The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Innovative Thinkers’ Category

Each day I read other blogs to give me a diverse outlook on life. Many of these posts make me think  about things that are not necessarily top-of-mind for me. Some of these bloggers write posts that I wish I had written.

What about you, do you spend time each day getting to know what others think and do outside your sphere of influence? Here are seven blog posts that I would like you to read. Some are for information only, while some are meant to further knowledge. If you like them, why don’t you leave comments for the bloggers, I’m sure they would appreciate that.

Leadership & Loyalty by Mike Myatt, N2growth

What All Great Leaders Have In Common by Mike Myatt, N2growth

8 Great Mind Mapping Tools for Effective Brainstorming by Abhijeet Mukherjee, Dumb Little Man

How to Massively Increase Your Reading Comprehension by RJ Weiss, Dumb Little Man

Top 10 Click Getters from the Free Learning Monitor by Jeff Cobb, Mission to Learn

5 Free Online Writing Courses for Freelancers by Kristen Fischer, Freelance Switch

Why Your Blog is Not Going to Make you Rich (Or Pay the Bills), Guest Blog Post from Blog Tyrant, Problogger

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

I first learned about A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young a couple of months ago, so I did a quick search on the internet to get additional information. I found two articles that summarized the book, which is only 48 pages in length, and felt the method described sounded similar to the one outlined in the Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, which I have written about several times.

As a professional with over 15 years research experience, I felt it important to read the book for myself because information that I may think is important might have been left out of the articles that I read. It is interesting that I noted the similarities between the idea generation process outlined by James Webb Young and Graham Wallas because Young recommends at the end of his book that readers also read the Art of Thought (as well as Science & Method and The Art of Scientific Investigation) to better understand the whole idea generation process. Incidentally the Art of Thought was written in 1926 and A Technique for Producing Ideas in the 1940s.

This is my interpretation of the information outlined in A Technique for Producing Ideas.

5 Steps to Idea Generation

Step 1: Gathering Information

There are two types of information to gather:

Specific

1. Gather as much information as possible on the topic of interest
2. Write down the information on 3×5 index cards, one item per card
3. Classify the information by sections of the topic of interest

General

1. This is an ongoing process throughout your life
2. Record any interesting information you come across in a scrapbook or other filing method that makes sense for you

Step 2: Working Over the Information in Your Mind

1. Look at the information you gathered from many different angles
2. Synthesize the information
3. Merge two facts and see how they fit together
4. Connect the information with what you already know, nothing exists in a vacuum
5. As tentative or partial ideas come to you, no matter how crazy or incomplete, document them on the index card, one idea per card
6. Do not stop until you have at least one partial or incomplete idea
7. When everything is a jumble or it is pointless for you to do additional work, it is time for the next step

Step 3: Incubation

1. Turn over the problem to your subconscious mind
2. Work on an unrelated task or do something which stimulates the imagination and emotions

Step 4: Eureka! I have It

1. When you least expect it, the idea comes to you

Step 5: Shaping & Developing the Idea

1. The idea will unlikely be ready to be implemented as is
2. Subject it to criticism – test it, then refine it

5 Great Ideas

1. An idea is a combination of old elements
2. The capacity to combine old elements into something new is dependent on the ability to see relationships and make connections
3. Build a reservoir of knowledge, which is filled with life experiences, facts and other information
4. Learning is a lifelong process
5. Constantly expand your experiences personally and vicariously

I liked A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young and will integrate his process into Wallas’ process. It is a fantastic idea to keep a scrapbook for general information. I had a beautiful “great ideas” jar which I broke, and have not been able to replace it. When you come across really interesting information that you are presently unable to use, where do you park it so you do not forget it? Please keep the conversation flowing by making a comment.

Related Posts

How to Problem Solve

Reverse Problem Solving

Further Reading

James Webb Young’s technique for producing ideas

I am reading Key to Yourself by Venice Bloodworth for about the 10th time, and each time I zero in on something new. Though I have seen this before, for some reason it is resonating more with me now.

“Every achievement in business, literature, philosophy, or science has found its source and expression through the mental efforts of the world’s leaders. The outstanding figures of tomorrow are the creative and constructive thinkers of today.”

Do you agree with this statement? How can you be a more constructive thinker today to shape your destiny? To think constructively, I have been practicing mindfulness. It is not easy, but it gets easier every day.

Here are the tweets that I think Thomas Edison would blog about on Twitter:

@Edison I improved on a 50-year old idea to produce a light bulb that worked. What can u improve upon today?

@Edison I had very little formal education, so lack of formal education is no excuse for failure. Persistence pay

@Edison Held 1,093 patents for different inventions, many of which influenced your life

@Edison Don’t be mesmerized with the idea of success. I’ve had some whopping failures, but I’d like 2 think I failed forward 2 success

@Edison As a child I consumed books: The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, History of The World, and  The Anatomy of Melancholy

@Edison I’ve been partially deaf since childhood, but I didn’t let that stop me from contributing to the world

@Edison Home schooled by my mom after being kicked out of school. She used 2 b a teacher, & her belief in me, made me believe in myself

@Edison Mentors r key. As a teenager, an inventor allowed me 2 work w/ him in his basement. Started my work in electrical telegraphy there

@Edison Inventors & innovators often build on the work of others. Look at what’s been done b4 and try to perfect it

@Edison I was married twice and had six children

Below is a 22-minute Google video on Edison

Source:

The Inventions of Thomas Edison

The Biography of Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison Biography

Thomas Edison   Biography / Autobiography / Memoir Resources

Photo Credit: Public Domain via Wikipedia (Edison as a youth)

Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie and Alexander Fleming, a few of the great thinkers who made discoveries that influenced/changed the world, displayed many of the following traits and characteristics.

How many of the above traits and characteristics do you possess? Are there any missing from the list?