Chapter 5 - How to think for great ideas

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How to think for great ideas	193

it, froze it, reconstituted it, reversed it, adapted it, rearranged it, combined it? What if you eliminated it - or part of it? If you substituted one of the parts? If you made it smaller, shorter, lighter? If you recolored it, streamlined it, magnified it? If you repackaged it? Distributed it in a different way? What if you applied all your senses - and added scents or fragrances, added sounds or made it different to see or touch?

5. Go outside your own field
 
  Try to put your existing preconceptions aside. The elements you use to solve problems should not only be those that are specific to the industry or process you're involved in. Use only those and you'll come up with the same old solutions.
  Ask a teacher to redefine education, and generally he'll start thinking about school, and not about interactive videodiscs or life in 2010. Ask your brain to add 1 plus 1 and it will automatically answer 2. It's programmed that way.
  But your brain has also stored facts about thousands of different interests: from recipes to football. The answers to problems in farming may well come from meanderings in space research. So all good inventors, innovators and creators develop an insatiable appetite for new knowledge. Always remember to ask.

6. Try various combinations
 
  Next: since an idea is a new combination of old elements, try various combinations. Jot them down as they come to you. Try different starting points. Choose anything at random - a color, an animal, a country, an industry - and try to link it up with your problem and solution.
  Work at it. Keep your notepad full. But a word of caution: don't concentrate too closely on your specific field or you'll be limited by your own preconceptions.
  Read as widely as you can - particularly books on the future and challenging writings away from your own speciality. Keep asking: What if? "What if I combined this with that? What if I started from here instead of there?" And keep asking.

7. Use all your senses
 
  It also helps greatly to consciously try to engage all your senses. If

 

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