How to Get a Good Idea

I guess you could call what I do 'meta-creative' thinking.

I spend a lot of time working on ways to help other people think more creatively by designing tools and processes that catalyse creative thought. I'm a massive fan of 'Ahas'! (Which is actually a technical term in the field of creative thinking). Helping other people have them is always a great way to spend a day.

My shelves groan under the weight of books with 'creativity' in the title. I have to stop buying them. The great granddaddy of them all - Arthur Koestler's 'The Act of Creation' sits next to 'Wired to Create, "Any Ideas', 'Messy' and 'Thinking in New Boxes'. I've been looking for something...anything to help me think in new and different ways and get to grips with the fabulously complex and fragile ecology of creative thought, or at least become a bit better at helping the dark and dusty recesses of my subconscious mind produce 'lightbulbs' a bit more often. Tremendous outbursts of creativity may not "procurable on demand"...but we can do things to encourage them.

If the books are bad, the card decks are even worse..Methodkits, whack packs, design dice and Brian Eno's 'Oblique Strategies' all vie for attention when I want to try and shake a new idea loose. I'm basically a lab-rat in a maze of my own devising, peering into corners and provoking myself with tasty tid-bits from the great and the good of creative thinking.

Anyway, a few months ago it paid off. I had a good idea!

Actually, all modesty aside, it's a GREAT idea! One of those rare ideas that is so irritatingly simple that in retrospect it is obvious. It makes people shrug and go "Why didn't I think of that".

It was an idea for an ideation product that will help people think more creatively. I'll show you a picture of it when it is officially released...

So how to have a good idea? I'm not an expert, but I have done a fair chunk of the reading, and can tell you (at length) why asking most people to "Think outside the Box" is spectacularly unhelpful. (See previous article) I don't think there is a magic bullet that can be shot at a mind that doesn't see itself as creative, but there are a few behaviours that definitely help shake something useful loose.

• Go with what appeals to you

I think my one, good, simple idea has actually been a very long time in the making. It began with the realisation that I have always fallen into a state of 'flow' while organising complicated things in simple ways, often using simple shapes and models that move. For a primer on 'flow' read Csikszentmihyali's 'Creativty: The psychology of Discovery and Invention'. It's my bible.

• Learn some technique

I know that what Michael Michalko calls 'Brutethinking' is a very powerful technique for inducing bizarre, random and occasionally surprisingly useful 'springboard' ideas. It can also generate a lot of very amusing garbage. There are hundreds of techniques and methodologies you can experiment with. "ThinkerToys" is a great place to start.

• When it happens, the lightbulb will be unforced and unannounced. Be ready to catch it.

I was struggling with a product design that wasn't working particularly well and had started reading the excellent 'Conceptual blockbusting' by James L. Adams. I turned a page and there it was! A different shape! The final piece to the puzzle. My brain shifted from a 2-D design to 3-Dimensions and that was it! It clicked! The planets aligned, clouds parted, light shone, a chorus of angels sang and I said something like "Why the *&$% didn't you see that before - You idiot"? I grabbed some sticky notes and nailed that idea down before it had a chance to escape. Six weeks later I had a decent prototype. Long story short...It'll be in the shops next season.

• Do something different

I am deliberately omnivorous in my reading. At the moment I'm reading 'Darwin's Unfinished Symphony' by Kevin Laland (Quite heavy going), Shaun Tan's graphic novel 'The Lost Thing', and a book on Kendo. Next week it'll be something else. I actively seek novel experiences. I travel as much as I can, and am prone to obsessions, where I will learn something intensively, grow bored and move on. This makes me a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none, but breadth does help unlike ideas 'Cross-pollinate'. I have multiple mini-projects on the go at any one time. Some are written, some musical, some tinkering and some academic. I seek interesting collaborators and have learnt to say 'Yes' to opportunities that push me out of my comfort zone. Risk reaps rewards.

You can't be creative on an empty tank. You'll stare at an empty page, the wind will whistle, crickets will chirp and a tumbleweed might roll through your brain. Nothing doing.

You have to fuel the mind and dare a little more.