Explore outside your niche

byLisaDSampson

205 followers

8 years ago

The biggest revolutions to any field are most likely to come from outside the industries, companies or professionals working on its core issues. Why? People inside any field tend to be limited and stick to researching and knowing their content inside out. This is great as it builds quality content and refines the existing thought infrastructure.

However...

Working from the outside, experimenting with fusing ideas and products which may appear to be dissimilar or not complementary can produce great leaps forward. So cross-fertilise! Look outside your own niche.

Examples?

1. OPTIMISING E-PRODUCTS: Steve Jobs took a calligraphy class in college in the 1980's - outside his degree classes, for a degree he did not, in fact, finish. Early Apple Macs offered a range of fonts, a convention which Microsoft later adopted and which Apple. If Jobs hadn't done this, we may all still be using that weird square script so many of us remember. And don't forget all the tertiary industries which benefit, specifically, all those font creators whose products we eagerly download and use as plug-ins to our best-loved templates.

2. A PUBLIC HEALTH MESSAGE WITH NO LANGUAGE BARRIER: 'The Story of Cholera' (yep, its on Youtube) is a superb animation created in 2011 by the Global Health Media Project. In less than 5 minutes, it shows how cholera spreads and what people can do to stop it. How much more effective is this animation than signs (which take up lots of real estate) in different languages, especially as the world's population becomes more mobile and the animation can be viewed effectively on screens as small as an iPhone. BTW, I just had to include the germ poster that I saw in Singapore a few years ago:

3. FUSION CUISINE: A look into many corners of your hometown or city will yield the most delightful, real life, honest to goodness YUM. A favourite of mine is Vesta in Blackheath in teh Blue Mountains west of Sydney where I go to be presented with their trial 'not on the menu yet' dish - the last one was homemade ravioli with Jerusalem artichoke stuffing.

I just read about a 'Taste of Jamaica' restaurant in Newfoundland, Canada which does fabulous crossovers using Newfoundland staples infused with Caribbean tastes and textures. All pioneered by a long standing Newfoundland academic and a collaborating chef. It also pays homage to the longstanding trade relationship between Newfoundland and Jamaica which gave rise to that most quintessential of local drinks: screech!

So, long live the art of the fusion! Let's hear it for cross-fertilisation! Best of all, it contributes to the wonderful global village: this planet earth we call home.