There is more than one way of getting something done. It’s good to be diverse and have options. That’s why when someone tells me about an absolute I will argue on behalf of the other options - even if I think that the “absolute” might be the best option.

I do this for a couple of reasons, and some of those are:

• I don’t just want to take things on face value, I want to be able to look further into something, learn more about it, dissect it, find alternatives, etc.
• I want to try to create or promote more intelligent conversation/discussion (think: “Oh that movie was good.” “Why was it good?” “Because of the cool explosions.”) Yeah…
• I want to inform people (to the best of my knowledge) but also be humble in this approach because I know I don’t know all of the answers (very few, in fact!)

So, an example: discussions regarding mobile operating systems. Always some hot discussion surrounding this topic (and why not? Who wants to talk about boring and depressing things like starving kids in Africa?)

Even though I use one product, if someone asks me about it (and any other options) I will give pros and cons for mine, and information about other products as far as I am knowledgeable.

My next example:

Brief: “It has to be fun and light-hearted.” Solution: “Comic Sans!!11”
Brief: “It has to be elegant.” Solution: “Scripty typeface!”

Excuse my French, but… bullshit.

There is more than one way of doing these things and one of those ways is going completely the other way. Think: the Von Restorff effect – do something completely different, “stand out” by being different, not the same as everyone else.