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two things together to come up with something unexpectedly delicious is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Hershey made several successful ad campaigns showing how peanut butter and chocolate would accidentally be combined in order to create a tasty snack. The key to brilliance, it seems, is to find interesting combinations of things and ideas which work even better together.

While it seems simple enough to take things and ideas and combine them together to make something wonderful, the reality is that:

(a) many great combinations have already been found, so there's little low hanging fruit left that is easy to find
(b) it can be hard, tedious work to take things and match them together over and over until you find winning combinations: just ask a scientist

Nonetheless, the seeds of creativity appear to exist virtually everywhere. There are many, many other example of innovation occurring through combination, testing, and refinement, sometimes with very common objects and ideas. We just never know where and when creative inspiration will strike. The best we can do, and this can be very effective, is to constantly expose ourselves to a wide variety of facts, ideas, and experiences, and then to take time to reflect and consider this information on a regular basis. Our creative inspiration comes from our lives; we need to be watching and listening to take it all in and then work to find valuable ideas.

Learn more about this author, Mark Dykeman.
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