• April 2016. 6pm.

  • 30,000 ft above New South Wales.

I am on a peak-hour, return leg flight from Sydney to Melbourne following a full day of meetings with clients where I shared the findings from our latest workplace design research. The conversations were fruitful, with a particular focus on innovation – a popular topic among organisations. We discussed the ways a workplace could help unearth ideas that organisations intuitively know exist in the ranks of their employees but can be awfully hard to uncover.

All around me, passengers mirrored my fatigue, they were talked out, idea-empty and looking forward to getting home; the hallmarks of a homeward-bound work commute. Settling into the hour-long journey ahead, I pulled out my iPad and resumed reading Richard Dawkins’ book, The Magic of Reality [2]. Struggling to concentrate, I caught myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over until I eventually became immersed in chapter three: “Why are there so many different kinds of animals?”

Dawkins explains Darwin’s proposition about how the iguanas of the Galapagos Islands came to be. In a nutshell, the geographical barriers between the islands resulted in the evolution of three distinct species of iguanas who were cut off by the sea. In perfect isolation on their own islands these populations never met, so their genes had the opportunity to drift apart as they evolved in different ways to adapt to their environments.

…it is mainly separations of this kind that were originally responsible for all the new species that have ever arisen in this planet. [2]

My earlier thoughts on how to design workplaces to promote innovation blended with Darwin’s theory in a way that wouldn’t leave me. I wondered, what if Melbourne and Sydney were on two different islands in the Galapagos? And rather than iguanas, these imaginary places were inhabited by ideas.

I turned the thought around in my mind as I looked out the window at the darkening landscape below me. I reasoned that if geographical separation is what gave us the diversity of species, from frogs to elephants, could the same be said about diversity of ideas?

As passengers around me in the packed aeroplane settled into silence and their complimentary wine, my mind was taking me to another destination that dealt with isolation and the hyper-connectivity created by travel. Could the ease of movement between Melbourne and Sydney, LA and San Francisco, or Hong Kong and Shanghai breed the intellectual equivalent of a colony of ‘single idea-specie’? A colony in which there are many ideas, but they all originate from the same strand.

Reflecting again on the conversations I had held with clients earlier that day, I thought about their workplace challenges in a vastly different way. Could isolation create the necessary conditions for unique ideas to hatch? And could these diverse ideas lead to unknown innovations in an otherwise increasingly hyper-connected world?

Back on the ground and at home I lay in bed unable to switch off. Hours of sleep were sacrificed imagining a society with wildly diverse ideas, the product of isolation. These ideas were as diverse as the species in our planet, and they were roaming amongst us too.

The fantastical imagery was quite thrilling, and it led me to promise myself that the next time I had an idea I would not email it, talk about it over the phone, or jump into a plane to discuss it with my Sydney-based boss. I would give that idea the opportunity to depart from the main colony of ideas and deliver its elusive innovation. And here’s the kicker, I decided I would sit with such an idea for as long as it would take me to walk from Melbourne to Sydney.

I’m confident I’m not the only person who has had bravado and steadfast conviction in the early hours of the morning – when one should be asleep and not hatching crazy plans. But this time I promised myself I would follow through.

Over a strong coffee the next morning, my idea seemed so outrageous I had to laugh and convinced myself it would be best to put all thoughts of iguanas and any accompanying menagerie of animals to rest. I tried to forget all about it.

But my iguana thoughts were as relentless as the organisations searching for innovation. I daydreamt often, imagining myself following through with my promise. Daydreams were a good compromise, an indulgence that didn’t interfere with common sense. And they worked for the best part of two years when I finally stopped dreaming, laced up my boots and hit the road to test whether isolation would allow an idea to evolve in a way that infused it with unique DNA.