The Tribune

By DIANE PHILLIPS

INSPIRATION for the column – how new ideas are born – came from a chance sighting of a man photographing his wife with an umbrella that could revolutionise the humble umbrella. Bahamian field engineer Eugene Morley looked at that boring umbrella and saw opportunity. What he created is a temperature cooling, reverse operating, Bahamas-branded product that will make its way through rain or shine around the world, promoting the country of his birth. What is it about creativity that some people have it and others don’t? Morley is pictured with the columnist.

What does it take to look at an ordinary, everyday thing, the kind of thing you don’t even think about, and say, ‘Hey, I can make a better one?’

I’ve always been curious about how some folks can do that – take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Like a man I met quite by accident along with his wife on the beach at Montagu one Saturday. He was taking photos of her holding an umbrella. This was no ordinary umbrella. Its interior was an image. In fact, he had invented umbrellas with different images – all portraying The Bahamas. There was one with the famed red and white striped lighthouse in Elbow Cay, Hopetown, Abaco, another with Nassau Cruise Port, a third showing the waters of Exuma. Five choices in all, why look up and see the rain when you can capture an unexpected glimpse of The Bahamas even on a rain-soaked day?

And revolutionising the everyday umbrella did not stop there. Its exterior is a silver film that reflects the heat, making it 20 percent cooler underneath. Of course, the open and close is the newer reverse style so any water that lands on the top does not come gushing down on you. Push the button to close and the umbrella inverts so water flows outward. That part is not so new but this young man’s adaptation turning the everyday umbrella into an instantly perfect Instagrammable moment IS new.

Inventor of The Bahamas reverse operating, temperature cooling, Bahamas-branded umbrella (Sunguard.com) is a young entrepreneur named Eugene Morley. He happens to be a field engineer with a degree in electronic engineering from the University of South Dakota, none of which explains why he turned to umbrellas or opened a boat-and-water based tour company called Reel Adventures.

So back to the basic question – what does it take to come up with a new idea, a better mouse trap? Where do ideas come from? And I don’t mean ChatGPT or any form of Open AI. Where does originality start? Why does a young man like Eugene Morley have what it takes to look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary?

There has been a lot of research on creativity, attempts to discover what leads to the muse moment. Left brain, right brain is not enough to explain why a Eugene Morley looked at an umbrella and saw it as a canvas for The Bahamas or why someone stepped into a shower, pulled back a vinyl or cloth shower curtain or a sliding door and decided I can do better. I’ll install solid glass a little more than halfway across. It doesn’t blow, attract mildew and never needs to be replaced. It looks a whole lot more modern and best of all, it miraculously keeps shower water where it is supposed to be, on the shower floor. One the contemporary fixed glass shower was created, there was no going back. But the question remains – how, why did the better shower get invented or the reverse cooling umbrella with a portrait get designed?

MUSE CHROMOSOME?

No one knows why one person invents and another consumes. Author Amy Tan explored the muse chromosome, then discarded it, though it would be such a game-changer if there were a single chromosome that explained creativity. That way, we could clone it and all newborns would crawl around inventing the best of everything, and every day there would be a newer, shinier, brighter toy.

Despite the desire for a simple answer for an explanation of the origin of ideas, scientists who study the phenomenon have concluded that there is none. But there are a few very interesting patterns, or what Steve Johnson said in a TED Talk about coffee houses and creativity that made a lot of sense. “An idea – a new idea – is a new network of neurons firing in sync with each other inside your brain. It’s a new configuration that has never formed before.” And where and when is that new configuration most likely to occur? It turns out that it is more likely in a group setting than alone, more likely when there is a degree of interaction, even bordering, some argue, on chaos. New ideas are born when a network of neurons fire in sync inside your brain in a way they have never collided before, says Johnson – and those Eureka moments occur in discussions where a problem, a situation, a trend is being dissected, explored and examined, when a puzzle is pulled apart into a thousand smaller pieces before it is put together again.

Whether in a heated argument or calm moment, the split second when those neurons clamber all over one another to get together is the mini-second when the light bulb bursts to life. Neurons fire, energy of an idea newborn bursts into mental flames, most likely birthing in a communal setting. It could be a coffee house, at a conference table, an open office, at the water cooler. It is not the gathering that created the new idea, it merely helped to cause all the information stored from hours alone, from studying, reading, living, or examining the world through a microscope to connect, firing off the network of neurons in a never-before configured brain pattern. That is the moment of creativity, when a spark ignites, though what led to that spark were the experiences that came before it, including those tedious hours at the microscope.

Creativity only feels like it is spur of the moment. It is the summation of experience observed and inhaled, then exhaled as those neurons collide and fire away like fireworks of the brain. Eyes shine, a smile creeps across your face and you suddenly know what a Eureka moment feels like.

Now, can someone please fix the obnoxious hand vacuum that refuses to get into the very tiny corner where dust stares at you, the hand vac that refuses to squeeze down to a smaller size no matter how hard you push it, twist it or mutter under your breath in case it can actually hear you and decide to take the upper hand and quit altogether.

IN THE AFTERMATH OF BILLBOARD BLIGHT

LAST week’s column, Billboard blight is a sad, sad sight, and The Tribune editorial of the same day supporting the call for updated signage policies and regulation, evoked a tremendous response from readers.

The most interesting, though, might have been from a successful businessman who detests signs blocking the view of these as much as I do. What happens in a hurricane when a strong wind hits these signs, he asked? Who is responsible when huge billboards break loose and fly with the powerful force of a speeding bullet? What if they smash vehicles or windows or worse yet, kill a child? Who is responsible? Is it government? Government either turned a blind eye or allowed them to be erected. The signs are on public property.

Is it the sign manufacturer or installer? Or the company that ordered and owns the sign?

He is right, who is responsible if a strong wind whips a billboard and damages property or strikes a human? We could answer the question or continue to bury our heads and hope nothing worse than an offensive view is the outcome of a billboard blight that blocks our sight of one of the last public beaches in New Providence and defiles otherwise magnificent limestone walls.