All Mashed Up with Nowhere to Go

I love the idea of mash-ups and I generally think the ones I've seen are clever or amusing or even useful. The problem is in coming up with ways in which I could use a mashup in my working world (or even in my private one).

I think of this as being like cooking. In general I have a small list of dishes I can make without consulting a recipe. These are things I've made many times and because of my familiarity with them I'm able to change things up and still have some success. These would be the mash-ups I'm knowledgeable enough to improvise and create. In the library world they'd include the things talked about in Project Play. Library catalogs that add data from LibraryThing or maps that combine census information with geographic layout. Both are familiar to me and could be possible suggestions I'd make for my own workplace.

The problem is, that list of known mixes is small. And when I venture out, I get the same results as with my cooking. If I don't know the recipe for something, I need the recipe. I'm not intuitive enough (or experienced enough) to move past the recipe. When I most frequently err on the side of adding too many ingredients to the point my dish is inedible. But more often, I can't think of things to add. I can't brainstorm it on my own.

That's what mashups seem like to me. I know there's a world of possibilities out there but because my knowledge is so limited, I can't envision them. I welcome the chance to explore them more because familiarity will hopefully bring some creativity. But as it is, unless someone gives me the exact recipe for mashing something together, I'm probably not going to be able to come up with it.