On to Funky Diagram Part 2: How to Discover Answers

Okay, getting back to the diagram (if you need a refresher, I introduce it here.)

Part 1 was, How to Ask Good Questions.

Now, here's Part 2: How to Discover Answers.

I had a good chance to consider this on my recent trip to the coast, because we were totally throwing rocks and running around in sand and checking out stinky tide pools. We were ACTIVELY engaged in our surroundings.

Things with screens (TVs, DVDs, games, phones, etc.) are primarily PASSIVE. Look, I used to work in the game industry, so I've played lots and lots of video games. And video games, even with role-playing and all of it, are passive things. No matter what you do, you are reacting to the design of the game. You have to figure out how to get around, how to accomplish things, and all of that.

There is hope - Wii games, for example. And Second Life. But you're still... consuming what someone else has set up. Someone else imagined it first.

To really Discover Answers, you need to be in the driver's seat. You need all your different types of senses and brain cells. When you draw, it's you, and your pencil. When you look at something, you have to decide how you're going to look at it. Is it something you can pick up and move around? Do you need to move yourself around to get a better look? Or is it inside your head? Can you move it around in there to get a better look at it?

When you go to start drawing, you have to decide what materials you are going to use. Do you need mooshy pastels, or sharp crayons, or a big felt-tip pen? Or are you just using whatever is handy at the moment?

Discovering Answers means being willing to be surprised, and being ready to see a whole lot of different ideas. Often the best answers come from somewhere that is unexpected. After all, isn't that what research is all about? If you already knew everything, you would never have to look anything up.

These days it is really easy to mistake data for information. Data is stuff you can display on a screen or look up in a database. Data is what you get when you search on Google or Wikipedia. It can be really helpful, but it is only part of the story.

When you are going to draw something, what you need is information. You need to know all about something, like how it makes you feel or what it's like at different times of day. Drawing is expressing your feelings and your imagination. You can't get that off a screen, it has to come from your experience.

So, Discovering Answers means you have to be ready and willing to pay attention to your world and to experience it as the messy, surprising place that it is -- not something neatly designed for a screen.