Ways to Get Ideas

Recently I read an article titled " 14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas" by Mitch Ditkoff and found it rather interesting. Here is the article if you are interested in reading it, just follow the link "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas" and simply download the article for your enjoyment.

Mitch Ditkoff brings up some very valid points in his article about ways to get ideas through other ways than the typical thinking and feeling strategies followed by many people in the workforce. The article is broken up into 14 different techniques or ways to acquire or get breakthrough ideas:
1. Follow Your Fascination
2. Immerse
3. Tolerate Ambiguity
4. Make New Connections
5. Fantasize
6. Define the Right Challenge
7. Listen to your Subconscious
8. Take a Break
9. Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends
10. Hang Out with Diverse Groups of People
11. Brainstorm
12. Look for Happy Accidents
13. Use Creative Thinking Techniques
14. Suspend Logic
Ditkoff does a great job of backing up his claims with factual evidence and examples as well. For example, in the idea labeled Brainstorm there were examples such as Bill Gates and Paul Allen for Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for Apple, Sergey Brin and Larry Page for Google. Ditkoff explains that these men named above used brainstorming to achieve their success and come up with breakthrough ideas.

Three ideas that I am particularly intrigued in are the ideas labeled Brainstorm, Immerse, and Fantasize.
• Brainstorming caught my attention because it explains a technique that many people have used at least once in their lives, whether it was recently or in school. Brainstorming described by Ditkoff is gathering a group of people together to come up with ideas if you are stumped or just need inspiration. Ditkoff explains that if you can’t think of something you more than likely know someone who can. In my opinion, this is a great idea. It utilizes group work, which is not always necessarily a good thing, but in this case it is. With a group you can inspire each other and discuss creative terms and ideas, which allow for inspiration. That inspiration can lead to a great breakthrough.
• The next way to get a breakthrough idea is immersing. Mitch Ditkoff defines immersion as "the act of becoming completely involved or absorbed in something—engrossed, enthralled, or preoccupied.” Ditkoff later goes into the importance of allowing yourself to immerse yourself not only into what you are trying to come up with but also allow yourself some time to immerse yourself into something completely different than what you are focusing on. Ditkoff lists examples of Google who allows their employees to spend 20% of their time immersed in projects that have seemingly nothing to do with their day job. This is another example of a good idea to utilize when trying to create a new idea or concept. I found this important because immersing yourself in your idea or project at hand is important but allowing yourself time to immerse in other activities such as a hobby allows your brain to come up with different ideas and relax. Too much strain on your brain will eventually cause serious damage to your brain. Many people throughout college or even high school work a part-time job, play a sport of some sort, join a club or are involved in school related activities. Those students are shown to do better in school and classes because they learn to regulate time more effectively. So allowing yourself to immerse in your work as well as a hobby allows you time to recharge and allows creativity to flow.
• The last idea deemed interesting to me is fantasizing. Ditkoff describes this as how many breakthrough ideas are started by using your imagination. Ditkoff notes the relationship between the words fantastic and fantasy which both stem from the same word which means to “use the imagination”. Fantasizing is a good idea in some cases but in others not so much. Daydreaming while trying to focus on let’s say a project causes problems later when there was that delay in time when you daydreamed which causes you to get behind in your work. Fantasizing can be beneficial though when coming up ideas fantasizing or visualizing the idea helps the creator come up with ideas. Fantasizing is limited, as we grow older since it was primarily used when we were children during playtime when we came up with many ideas and thoughts to escape and have fun.

The ways listed in the article also include little exercises or activities that the reader can do to engage themselves as an example of that certain way. I will do the brainstorming activity, which asks me to answer the following questions:
What is the topic of your next group brainstorm? Who will you invite? Who will facilitate? When?

The next topic of my next group brainstorm will be discussing the Soundscape project with my group member. I will invite my partner Colin and both of us will facilitate the meeting by agreeing when we both are available to meet and when we will meet depends on when we both can brainstorm and collaborate on the project together.