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Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques
Thinkertoys is very exceptional because it seems to me to be more proactive, I see the techniques and I immediately want to try them for myself. Thinkertoys is not just some dry language with endless paragraphs of explanation, as with some creativity books I have read. None of these other books will be mentioned here.
As I have used many of the techniques, I personally like SCAMPER. In addition, I also use "6 Questions" with SCAMPER, and I also use "In what ways might I?" I have set it up and I use like this: For example, I use SCAMPER first on a problem. If I'm stuck on SCAMPER, or the problem, I move to the "6 Questions." If I am still stuck, I then move and use "In what ways might I?" They are all interchangeable, and can be moved or reversed. See,
SCAMPER > 6 Questions > "In what ways might I?"
A powerful combination: SCAMPER
S = Substitute?
C = Create?
A = Add?
M = Modify
P = Put to other uses?
E = Eliminate?
R = Rearrange or Reverse?
6 Questions
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
In what ways might I?
This is my own little way to use some of the techniques. There is a large amount of techniques in Thinkertoys and some critical analysis may be in order when reading this book for deciding on which techniques to use. Simply, I use what I like most.
Michael Michalko was interviewed one time and asked about the vast amount of techniques available, his response was: "What's important, I feel, is that readers and clients should not try to memorize specific techniques; rather, they should try to remember the basic principles around which my work in creativity is structured." He also responded, and in essence, I think this comment covers Thinkertoys in general, Michael also said: "Once the basic principles are understood, I always encourage my clients to invent their own creative-thinking techniques."
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Jacob Rabinow (200 patents in diverse areas) believes most original thinkers share three common traits -- 1) their curiosity, from early childhood, results in acquiring a great deal of information, 2) they enjoy thinking up and combining ideas, and 3) they recognize their "good" ideas and don't hesitate to discard "junk" ideas.
Frank Offner (first electronic controls for jet engines and developer of the only successful heat-homing missiles in World War II) notes that while a "solid grounding in physical sciences" is an asset, knowledge from other fields may trigger a creative person's mind to override what is assumed to be true in one field. He also feels the love or joy of solving problems is a key to finding solutions. This fun aspect is so strong that Rabinow is quoted as saying that, given a choice between money-making and fun, he would go for the fun.
Creative people are sometimes thought to be arrogant. However, this often stems from the need for self-assurance or, simply, overriding modesty. As Rabinow notes, "... I always assume that not only it can be done, but I can do it".
Robert Galvin (head of Motorola for 30 years) is reported as saying two traits are essential: 1) anticipation, i.e., having a vision of the future, and 2) commitment, which keeps you going when you or others have doubts. He also practices a mental exercise worth considering -- flip the problem by asking, "What if the opposite were true?".
Freeman Dyson, the physicist, observes, "... it is easy when you have a problem to work on. The hardest part is finding your problem".
The book cites how being in the right place at the right time contributes to being recognized. In Florence, Italy, between 1401 and 1425, an explosion of creativity took place. For example, for eighty years the cathedral of Florence lacked a dome, and yet the Pantheon of Rome had a dome (142 feet in diameter!) for a thousand years. Suddenly, Brunelleschi, who had analyzed the structure of the Pantheon, applied it to the problem at hand. The social, economic and political factors that made Florence the "right place at the right time" are detailed in the book.
Are we, today, providing incentives for creativity to flourish? One aspect of this is what we can do as a society. The author notes children who suffer from hunger or discrimination are less likely to be curious or interested in novelty. Another aspect is what as individuals can we do to promote our own creativity. The author offers various ways to cultivate creativity. For example, preserve the awe of childhood, "be surprised by something every day". Write down some of your observations and follow-up with some research. Don't think certain things are not your business -- life is your business.
Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius
A Different Perspective on Time
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent? Of course!
Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present on today's deposits.
Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today. To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade. To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train. To realize the value of ONE-SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the “present.”
Creativity Quotes
A. A. Milne
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
Abraham Maslow
The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.
Alan Alda
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
Albert Einstein
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
Albert Einstein
Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Arthur Koestler
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Beatrix Potter
Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.
Buckminster Fuller
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Buckminster Fuller
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
Carl Sagan
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
Carl Sagan
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
Edward de Bono
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
Edwin Land
Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.
Erich Fromm
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
Erich Fromm
Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Eveyone is a genius at least once a year. A real genius has his original ideas closer together.
Henry David Thoreau
The world is but a canvas to the imagination.
Lillian Hellman
Decision by democratic majority vote is a fine form of government, but it's a stinking way to create.
Linus Pauling
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
Linus Pauling
The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.
Margaret J. Wheatley
The things we fear most in organizations -- fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances -- are the primary sources of creativity.
Marie Antoinette
There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Monica Baldwin
The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.
Niels Bohr
Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
Nietzsche
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
Oscar Levant
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Pablo Picasso
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Peter Senge
New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works ... images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models -- surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works -- promises to be a major breakthrough for learning organizations.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .
Ray Bradbury
Life is "trying things to see if they work."
Rene Descartes
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
Rita Mae Brown
Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.
Rollo May
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
Saul Steinberg
The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.
Sharon Welch
Injustice can be eliminated, but human conflicts and natural limitations cannot be removed. The conflicts of social life and the limitations of nature cannot be controlled or transcended. They can, however, be endured and survived. It is possible for there to be a dance with life, a creative response to its intrinsic limits and challenges ... [A Feminist Ethic of Risk]
Theodore Adorno
A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure.
Unknown
[C]reative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy.
V. S. Naipaul
I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.
Victor Hugo
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
Virginia Woolf
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
Virginia Woolf
It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
Will Rogers
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
William Golding
Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.
William James
Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
1. The developing world will soon beat the developed.
- We must come up with new products to compete.
2. Don't waste peoples' time
- learn how to do elevator pitches
- focus on important not interesting problems
3. Scrutinize ideas
Write small business plans / value proposition, and when presenting or writing focus in this order:
- What Need / problem does the idea solve
- How that problem is solved today (Competition and Alternatives).
- What Benefits and Costs / Disadvantages your solution has
- Last spend time on the Approach / implementation.
4. Be customer focused
Understand your customer. Read The Innovator's Solution.
5. Iterate ideas
Read Serious Play if you really want to understand this - this book just touches the subject.
6. Align your team
Make sure all works towards the same goal. Read Good to Great.
7. Focus on profit, not turnover
Be profitable as soon as possible, that is create value as soon as possible, as that would steer the idea.
8. Think big
Don't try to build 1M-companies, but 1B-companies. I think this is a useful exercise, even if the numbers look big the point is - if you are thinking about products that would address 100k problems, lift the bar.
The Art of Innovation:
Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
Following my recent holiday trip to Italy, particularly my revisit to the Vatican Museums in Rome & the Uffizi Museum in Florence, I became fascinated by the great work of the Medici family.
The title of 'The Medici Effect' actually refers to an explosion of creativity and imagination that occurred in Florence during the Renaissance era, stretching from the late 14th century where it started right up to the early 17th Century, where it had spread to the rest of Europe, when the powerful & influential Medici banking family funded artists, artisans, painters, sculptors, and even thinkers and scientists from many different cultures and disciplines to come together to debate, discuss, and discover new ideas.
[Out of 1,000 European artists, painters & sculptors during that period, about 350 of them had lived &/or worked in Florence, Italy.]
Through their generous patronage, we are able to speak of and admire the wonderful masterpieces & elegant work of Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Donatello, Raphael, Ghiberti and countless others.
Tom Kelley's two books as mentioned above essentially drives home the point about 'The Medici Effect.'
I see IDEO's successful problem solving approach with clients as a true application of the deliberate 'blending' of brainstorming methodologies, work practices, human resource cultures & physical infrastructures. As Tom Kelley had steadfastly asserted: 'Methodology alone is not enough."
The adoption of the ten different high-touch personnas as defined by the author in his later book truely reflects the 'Medici Effect.'
In my personal view, this innovative 'blending' is the strategic heartbeat of IDEO's success in the marketplace.
The other stuff, like observing carefully the anthropology of endusers, high-energy brainstorming with time pressures, quick prototyping, & taking risks are actually peripheral to the deliberate 'blending' process. These stuff had been covered in great detail in the first book.
In fact, as part of IDEO's problem solving repertoire, the cross-pollinating of inputs from their internal teams, clients' teams, knowledgeable people not directly involved with projects, & from people who make up target markets, further accentuates the Medici Effect.
Come to think of it, & in terms of personnas from the creativity standpoint, I reckon what Tom Kelley had talked about so passionately in his latter book, builds, in some subtle ways, on the earlier thoughtware of Roger von oech (as illustrated in his two books on his four creative personnas: Explorer, Artist, Judge, Warrior) & Edward de bono (as illustrated in his 'Six Thinking Hats' book, which I believed had been somewhat influenced by Ned Herrmann's 'The Creative Brain'.)
Innovation Quotes
Theodore Levitt
Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress.
Alan Kay
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Harold R. McAlindon
The world leaders in innovation and creativity will also be world leaders in everything else.
Michael Vance
Innovation is the creation of the new or the re-arranging of the old in a new way.
W. Arthur Porter
The innovate point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams.
Theodore Levitt
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.
Louis Pasteur
Chance favors only the prepared mind. |
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