’s mind.

I am curious how many marketing organizations and marketer try to create a work environment that actually leverages this insight of how create insights. I am sure that many.