Ideaspotting

Ideaspotting by Sam Harrison

Ideaspotting is a book designed to help you generate ideas and to become more creative.

Did you ever dig into a book that was supposed to help you be more creative, and find yourself entangled in exercises so complex and tedious that they forced you into being creative, like using the book for a door stop? Well, Ideaspotting is not like that.

In another book of his Zing!, author Sam wrote about the following five-step process for generating ideas:

• Explore
• Freedom
• Pause
• Embrace
• Life

Ideaspotting focuses on the Explore stage. Sam underscores to explore with the actions of observing and listening. Please allow me to back away from Sam's book for a second and try to capture a 60,000 foot view.

Pretend that you have a problem that is contained in one room and you need a solution. Or you need to come up with an idea in relation to this room. The first thing you need to do is to observe and listen to the room. You need to be aware of details, ambiguities and nuances. Then you need to go out into the world for answers. Sam labels this Firing-Range exploring.

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.                                             John Hope Franklin

In Free-Range exploring, Sam says to fill your work with life. This means to go out into the world and by way of a multitude of experiences, fill your life well. For the most part, how to fill your well is what the book is about. The following are examples:

360-Degree Exploring - Dive into your world and understand how wide it is. Sam lists categories of suggestions like personal surroundings, entertainment, internet, nature, customers, kids and a whole lot more to get you started.

Look into lifestyles - What publications, Web sites and events can help you monitor lifestyles?

Watch where people are and watch what they do - It ain't gonna happen sittin' on the couch.

Really listen - Sam uses this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti: When you are listening to somebody completely and attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

Ask a ton of questions - Do I really need to elaborate on this one?

Watch what thrills people - Make note of what people are WOWED by.

Make notes - When out in the world make notes in notebooks, sketchbooks, index cards or by camera or voice recorder. Be a reporter to your editor self.

Build and work your network - You know the drill.

Learn from your mistakes - Mark Twain says it best: I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned 40% more about cats than the man who didn't.

Get out into the world - Travel to the corner of your street or to another continent. The world is your classroom.

Ideaspotting is one of the best books of its kind that I have ever read. And on a personal taste level, the book's design is absolutely intoxicating.

Ideaspotting was smoked-n-signed.

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Thanks, Dave. As a fellow explorer on the learning journey, this sounds like it must be added to my reading pile.