BRAIN
WAKE-UPS
* Wake-up, Brain it's Monday again!
Brought to you by the Innovation Network
http://www.thinksmart.com
** For your free, weekly brain wake-up message, send this request:
TO: majordomo@thinksmart.com
Message: Subscribe wake-up
Good Morning Thinkers!
Archive: April 3, 2000
Idea Sources
Well, we're back from Convergence 2000 and the ideas were
flying there ...
at least two new businesses were created from all the stimulation and
connections. Here's a stimulating question from Marshall Thurber:
- What is knowledge? Think about your answers and we'll bury his answer
a bit later in this message. Now here's the response from your fellow
thinkers about where their ideas come from.
From: Beverly Mardis, bmardis@airmail.net
My ideas? They come from the angel that stands just behind and to my side and whispers in my ear, so that I have to be quiet, oh so quiet, to hear the thoughts that are dictated in a rapid and random pattern. Then, as a writer it is my job to sort it all out and make "sense" of it all.
From: Michael Disabato, dsp@wwa.com
Mine come from many sources. Morning pages are a great help. These are 3 pages of longhand scribble done just after I wake up. Julia Cameron described them in The Artist's Way.
Sitting still and listening to the sounds around me.
On long, fast walks. Fast enough to get the heart rate and respiration up. They clean out the lungs, get more oxygen to the brain.
They always come when I least expect them. That's why I carry a notebook and pen with whenever I go out.
From: Sheryl Lemma, lemma@lvc.edu
It's simple: my ideas come from the creativity inspired by either adversity or a lack of resources.
From: "Cook, Kathleen", KCook@sph.uth.tmc.edu
When a solution to a problem doesn't come to me and I'm feeling frustrated, I stop thinking about it completely and push it out of my mind. Hours or days later, during a run or some other activity usually NOT in the office, an answer will appear in my head. My visual image of this process is of my standing in front of a free-standing door that won't open. Rather than continuing to stand in front of it, I walk around it and look at it from the other side. I consciously make myself stop looking at the problem in the same way and allow myself to process subconsciously.
From: CKinsman2@aol.com
I throw eyes out of focus, open mind, take in all 360 degrees, and listen! The ideas are out there, inside of us.
From: Remy Diederich, remydiederich@usa.net
I get ideas when I assume what I'm doing is limited and incomplete. I tend to assume the opposite. In order to get outside of my box I pretend I'm an objective consultant viewing my situation for the first time.
I get lots of ideas while rollerblading or riding my bike. I always keep a mini-recorder in my pocket so I can capture an idea before it disappears. I then write the idea down and mindmap around it. For instance, I have been reading about mentoring and wanted to write an article. The word "wisdom" kept coming to mind. I used "wisdom" as the center of the mindmap. Mentoring became one of the branches as did knowledge management and learning styles. I am just about ready to write. Cathy Bolger
From: rtaormino@dentsply.com
My "idea elves" live in my showerhead. When I take a shower, they come out of the showerhead and penetrate through my scalp and into my brain. Seriously, I seem to do my best, most creative thinking while I'm showering. Is it the stimulation from the water spray hitting my head, or is it the lack of external distractions?
From: Tolstedt Jonathan, jtolsted@phoeintl.com
My wife is a photographer who taught me that for every "perfect" angle from which a picture can be taken, there are always at least two other angles that are just as perfect. When I am looking for an idea for a speech, a project, or just life in general, I try to change the "angle" from which I am viewing the problem. Don't look for simple variations on the current approach, abandon the approach altogether (at least temporarily) and move your camera to a new spot. Often the idea I was looking for magically appears when I jump out of my rut.
From: Debra Amidon, entovation@mediaone.net
Years ago it was researched (Von Hipple), that 72% of new product ideas come from customers. I guess I would have to concur...but perhaps I would broaden it to include all stakeholders. We have not innovated until others put demands on the technology - product or managerial - that we have put into the system. Undoubtedly, ideas flow most effectively when clients and partners are actively engaged - either through visioning, strategy formulation or implementation.
From: Energy, energy@flkleinberg.com
Ideas just are.
We are just in the way.
For ideas to flow
Get out of the way.
We don't see micro waves, or radio waves, or television waves. Ideas are similar. The fact that you don't see or hear them does not refute their existence any more than the micro or radio waves. Anatomically, we're simply not wired up to see or hear these waves without a proper receiver. Now for ideas, we have the proper receiver and it needs frequent adjustment. At our present level of advancement it tends to drift.
So, adjust the receiver to tune back into the flow of ideas. If that means tunnel digging ala Mr. Cray, then let it be so. For me it means bicycling (none of this indoor, stationary stuff) with a micro recorder to capture some of the flow. For others, a simple change of location or the synergy of working with others helps readjust their receiver.
From: Denise Martin, dmartin@bpa.arizona.edu
Necessity seems to be where my ideas come from. Most of the time they just pop into my head. I look at the situation / problem from all angles and then keep trying different solutions till one works.
From: john.fredlund@kodak.com
They float on air currents. They are fragile, so you don't want too much wind. Sometimes they get caught in your sinuses on the way to your brain. People who are not receptive to new ideas often blow them out.
From: plzuseotherdoor@juno.com
daydreams, my simmering back burner, meditation, and trips to junk shops and other visually stimulating places.
From: "Ron Campbell (EUS)", eusrwc@am1.ericsson.se
When I have problems to solve or I need ideas for how to do something, I mow the lawn!
I'm not sure why it is but I discovered sometime ago that when I'm mowing my mind tends to think about other things. The hardest part is then remembering what I thought of. So sometimes I just have to stop and record them.
From: Julia Fitzgerald, jfitzgerald@hedstrom.com
My elves live in the shower.
From: Marc Bridgham, thebridghams@home.com
From stories: science fictional, biographical, or mythic/folkloric
From sacred writing
From science & history
From poetry
From the ether, the Muses and God's grace
From the inner landscape/synthesis that exists inside(and is me), crafted from learning and experiencing and imagining and exploring and struggling and losing and achieving and caring, where ideas grow on trees and live in caves and rest on hilltops and fall from the sky like manna.
From: Jan Stoltman, rjstoltman@earthlink.net
I do think ideas come from above. There's a wonderful song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, called "Ideas are like stars" (and they are!) Richard Bach, in his books (and also his website) has some wonderfully imaginative things to say about ideas - and where they come from.
I think ideas are divinely inspired - and arrive when your mind is open and receptive. The clearer your mind, the easier it is to "tune in" and pick up what's being "transmitted" - as well as new ideas that haven't yet been conceived, received or expressed.
Often we spend so much time focussed on "old ideas" (things that have been said, done, thought of before) that we aren't receptive or listening for the new.
Time spent alone, time spent in nature, time spent looking at the stars, time spent in silence - are all wonderful ways to cultivate openness and receptivity.
Some ideas may be from Mars, but others - electrifying ones - probably come from Uranus! Those that are easily communicable probably come from Mercury. Expansive ones from Jupiter. Limited, constricted or structured ones from Saturn. Transformative ones from Pluto. Dreamy ones from Neptune.
And who knows what ideas or thoughts originate beyond the Milky Way?
From: Bob Barlow, rbarlow@frontiernet.net
When Scholastic Professional Books green-lighted my pitch for a volume of thought-provoking creativity challenges, I was ecstatic -- until it dawned on me that this meant I'd have to come up with more than 100 great ideas in a relatively short span of time. Although I was able to squeeze out several through sheer force of will, the very best activities came to me either in my sleep or in those limbo states that come right before or after sleep. The book I thusly "dreamed up" (Bob Barlow's Book of Brain Boosters) stands as testament to my long-held belief that creativity is less about sweat and more about being receptive to answers when they come to you. Of course, it can be kind of hard to decipher your handwriting in the morning...
From: Daniel Poon, Daniel.Poon@corp.sun.com
My ideas come from time when I am relaxed, go for a walk. It'd never came trying to think of an idea... Throwing an idea to people you don't know often generate questions that led to more new ideas.
From: Wolfgang Deutsch, Wolfgang.Deutsch@pdts.at
When I have a good idea it is more like an apparition than anything else. The best ideas I have are those where i have to shake my head and wonder where on earth THAT came from.
From: "STRAKER,DAVID (A-England,ex2)", david_straker@agilent.com
Three favourites:
* Chunking up or down (getting a different viewpoint).
* Asking my kids.
* Synectics 'personal analogy': think of a famous person and put them into the problem in an interesting way and see what they say.
From: Wade Yoder, yoder@hom.net
Nice example of innovative thinking!! Ideas I like to use are the books and especially books on tape, when they're available, from the great minds of our time. These innovative thinkers can often trigger something in your mind because of your rich life history of experience and can cause you to have a complete paradigm shift in your way of thinking whether it has to do with something new to implement into your business or your life.
From: sue goldberg, goldberg@millburn.org
i have found that most of my good ideas come to me when i'm not consciously thinking about the particular situation or problem at hand. for example, when my mind is left to wander, it often comes to some pretty interesting conclusions, causing some of those "aha!" moments. i love to walk on the beach and that seems to be a great place for letting my mind play, too. other good ideas have presented themselves in the shower, and during an aerobics class. i think our brains are so overloaded with practical survival stuff that they don't often have the time or the room to think creatively about life.
From: "Thompson, Trina", thompson@edc.gsph.pitt.edu
ideas and solutions often come to me when I 'check out' to the world around me. For example, when I'm walking on the treadmill, driving in the mountains, taking a shower, sitting on the deck of my mountain cabin. These are times when I'm not 'concentrating' on anything and there are no stimuli coming at me requiring a response!
From: Jose Clemente Vivanco, vivanco@bellsouth.net
My best ideas come to me as a discovery (not as an invention) I collect the fruit without claim of authorship. They are as glimpses or flashes I get from the "Universal Mind".
From: Nicola, nicola@cloudshill.co.uk
Deliberate cogitation in the car.
Random ideas sparked by items in magazines, newspapers and on the radio.
Bizarre connections that I have a habit of making.
Synchronicity and what can only be described as some sort of divine intervention or subconscious cog whirring.
From: Janeenmw@aol.com
Stepping into the shower is transformational for me. Often times I'm not motivated by hygiene but by the Beta state that this experience evokes. Temporarily closing myself off from the world, feeling the warm water against my skin, listening to the continuous sound of the water flowing all contribute to producing my most imaginative and clearest thinking.
From: "Mailer, Susan", Susan.Mailer@ccra-adrc.gc.ca
Some of my best ideas come from listening to a bunch of other people talk about why something cannot be done, and coming up with reasons why they can!
From: John Gilmore, jgilmore@bellsouth.net
My best ideas come in our around water. So, I hop in the shower or head down by the Mississippi river.
From: Cosmulescu Sorin, scosmulescu@rodae.ro
Since I was 8 years old I started to read Jules Verne books, E.R. Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Erich Von Daniken a.o. and I was fascinated by the great ideas and inventions imaginated by humankind. Since 1978 I keep a diary in which I note down and date all new ideas & proposals that come to me. I tried to find out the mechanism through which new ideas emerge.
1. I am reading systematically literature and building my own thinking system.
2. I think God inspires me and periodically new ideas are born.
3. I am rereading very often my idea diary and feed-back to the reality.
4. I am intensely studying and applying the innovation methods:
Brainstorming, Philips 66, Synectics, Value Engineering a.o. to have a systematical approach of management.
From: Gaylyn Henry, nchnted@earthlink.net
My ideas come from the right side of my brain which has access points in my shower and behind the steering wheel of my car. One is more dangerous than the other...
From: roger sealock, roger.sealock@mail.sprint.com
Since my dominant learning style is Concrete Sequential, most of my ideas stem from reading good books. Meditating on the material of the author stimulates intense thinking, which generates ideas, insight and the subsequent acquisition of wisdom.
From: Tom McMullen, growing@mindspring.com
They seem to come from God, when I shut my thinking up and listen! I used to tell my Arab friends that prayer is talking to God and ideas are God talking to you.
From: LAN User, LANUser@scott.af.mil
I decide on the intention rather than the outcome of an activity. Then I begin working it and let my intuition lead me through the actions.
From: Brian J Tillotson, briant@hsvaic.hv.boeing.com
Sleep deprivation. Wish I could say my most creative ideas come from something more fun, but late-night work with a serious lack of sleep usually does the trick.
My ideas? They come from the angel that stands just behind and to my side and whispers in my ear, so that I have to be quiet, oh so quiet, to hear the thoughts that are dictated in a rapid and random pattern. Then, as a writer it is my job to sort it all out and make "sense" of it all.
From: Michael Disabato, dsp@wwa.com
Mine come from many sources. Morning pages are a great help. These are 3 pages of longhand scribble done just after I wake up. Julia Cameron described them in The Artist's Way.
Sitting still and listening to the sounds around me.
On long, fast walks. Fast enough to get the heart rate and respiration up. They clean out the lungs, get more oxygen to the brain.
They always come when I least expect them. That's why I carry a notebook and pen with whenever I go out.
From: Sheryl Lemma, lemma@lvc.edu
It's simple: my ideas come from the creativity inspired by either adversity or a lack of resources.
From: "Cook, Kathleen", KCook@sph.uth.tmc.edu
When a solution to a problem doesn't come to me and I'm feeling frustrated, I stop thinking about it completely and push it out of my mind. Hours or days later, during a run or some other activity usually NOT in the office, an answer will appear in my head. My visual image of this process is of my standing in front of a free-standing door that won't open. Rather than continuing to stand in front of it, I walk around it and look at it from the other side. I consciously make myself stop looking at the problem in the same way and allow myself to process subconsciously.
From: CKinsman2@aol.com
I throw eyes out of focus, open mind, take in all 360 degrees, and listen! The ideas are out there, inside of us.
From: Remy Diederich, remydiederich@usa.net
I get ideas when I assume what I'm doing is limited and incomplete. I tend to assume the opposite. In order to get outside of my box I pretend I'm an objective consultant viewing my situation for the first time.
- Marshall
Thurber's answer to "What is knowledge?" -
Prediction. Think about it.
I get lots of ideas while rollerblading or riding my bike. I always keep a mini-recorder in my pocket so I can capture an idea before it disappears. I then write the idea down and mindmap around it. For instance, I have been reading about mentoring and wanted to write an article. The word "wisdom" kept coming to mind. I used "wisdom" as the center of the mindmap. Mentoring became one of the branches as did knowledge management and learning styles. I am just about ready to write. Cathy Bolger
From: rtaormino@dentsply.com
My "idea elves" live in my showerhead. When I take a shower, they come out of the showerhead and penetrate through my scalp and into my brain. Seriously, I seem to do my best, most creative thinking while I'm showering. Is it the stimulation from the water spray hitting my head, or is it the lack of external distractions?
From: Tolstedt Jonathan, jtolsted@phoeintl.com
My wife is a photographer who taught me that for every "perfect" angle from which a picture can be taken, there are always at least two other angles that are just as perfect. When I am looking for an idea for a speech, a project, or just life in general, I try to change the "angle" from which I am viewing the problem. Don't look for simple variations on the current approach, abandon the approach altogether (at least temporarily) and move your camera to a new spot. Often the idea I was looking for magically appears when I jump out of my rut.
From: Debra Amidon, entovation@mediaone.net
Years ago it was researched (Von Hipple), that 72% of new product ideas come from customers. I guess I would have to concur...but perhaps I would broaden it to include all stakeholders. We have not innovated until others put demands on the technology - product or managerial - that we have put into the system. Undoubtedly, ideas flow most effectively when clients and partners are actively engaged - either through visioning, strategy formulation or implementation.
From: Energy, energy@flkleinberg.com
Ideas just are.
We are just in the way.
For ideas to flow
Get out of the way.
We don't see micro waves, or radio waves, or television waves. Ideas are similar. The fact that you don't see or hear them does not refute their existence any more than the micro or radio waves. Anatomically, we're simply not wired up to see or hear these waves without a proper receiver. Now for ideas, we have the proper receiver and it needs frequent adjustment. At our present level of advancement it tends to drift.
So, adjust the receiver to tune back into the flow of ideas. If that means tunnel digging ala Mr. Cray, then let it be so. For me it means bicycling (none of this indoor, stationary stuff) with a micro recorder to capture some of the flow. For others, a simple change of location or the synergy of working with others helps readjust their receiver.
From: Denise Martin, dmartin@bpa.arizona.edu
Necessity seems to be where my ideas come from. Most of the time they just pop into my head. I look at the situation / problem from all angles and then keep trying different solutions till one works.
From: john.fredlund@kodak.com
They float on air currents. They are fragile, so you don't want too much wind. Sometimes they get caught in your sinuses on the way to your brain. People who are not receptive to new ideas often blow them out.
From: plzuseotherdoor@juno.com
daydreams, my simmering back burner, meditation, and trips to junk shops and other visually stimulating places.
From: "Ron Campbell (EUS)", eusrwc@am1.ericsson.se
When I have problems to solve or I need ideas for how to do something, I mow the lawn!
I'm not sure why it is but I discovered sometime ago that when I'm mowing my mind tends to think about other things. The hardest part is then remembering what I thought of. So sometimes I just have to stop and record them.
From: Julia Fitzgerald, jfitzgerald@hedstrom.com
My elves live in the shower.
From: Marc Bridgham, thebridghams@home.com
From stories: science fictional, biographical, or mythic/folkloric
From sacred writing
From science & history
From poetry
From the ether, the Muses and God's grace
From the inner landscape/synthesis that exists inside(and is me), crafted from learning and experiencing and imagining and exploring and struggling and losing and achieving and caring, where ideas grow on trees and live in caves and rest on hilltops and fall from the sky like manna.
From: Jan Stoltman, rjstoltman@earthlink.net
I do think ideas come from above. There's a wonderful song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, called "Ideas are like stars" (and they are!) Richard Bach, in his books (and also his website) has some wonderfully imaginative things to say about ideas - and where they come from.
I think ideas are divinely inspired - and arrive when your mind is open and receptive. The clearer your mind, the easier it is to "tune in" and pick up what's being "transmitted" - as well as new ideas that haven't yet been conceived, received or expressed.
Often we spend so much time focussed on "old ideas" (things that have been said, done, thought of before) that we aren't receptive or listening for the new.
Time spent alone, time spent in nature, time spent looking at the stars, time spent in silence - are all wonderful ways to cultivate openness and receptivity.
Some ideas may be from Mars, but others - electrifying ones - probably come from Uranus! Those that are easily communicable probably come from Mercury. Expansive ones from Jupiter. Limited, constricted or structured ones from Saturn. Transformative ones from Pluto. Dreamy ones from Neptune.
And who knows what ideas or thoughts originate beyond the Milky Way?
From: Bob Barlow, rbarlow@frontiernet.net
When Scholastic Professional Books green-lighted my pitch for a volume of thought-provoking creativity challenges, I was ecstatic -- until it dawned on me that this meant I'd have to come up with more than 100 great ideas in a relatively short span of time. Although I was able to squeeze out several through sheer force of will, the very best activities came to me either in my sleep or in those limbo states that come right before or after sleep. The book I thusly "dreamed up" (Bob Barlow's Book of Brain Boosters) stands as testament to my long-held belief that creativity is less about sweat and more about being receptive to answers when they come to you. Of course, it can be kind of hard to decipher your handwriting in the morning...
From: Daniel Poon, Daniel.Poon@corp.sun.com
My ideas come from time when I am relaxed, go for a walk. It'd never came trying to think of an idea... Throwing an idea to people you don't know often generate questions that led to more new ideas.
From: Wolfgang Deutsch, Wolfgang.Deutsch@pdts.at
When I have a good idea it is more like an apparition than anything else. The best ideas I have are those where i have to shake my head and wonder where on earth THAT came from.
From: "STRAKER,DAVID (A-England,ex2)", david_straker@agilent.com
Three favourites:
* Chunking up or down (getting a different viewpoint).
* Asking my kids.
* Synectics 'personal analogy': think of a famous person and put them into the problem in an interesting way and see what they say.
From: Wade Yoder, yoder@hom.net
Nice example of innovative thinking!! Ideas I like to use are the books and especially books on tape, when they're available, from the great minds of our time. These innovative thinkers can often trigger something in your mind because of your rich life history of experience and can cause you to have a complete paradigm shift in your way of thinking whether it has to do with something new to implement into your business or your life.
From: sue goldberg, goldberg@millburn.org
i have found that most of my good ideas come to me when i'm not consciously thinking about the particular situation or problem at hand. for example, when my mind is left to wander, it often comes to some pretty interesting conclusions, causing some of those "aha!" moments. i love to walk on the beach and that seems to be a great place for letting my mind play, too. other good ideas have presented themselves in the shower, and during an aerobics class. i think our brains are so overloaded with practical survival stuff that they don't often have the time or the room to think creatively about life.
From: "Thompson, Trina", thompson@edc.gsph.pitt.edu
ideas and solutions often come to me when I 'check out' to the world around me. For example, when I'm walking on the treadmill, driving in the mountains, taking a shower, sitting on the deck of my mountain cabin. These are times when I'm not 'concentrating' on anything and there are no stimuli coming at me requiring a response!
From: Jose Clemente Vivanco, vivanco@bellsouth.net
My best ideas come to me as a discovery (not as an invention) I collect the fruit without claim of authorship. They are as glimpses or flashes I get from the "Universal Mind".
From: Nicola, nicola@cloudshill.co.uk
Deliberate cogitation in the car.
Random ideas sparked by items in magazines, newspapers and on the radio.
Bizarre connections that I have a habit of making.
Synchronicity and what can only be described as some sort of divine intervention or subconscious cog whirring.
From: Janeenmw@aol.com
Stepping into the shower is transformational for me. Often times I'm not motivated by hygiene but by the Beta state that this experience evokes. Temporarily closing myself off from the world, feeling the warm water against my skin, listening to the continuous sound of the water flowing all contribute to producing my most imaginative and clearest thinking.
From: "Mailer, Susan", Susan.Mailer@ccra-adrc.gc.ca
Some of my best ideas come from listening to a bunch of other people talk about why something cannot be done, and coming up with reasons why they can!
From: John Gilmore, jgilmore@bellsouth.net
My best ideas come in our around water. So, I hop in the shower or head down by the Mississippi river.
From: Cosmulescu Sorin, scosmulescu@rodae.ro
Since I was 8 years old I started to read Jules Verne books, E.R. Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Erich Von Daniken a.o. and I was fascinated by the great ideas and inventions imaginated by humankind. Since 1978 I keep a diary in which I note down and date all new ideas & proposals that come to me. I tried to find out the mechanism through which new ideas emerge.
1. I am reading systematically literature and building my own thinking system.
2. I think God inspires me and periodically new ideas are born.
3. I am rereading very often my idea diary and feed-back to the reality.
4. I am intensely studying and applying the innovation methods:
Brainstorming, Philips 66, Synectics, Value Engineering a.o. to have a systematical approach of management.
From: Gaylyn Henry, nchnted@earthlink.net
My ideas come from the right side of my brain which has access points in my shower and behind the steering wheel of my car. One is more dangerous than the other...
From: roger sealock, roger.sealock@mail.sprint.com
Since my dominant learning style is Concrete Sequential, most of my ideas stem from reading good books. Meditating on the material of the author stimulates intense thinking, which generates ideas, insight and the subsequent acquisition of wisdom.
From: Tom McMullen, growing@mindspring.com
They seem to come from God, when I shut my thinking up and listen! I used to tell my Arab friends that prayer is talking to God and ideas are God talking to you.
From: LAN User, LANUser@scott.af.mil
I decide on the intention rather than the outcome of an activity. Then I begin working it and let my intuition lead me through the actions.
From: Brian J Tillotson, briant@hsvaic.hv.boeing.com
Sleep deprivation. Wish I could say my most creative ideas come from something more fun, but late-night work with a serious lack of sleep usually does the trick.