A Technique for Producing Ideas: The simple, five-step formula anyone can use to be more creative in business and in life! by James Webb Young
A short read on James Young’s lectures to graduate students during his advertising class, this book was written in 1940 where the author provides a formula for creativity in five steps and offers timeless advice on the process of developing new ideas. The insights expand beyond the borders of a classroom, practical for anyone seeking to nurture one’s creative mindset.
Knowledge and Creativity
- Knowledge is the basis for creative thinking
- Words are symbols of emotional experiences
- Constantly expand your experience
- Habit of the mind
- Method – train the mind
- Principles – capacity to generate ideas
- Both principles and method are key to learning
- The habit of the mind is seeking relationships between facts and leads to a production of ideas
- Ideas are new combinations as a result of seeing relationships
- Ideas equal possibility
- Soul of communication is the creative spark
Pareto Theory
Young mentions the Pareto Theory when speaking about creativity. This theory states there are two types of people in the world:
1. Speculator – those who are constantly preoccupied with the possibilities of new combinations of ideas
2. Rentier – those who are steady-going, unimaginative, routine, conserving
The author advocates that speculators are the re-constructors of the world and contain creative powers within them. When thinking of the creative process across all aspects of work and life, I would argue that creative sparks can also come from the routine or mundane. Have you ever thought of new ideas while doing the routine or mundane, like brushing your teeth, mowing the lawn, chopping wood, or walking on a treadmill? The creative possibilities are there. It is a matter of paying attention.
Creativity in Five Steps – Timeless Advice on the Process of Developing New Ideas
This is the nuts and bolts of the book, a technique of the mind. These five steps are simple to follow and are key to stirring the creative process of developing new ideas. Repeat this process as often as possible.
- Gathering of Raw Materials
- Be a collector of information
- Gather specific and general knowledge
- Specific knowledge – products and people
- General knowledge – life and events
- Continuous process of gathering information
- Use index cards as the gathering tool
- Mental Digestive Process
- Work over the materials/information in your mind
- Seek the relationships
- Synthesize the new information
- Incubating Stage
- Let it go; let it be
- Turn it over to the unconscious mind
- Birth of a New Idea
- It happens when you least expect it
- Out of nowhere, a eureka/aha moment emerges
- Shape and Develop Idea to Practical Usefulness
- Good ideas have self-expanding qualities
The author seems to clearly identify what goes on in your brain when you are in a creative-thinking mode. I resonate with these steps and have used them often in my own ideation generation. The challenge for me comes during the incubating stage, a phase where I need to trust that creativity will happen even when I think I should be doing some type of action during this quiet phase of the mind. The time of letting go and surrendering to the unconscious mind is vital for the growth and birth of new ideas. When those moments of insight finally break forth, the experience is like an energetic burst of sterling propulsion toward something new, something good. James Young nailed it when he said, “a good idea… has self-expanding qualities.” (p. 23)
Index Cards
And who knew that index cards are still one of the best gathering tools for information, recommended since 1940! (My favorite are grid index cards.) There is something palpable in the tangible writing process with pen and paper. The thoughts seem to stick in the mind a little more during the physical act of writing. Plus, index cards are easily packable in a purse or backpack. Expand your creative process with both the writing digital and physical tools available to you. Pen and paper – don’t leave home without them.
Leave a Reply