On a recent flying visit to our capital city, the Sheffield St Pancreas train carried me through the English countryside with no more than a pen, notebook and colleague for company.
I like to travel by train as it gives me time to think and dream.... anyways, on this particular journey i found myself inspired by a runaway inflatable ball i noticed floating across some baron fields. This strangely got me thinking.... what if that ball was to do something, if it was rolling round for a reason. So, after a little bit of ideation, free thinking and talking rubbish, we decided to give this ball a job, maybe it could test PH levels in the soil, keep track of farm animals, scare away crows, plant seeds, relay weather data, maybe it could even herd the animals!
After minutes and minutes of suggestion and scribbling, we decided to question how? Would it charge in a small solar powered container in the corner of the field? Where would it live? Would it work constantly?
There's something about "thoughts on a train" that help the creativity flow, maybe it's the speed of travel, or the sometimes uninteresting company provided by the great British public. Whatever it is, i like it...
Sometimes these thoughts drown, never to surface again, but in this case i promised that i would tell someone, that someone being you.
Just an idea of how we work /slash/ think... dan
2. apple.com - launched in 1987 (screenshot from 1996)
