What if getting ideas was a process you could jumpstart? (Notes from A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young)

Today I present you a simple framework for generating ideas formed in 1939 by James Webb Young. Judging by the fact that the book is still in print, I would say that the technique proved to be a popular one and stood the test of time. Young was an adman and American Advertising Federation Hall of Famer, who was known for his creativity. He emphasises the process over raw talent and tapping into the unconscious mind for better results. I recommend reading A Technique for Producing Ideas. It's a quick read and focuses more on the advertising aspect, which I omitted below to make it more general. Also it's worth keeping in mind that while the process is simple it's not easy. Here are the notes:

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In learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles; and second, Method.

What is most valuable to know is not where to look for a particular idea, but how to train the mind in the method by which ideas are produced; and how to grasp the principles which are the source of all ideas.

First Principle: An idea is a new combination of old elements.

Second Principle: The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations, depends largely on the ability to see relationships.

When relationships are seen they lead to the extraction of a general principle. This general principle when grasped, suggests the key to a new application, a new combination, and the result is an idea.

The habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas. This habit can be cultivated.

Five Steps to producing new Ideas:

The mind follows these five steps in definite order. Complete them one by one.

Step 1: The mind has to gather its raw material.

It is often ignored and it is such a terrible chore that we are constantly trying to dodge it.

The materials which must be gathered are of two kinds: they are specific and they are general. Example: In advertising an idea, results from a new combination of specific knowledge about products and people, with general knowledge about life and events.

Two suggestions for gathering material:

1. The card-index method: write down on the cards the items of specific information as you gather them. After a while you can begin to classify them by sections of your subject. Eventually you will have a whole file box of them, neatly classified.

• The advantage of this method is not merely in such things as bringing order into your work, and disclosing gaps in your knowledge. It lies even more in the fact that it keeps you from shirking the material-gathering job; and by forcing your mind to go through the expression of your material in writing really prepares it to perform its idea-producing processes.

1. To store general material a scrapbook or a file is useful.
   • Like Sherlock Holmes and his scrapbooks where he indexed and cross-indexed odd bits of information.
   • Out of such material it is possible to build a useful source book of ideas.

Step 2: The process of chewing on these materials.

Take the different bits of material which you have gathered and have a feel for them. You take one fact and look at is in different lights, feel for the meaning of it. You bring two facts together and see how they fit. What you are seeking now is the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle. Try to play with it and don't scan for the meaning too directly or literally.

Stages of the process:

1. Little, partial ideas will come to you. Put these down on paper. Never mind how crazy or incomplete they seem: get them down. These are foreshadowing of the real idea that is to come, and expressing these in words forwards the process. Here again the little index cards are useful.
2. You will slowly get very tired of trying to fit your puzzle together. Don't quit. The mind has a second wind. Go after at least this second layer of mental energy in this process. Keep trying to get one or more partial thoughts onto your cards.

After a while you will reach the hopeless stage. Everything is a jumble in your mind, with no clear insight anywhere. When you reach this point you are ready for the next step.

Step 3: You make absolutely no effort of a direct nature.

You drop the whole subject, and put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can. Turn the problem over to your unconscious mind, and let it work while you sleep, relax or do whatever stimulates your emotions (listen to music, read, watch a movie, walk etc.).

Step 4: Out of nowhere the Idea will appear.

It will come to you when you are least expecting it - while shaving, bathing or most often when you are half awake, in the morning. It may waken you in the middle of the night.

This is the way ideas come: after you have stopped straining for them, and have passed through a period of rest and relaxation from the search.

Step 5: "The cold, grey dawn of the morning after".

You have to take your little idea out into the world of reality. And when you do you usually find that it is not quite the marvellous child it seemed when you first gave birth to it.

It requires a deal of patient working over to make most ideas fit the exact conditions, or the practical exigencies, under which they must work. And here is where many good ideas are lost. The idea man, like the inventor, is often not patient enough to go through with applying this adapting path of the process. But it has to be done if you are to put ideas to work in a work-a-day world.

Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest at this stage. Submit it to the criticism of the judicious. When you do, a surprising thing will happen. You will find that a good idea has self-expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it to add to it. Thus possibilities in it which you have overlooked will come to light.

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Thank you for reading!

me for more summaries, notes and thoughts!

@psto