Finding the Spark

Community Thoughts on Finding the Spark...

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   How to Generate More Good Ideas by Belle Cooper via Zapier “...to have more ideas, we first need more experiences to draw from. Then we need to make use of all that inspiration by having more ideas—good and bad.As Seth Godin says, “you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.”

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   Using Brainwriting for Rapid idea Generation by Chauncey Wilson via Smashing Magazine “In my experience, the number of ideas generated from brainwriting often exceeds what you’d expect from face-to-face brainstorming because you’ve reduced anxiety somewhat, followed a parallel process in which a dozen people may add items simultaneously, and reduced the amount of extraneous talk that happens during brainstorming, which takes time away from idea generation.”

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   Your elusive creative genius by Elizabeth Gilbert via TED Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

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   New Visual Essay: Back to the Cave by Frank Chimero “One of my tricks is to start a new Keynote presentation and drop in images and quotes that feel loosely related or simply ones that I feel drawn to. Images can speak to me on this phantasmal level, but text rarely does (even though I love them both).”

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   How Good Ideas Are Formed by Tanner Christensen via Creative Something “By thinking on questions (e.g. What would yellow taste like?), trying intriguing things (e.g. Quickly doodle what you see in front of you now, but upside down), or embracing the unexpected (e.g. Right now try to find someone who shares the same birthday as you and compare your life story), we can stimulate modes of thinking that abruptly introduce new or different concepts at once.”