Are you a great creative thinker? Are the people in your organization great creative thinkers?
My research and experience show that most of you are answering, “No,” to these questions. In fact, some of you are responding with a very emphatic, “NO!”
That is shame. It is also an incorrect answer.
You need creative thinking for problem solving and innovation
Are you a great creative thinker? Are the people in your organization great creative thinkers?
My research and experience show that most of you are answering, “No,” to these questions. In fact, some of you are responding with a very emphatic, “NO!”
That is shame. It is also an incorrect answer.
You need creative thinking for problem solving and innovation
It is a shame that so many highly intelligent technology people do not consider themselves to be creative. Creativity is a valuable skill for those of us in technology because we use creative thinking to develop new products and services. We also use creative thinking to solve problems; from the routine, day to day issues we all face in our jobs to the complex challenges that can make or break our careers. Further, to say that you and/or the people in your organization are not creative is incorrect because you are Ideative. Ideative is a form of creativity better suited to analytical people (think of the phrase ‘left-brained’) than the traditional approaches to creativity. To be ‘Ideative’ means that you have a vast store of Experiences and Knowledge available to you to Assemble into Ideas for innovation in the form of new products, services, and solutions. You just have to learn to apply your Ideative skills.
Better creative thinking for analytical people
The Ideative Process of creative thinking is not the same as traditional approaches to creativity such as brainstorming, word games, or company retreats. The traditional approaches are designed to free your mind or change your perspective of the problem. Unfortunately, these approaches are rarely effective. What’s worse is that participants in these traditional creative activities usually do not learn the sustainable skills needed for a lifetime of great creative thinking. Traditional creative exercises are only designed to generate thinking during the exercise, but not beyond. The Ideative Process, on the other hand, is a method for transforming yourself into a great creative thinker – for life.
Traditional creative approaches focus on freeing your mind from constraints and barriers. The Ideative Process was built on the more effective approach of facing your barriers and constraints, learning and understanding everything you possibly can about them, and then using those Experiences and Knowledge to develop Ideas that are great despite the barriers and constraints. In fact, facing your barriers and constraints is the best approach to developing Ideas to solve those barriers and constraints.
Become a great creative thinker
The Ideative Process works so well because it is based on the way the human mind creates, which is quite simply a form of learning and recalling. You take in information – i.e. you ‘learn’- then you recall information as different configurations. When you recall a unique and valuable configuration we call it “creative.”
To facilitate the human learning and recall for great creative thinking, The Ideative Process focuses on four activities. I have made these activities easy to remember by forming them into the acronym, IDEA: Inundate, Deviate, Enhance, Assemble.
I: Inundate your brain into your field of specialty by cramming so much information into your brain that the subject literally follows you into your dreams at night.
D: Deviate from your Routines. Routinely break routines. Click the link to go to Ten Ways to Routinely Break Your Routines – And to do it Vividly for a great list of ways to Routinely Break Routines.
E: Enhance each of these blocks of Experiences and Knowledge you gather while Inundating and Deviating by fully engaging your senses and emotions in the process. Your senses and emotions are powerful tools that augment your Experiences and Knowledge for easy recall. Therefore, the more sensory and emotional labels on a specific memory, the easier that memory is to recall when you need it.
A: Assemble Ideas by attaching the block of information stored in your brain to other blocks – much as a child playing with blocks and other toys Assembles items for play.
The child often plays with a variety of items including blocks and other stuff of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of the blocks have connectors that do not match the other blocks. Some items are not blocks, and other items are not toys at all. From this collection of stuff, the child Assembles their world of play. Similarly, the Ideative person Assembles Ideas from the collection of the stuff that are their Experiences and Knowledge.
Cause more, better, Ideas to pop into your head
In science, we learn that a super nova occurs when a giant star begins to shrink in on itself, pulling all the matter that exists for light years in all directions into its core. As the star gathers more matter the increased gravitational pull from that matter causes the star to shrink in on itself at an ever increasing rate, until the star is as tiny as the head of a pin. The incredible density created by all of that matter causes the star to explode in a super nova, the largest explosion known in the universe.
Think about a time when you had one of those great, Ah! Ha! moments; when an Idea seemed to pop into your head as if out of nowhere. That moment probably seemed a lot like a super nova – you had Inundated your brain to the point of overload, your focus had been intense, then you let go of those thoughts to do something else such as relax or workout. Once you let go, the Ideas exploded into your brain.
You can create the mental conditions for what we call ‘Ideative SuperNovas’ by Inundating yourself into your field, and Enhancing your Experiences and Knowledge as you Inundate, and doing this so intensely that your Experiences and Knowledge feel like they are bursting out of your brain. You can actually cause far more Ideative SuperNovas by taking in more and more information through Inundating and Deviating and making that process as Enhanced as possible.
You can learn to use your Ideative abilities to creative innovative, realistic, and valuable Ideas. The Ideative Process is creativity for life. The process is effective, sustainable, and designed by analytical thinkers for analytical thinkers. To create great Ideas remember the acronym: IDEA: Inundate, Disrupt, Enhance, and Assemble.
The Ideative Process is The Anybody’s tool for Great Creative Thinking.
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Robert Siegel is the creator of The Ideative Process, founder of Ideative Consulting a senior vice president of Resultrek. He spent 15 years in Marketing, Product Development, and Product Management, at BellSouth and EarthLink in roles specializing in innovation, new product development, and idea creation. Robert worked among engineers, project managers, financial specialists, attorneys, and other analytical thinkers and is himself an analytical thinker. Yet he is an analytical thinker with a creative streak for idea development that led him to be a catalyst for new ideas among his colleagues. You can contact Robert at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
