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Informationen zum Autor Jack Foster, Illustrated by Larry Corby Klappentext Most people would agree that to get an idea you must first gather all the necessary information; second, work at finding an idea; and third, forget about it and wait for inspiration to hit.The third part's easy, but hardly anybody tells you how to do the first two. Worse, nobody tells you how to condition your mind before you set out on your journey. And if your mind isn't idea-conditioned it doesn't make any difference if you know the steps; you'll never reach the ideas you're capable of creating. For, telling a person who isn't idea-conditioned how to generate ideas is like telling a person with weak legs how to high jump.How to Get Ideas starts by defining an idea as "nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements." Then it uses that definition as a springboard to discuss how to get them. The first seven chapters deal with the things you must do to condition your mind to be ripe and ready for idea creation. These fun but effective methods range from "Be more like a child" to "Screw up your courage." Chapters 8 through 11 explain, in more specific detail, the actions that you make in order to get an idea, looking at, defining the problem, gathering information, and purposefully "forgetting about it." Lastly, after developing a methodology for creativity and idea generation, the book goes on to explain how to put your ideas into action.This new edition will additionally include 2 new concepts. One that focuses on how to "rejoice in failure" -showing how one can reframe apparent defeat to be a major generative source for powerful new ideas. The other will explain the importance and the details behind the construction an environment that is ripe for idea creation.Introduction What Is an Idea? I know the answer. The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! What, the answer is twelve? I think I’m in the wrong building. Charles Schultz I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know. Mark Twain If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question? Lily Tomlin Before we figure out how to get ideas we must discuss what ideas are, for if we don’t know what things are it’s difficult to figure out how to get more of them. The only trouble is: How do you define an idea? A. E. Housman said: “I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat, but both of us recognize the object by the symptoms which it produces in us.” Beauty is like that too. So are things like quality and love. And so, of course, is an idea. When we’re in the presence of one we know it, we feel it; something inside us recognizes it. But just try to define one. Look in dictionaries and you’ll find everything from: “That which exists in the mind, potentially or actually, as a product of mental activity, such as a thought or knowledge,” to “The highest category: the complete and final product of reason,” to “A transcendent entity that is a real pattern of which existing things are imperfect representations.” A lot of good that does you. The difficulty is stated perfectly by Marvin Minsky in The Society of Mind: Only in logic and mathematics do definitions ever capture concepts perfectly. … You can know what a tiger is without defining it. You may define a tiger, yet know scarcely anything about it. If you ask people for a definition, however, you get better answers, answers that come pretty close to capturing both the concept and the thing itself. Here are some answers I got from my coworkers and from my students at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles: It’s something that’s so obvious that after someone tells you about it you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself. An idea ...
