In today's episode, we chat with Doug Patton, an inventor, creativity expert, award-winning product designer and engineer, Founder & CEO of Patton Design, and Author of Conquering the Chaos of Creativity.   

Doug is an esteemed industrial designer who was an inventor featured on ABCs American Inventor. He has created over 300 products in 20 international market categories and has received over 150 patents and international design awards. His clients include companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and Disney.

His mission to inspire others to live more authentic lives has led him to write  Conquering the Chaos of Creativity, where he shares his unique, creative problem-solving process and inspires readers to take their own path by giving them the tools they need to creatively problem-solve in their own lives. 

Doug sees chaos as a place of freedom. One which lacks rules and boundaries, therefore, giving individuals the free space to be as creative as they want. However, the mistakes people make when they are first trying out being creative is getting lost in the chaos. He cautions them  to keep it simple and build on their ability to create,  

What is his creative process like when it comes to working on a project? For him, he looks intrinsically and externally, he explores how he will remain excited and creative through the project and how to communicate these creative ideas to various stakeholders. This has resulted in him coming up with the language of creativity. This means he is able to breakdown his ideas into simple terms so as to get buy-in from everyone 

 In addition to the principles in his book, Doug tells us about the mediative problem-solving method. Where he uses meditation to help with the creative process. In his book, he gives his readers processes to free their minds from any constraints where they can safely go off and explore new ideas and new ways of thinking. 

In conclusion, Doug believes that everyone is innately creative. and everyone has a great imagination. Additionally, he urges people to take the first step to expanding their creativity in any way they can. For experts and those at the top of their form, he tells them to expand on their creativity and never let it go. 

You can connect with Doug on the following platforms

Doug's Website

Doug on YouTube

@dougpatton_ on Instagram

Doug's Facebook group

Doug's Facebook page

Book: Conquering the Chaos of Creativity

Copyright 2024 Mark Stinson

auto generated transcript

Well, welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. And do you ever find, sometimes you need an alarm clock for your creativity, a wake-up call? Well, you've come to the right place today because we're gonna be talking with an industrial designer and an overall creative leader who is a real wake-up call to all the people who say I wish I were more creative. I wish there was a way to apply more of my creativity. My guest is Doug Patton. Doug, welcome to the program.

Well, thank you, sir. I look forward to talking to you today and it's gonna be a fun conversation about creativity. That's one thing that is not in the news and our daily lives enough creativity. It's something that could make everything better. But it's something that kind of, isn't taught in schools and, and isn't something that everyone thinks they're creative, but everyone is innately creative. It's just what environment they, he grew up in that allowed it to not atrophy or shoot up like a shooting star there are so many opportunities for people to be more creative.

Well, I can't wait to explore that. Listeners Doug has been on ABC's American inventor television series. He's created more than 300 products in 20 international market categories. And he published a great book last year called conquering the chaos of creativity. Doug, I heard one reviewer call this a textbook, but fun. You've called it a map to creativity and this alarm clock idea. Why, do we need to make sense of the chaos that we often think of creativity?

Well, those are some big questions. I wish I had like a day to discuss it but to keep it simple. And in nutshell chaos for me has always been a place of freedom. It's a place where there are no boundaries where there are no rules where one can think of new ideas without linguistic boundaries, without cultural boundaries. And it is a place where one's own construct can be erected. I kind of look at it metaphorically like if you're building a space station, an outer space there's no gravity. You could make it whatever you want. It's this free space with no constraints. And the hard part is, is that creativity with some people is frightening. And that chaos comes with creativity.

It's a new realm. It's like exploring a new forest or a new area. And what is very important is that one doesn't get lost in that chaos. And one of the reasons I wrote the book is for people that have tried to be creative, but they somehow get lost in it. And it, it becomes something that they pull away from and what I'm trying to show it's like if you've ever been to Hawaii, it's like, if you're standing on a, on the side of the ocean and it's blue and warm and inviting, that is what the chaos of creativity is. You just have to dive in, but metaphorically, what is an important aspect is that when you dive down and you see something sparkling about five feet down in the blue ocean you only take what you can carry up. And that is probably one of the mistakes that a lot of people make when they first try with creativity, they try to do too much, just like everything else. You have to keep it simple and build your ability to create, but I can go on,

Well, you've certainly applied this. And, as I was saying in the opening 300 products and 20 markets, and I look at your work on your website, everything from Mercedes to life science companies, to Disney and apple do you have an approach than that you say going into almost any market project, you're saying I need to simplify this. And as you were saying, make sense of some things here. What is your first step in getting into a design project?

Well, I'm gonna reply both intrinsically on how my mind works and, extrinsically, or externally on how I apply it. And I think that is one of the first lessons of creativity. You have to think of your own intrinsic method to keep yourself motivated, to explore. And then the external way is how you bring it to the world. Okay. And how you communicate it. Two very important things. That's what I call the yin and yang of creativity. A very, very important aspect. One of those starts with the first chapter of my book. So what one has to do is become like a baby and presume you have no knowledge. One of the most important things, when one is inventing is you assume something that you're an expert and you might obviate over an incredibly important detail.

Look at a baby on how everything is. New. Everything is exciting. Everything is you absorb it all. So that quality is always a priority. When I start, I try to blank out my slate and see every detail as important. And as a baby accumulates, a lot of knowledge, I accumulate things in patterns and I have it in my book. I call it the thought molecule. As atoms build into molecules, build into compounds, so do ideas. And so there is a lot of, of parts of my book that are the internal part on how you can think, how you can be more creative, how you can use the psychology of your mind to propel yourself, but also in the book, it's, now that you have some ideas, some concepts, how does it then at the very beginning communicate that to everyone involved and for that, I've had to learn what I call the language of creativity. Which is when I am communicating with people, I might have marketing people computer scientists engineers, artists web designers everybody speaks and different language.

So I've had to learn that language and be a communicator. So when I speak a theory, it changes if I'm speaking to a computer science person or I'm talking to someone who's in branding. So I've had to become a master of all these languages. It's kind of like a translator of, of Russian English, French, German Spanish. You have to be able to communicate

In order to speak to those various stakeholders. You know, I like what you're saying about the childlike innocence. I, I've had this effect for myself where you go into a project and you go, oh, I see it. It couldn't be clear. It's so obvious. And yet the more you dig, the more you listen, the more you learn you realize that your first instinct may not have been correct.

Yeah. And, I think one of the most important aspects of like- to expound on that, on that theory is another part of, one of my books, where I talk about how one has to be incredibly sensitive to information and have it, I call it the incredible sensitivity of creative power, a delicate awareness. And, creativity's power is born from great sensitivity and awareness and empowered correctly, this gift of kind of a sensitive fragility is immense. It's magnificent, and it's a force so strong. It can overcome any problem, but the dangers of it are, many times it can crush you because it's so much information. Imagine alike you turn on, your water faucet at home, and it just keeps filling your sink until it overflows. I've had to learn how to deal with that flow and how to digest it and protect that sensitivity I have.

So that is the next level. After pretending you are kind of like a newborn and see everything is this incredible sensitivity of creativity that has to be well understood. And, a lot of master creationists whether they're some scientific or in music, have no off switch, and hence, they might use drugs, or they might use other things to try to deal with it. And early on in my life, I'm a child of the sixties grew up near Haight-Ashbury and all that fun stuff. So early on, I really had to focus on how I handled that sensitivity and not you know go in a negative direction.

Yes, absolutely. Well, we've talked about the breadth of your work, and one of your current projects that you feature is an environmental fragrance air diffuser system, which is a lot more than an air freshener as I'm looking at this design you've even patented this idea of a combination of fragrance, art, and literature. Tell us about the product and, and again, how you've approached it and how you expanded it from simply sort of diffusing a fragrance into the air.

Well, as I approach everything, I look at it in multiple patterns. I looked at it from the science of fragrance to other competitive products, to user needs, and then, and looked at the sociology of our culture. I mean, a lot of ideas start with that sociology. And so I layer all those various paradigms together and create this new construct. And what this is basically is you know, I could discuss it on many levels, but I'll try to keep it short arom de art is French for aroma and art. So what I wanted to do was when someone experiences, for example, one of our fragrances is a lavender fragrance of France. Well, then we would have an art nouveau art piece that goes with the cartridge.

So one now is experiencing art and the fragrance that goes with it. And then furthermore, it has a heartwarming story that can transport your mind to the origins of the scent, something kind of romantic. And the important aspect of it is one of the things that I'm working on many projects is a multi-sensorial product. Right now. We kind of have unisensory where we just see it, we hold it. But you know, in nature we have fragrance, we have sounds, we have the wind, and most of us we, we work in an office, we drive in our car and we're separated from that human experience. So I'm trying to bring that back. And then one other little item is the artwork is with the fragrance cartridge is on the outside of the product.

So it allows personification of mass production. So whatever art you like, you can have it on there. And we have, right now the first branding is by country and seasons, but we're doing an {inaudible}sign series, a Picasso, a Monet. So we're combining this experience and that's how new products are invented. They, combined areas that are separate. And so far, we just launched at CES this year, and we're having an incredible amount of interest and success because no one has ever seen something like this. So now the energy is how do you communicate that to the world, which I'm in the process of doing

Excellent. And I love this idea of combining all these different stimuli, all these different creative aspects of the world. Talk more about that. I mean, in this case, it's fragrance, it's art and literature. Where else have you seen this combination of senses?

Well, I think that it's happening in many areas, but I think it is a new momentum that people are toying with, and trying. As you see on apps, you're obviously connecting a visual with music, you're creating many experiences on your phone. Certainly, the phone is the focal point right now, where you experience these multiples of things. But I have to say that it is an area that is not expanding as a dynamic new cultural force, but it's just starting. I see that many people are thinking about it, and the first people doing it like me are changing the status quo. And the hardest thing in the world is to improve humanity because it's like a body with white cells attacking whatever comes in it. It doesn't know whether it's good or bad, but trying to change the status quo of a market of a world is very, very challenging, but it seems that that is my lot in life. Everything I do is innovative. And I've learned to just live on that edge of innovation.

Well, another combination, I was curious to ask you about when I talk to my next guest she is a singer-songwriter, but is also very deep into the business side of music. I want to ask you about the business side of design, especially in your work in industrial design. So it's not just the creativity, but it's also the marketability. And as you've mentioned, the communication, but it's also pricing your services and marketing your services. Where does that fit into your world?

Yeah, that's a really important thing. It's fun to think about all the intrinsic user experience, that us as people enjoy, but to make it happen behind the scenes is a-when I was talking about, all the various languages of creativity, others are you know, financials, market cap, competitive price structures, patentability supply chain management engineering, and for medical, you're going through a whole FDA process. I do a lot of medical products. So, what I would say to that is that one, as the creationist has to also be a master of those languages. And when I create companies, like right now, we have six startup companies. We have one that is going to save lives by regulating blood pressure with a vassal pressure algorithm. Another one that will keep you warm on the operating table is a totally new one that's gonna be launching this year.

One of my ideas will revel revolutionize ophthalmic surgery for cataracts and you know, the list, even Texas lantern, a new fo flame lantern. So there are all these different things. One has to understand, is the market going to accept the product? And if it does, where does it stand in price point? And this is one of the things I talk about, which I call the triangulation of innovation. It's kind of like a tripod on one of the tripods as a patent. Another one is the business objective. And the other one is the invention. And what I do, I circulate the idea through all those, those venues, because many times inventors or artists, they come up with an idea said, I don't really care. You know, this is my creation, but the problem is it might not be patentable.

So you create this idea and a big company takes it. You might create an idea and the business side says, well, that would be great, but it has to cost half that if it's gonna be a success and a patent person, their job is not to invent. They just take your idea and, and protect it. But that may not do the job because you have to look at the complete white space and protect everything around it. So what I do, I circulate the idea through these three pods of knowledge, like osmosis. And as you circulate it, you finally get something that will be successful in all those modalities.

And it gives you a model to go back and forth, even knowing that the tripod can't stand on one leg, even two legs, right. So you keep having to check and test and go back and forth. I like that. You've also mentioned in a lot of your other writing about sort of the mental strength and spiritual capacity or meditation as things to open your mind up. I also think of another guest that again, in music, but also drawing upon the chakras and, you know the powers of these spiritual tools. Do you also have these methodologies in your quiver?

Yes. I have many creative arrows of different intent that, I can launch off. And yeah, I mean, there are many things that I have in my book, I invite people to find it and read it. It's kind of like a journey, not a destination because I have areas in my book if you are exhausted and you're full of failure, you're having a hard time if you want to, used to higher levels. There's something I call meditative problem-solving. There's a psychology area that deals with your subconscious and consciousness and ways to engage that process. And one of the things just to allude to very quickly, I start meditating in college when things were quite hard.

And there was a guy who brought Siddha yoga to the United States name was Muktananda. And it just so happened in Los Gatos where I took it. He was coming every month and he had someone helping him named Percy Bulsara. And I've kind of combined over the years, this meditative experience with my creative process and point, in fact, there is a scientific theory called the Sapir–Whorf process that is called linguistic determinism that you can't ever see beyond the culture or the language that you have. And in creativity, this is a great limiting factor. If you look at the writings of Albert Einstein, he would always say that everything he created wasn't based upon mathematics or his let's say linguistic areas, he would call it arch architectures of thoughts, symbols. Right? And so I, in the book have tried to create way processes to free your mind from these constraints where you can safely go off and explore symbolic, new ideas and new ways of thinking. And that really is the crux of the book free in your mind, creating an alarm clock to wake it up and pursue these many potential ways of being creative.

Fantastic. Well, Doug, we've talked a lot about your book and your work I'd like to have you share with us where we can find out more about you and your work. And of course, learn more about the book.

Yeah.The book you can go to Amazon and type in my name, Doug Patton, or conquering the chaos of creativity and find it there. We also have our website, which is, I apologize for the length of it. It's conqueringthechaosofcreativity.com. But also you can access some of this from our website, which is patentdesign.com. Patent like the general patentdesign.com. And you can see a lot of our published works and videos. And as I'm signing off, I would like to leave everyone with the idea that we are all innately creative and that we all have a capacity of great imagination. And however, you can take the first step, take it, try to expand your creativity in any way you can. And for those expert, amazing creationists scientists, musicians that are at the top of their form, I urge them to expand on their creativity and never let it go. So that's, that's my deal.

Fantastic. Fantastic call to action. Well, Doug, it's been informational, but also motivational and inspirational to talk to you today. So thanks for coming on

And yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure

And listeners, come back again. Doug's book is conquering the chaos of creativity, and we feel like on this podcast, as Doug was listing off the kinds of creative practitioners that we talk to from authors to singer-songwriters, to CFOs that bring their creativity to their craft. That's what we want to continue to bring on this podcast. So join us again. Next time. We'll continue. Our creative travels. We've punched our creative passport in Southern California today. We'll be going from Austin to Spain in future episodes. So come on by and join us. This is unlocking your world of creativity, I'm Mark Stinson and we'll see you next time.