A Technique for Producing Ideas
Ideas have a mysterious quality. Popular culture romanticises discovery as a moment of genius; the ‘ah ha!’ as a movie detective connects the dots to solve a crime, or homesick sailor sights land on the horizon.
But the scientist knows the sailor’s atoll didn’t just appear, it’s the work of countless unseen coral builders working below the surface of the sea. Are ideas too, just the final result of an unseen processes beneath the surface of the mind?
A technique for producing ideas.
In 1940, a renowned advertising executive by the name of James Webb Young published a short book called “A Technique for Producing Ideas.” I’d encourage you to read the whole thing — it will only take you half an hour.
Webb argues that the production of ideas is a process, like the production of cars:
… the production of ideas, too, runs on an assembly line; that in this production the mind follows an operative technique which can be learned and controlled; and that its effective use is just as much a matter of practice in the technique as is the effective use of any tool.
To properly grasp this process, you first must accept two principles:
#1: a new idea is nothing more than a new combination of old elements.
#2: the capacity of any given individual to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on their ability to see relationships.
To some minds, each fact is a separate piece of knowledge, a set of instructions. To others, it is a link in a chain of knowledge, connected by relationships and similarities to others.
In describing the latter, Webb cites the great Italian sociologist Pareto:
“The distinguishing characteristic of… the speculator is that he is constantly pre-occupied with the possibilities of new combinations”
Consequently, we find the mind geared to the search for relationships between facts is the most important in the production of ideas.
Training the mind:
While all will recognise each step on it’s own, it is more important here to understand their progressive relationship:
- Gather Raw Material
Gathering raw material in a real way is not as simple as it sounds. Instead of working systematically at the job, we sit around trying to get the mind to jump to the fourth step of the idea production process, and dodge the proceeding steps.
The materials which must be gathered are of two kinds: they are specific, and they are general. Part of this is a current job, the other is a life-long job.
If we go deeply enough, or far enough, we nearly always find that between every product and some consumers there is an individuality of relationship which was not apparent on the surface.
2. The Digestive Stage
…the process of masticating these materials as you would food that you are preparing for digestion
You take one fact, turn it this way and that, look at it in different lights, and 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.
Little tentative or partial ideas will come to you. Put these down on paper, however crazy or incomplete they seem.
3. Let the subconscious do it’s work
Make absolutely no effort of a direct nature. Drop the whole subject, and put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can.
You remember how Sherlock Holmes used to stop right in the middle of a case, and draw Watson off to a concert?
It is important to realise this is just as definite and just as necessary a stage in the process as the two proceeding ones.
4. Ah ha!
Out of nowhere the Idea will appear. It will come to you when you are least expecting it — while shaving, or bathing or most often when you are half awake in the morning.
5. Testing and iteration
In this stage you have to take your little idea out into the world of reality. And when you do, you usually fund that it is not quite the marvellous child it seemed when you gave birth to it.
Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest. Submit it to the criticism of the judicious.
If you’re even loosely involved with the technology industry, you’ll recognise this step incarnate in Eric Ries’ startup bible “The Lean Startup”, which preaches ‘getting out of the room’ to speak with customers.
Everything is a creative industry
In the next 5–15 years, everything we understand as a “job” today will become a function of a creative industry.
At the same time, I believe the technology enabling this shift is altering the nature of human cognition itself, in a way that will make us less geared towards the production of original thought.
What’s hope is there for us? in short, curiosity and creativity.
Every really good creative person in advertising whom I have ever known has always had two noticeable characteristics. First, there was no subject under the sun in which he could not easily get interested-from say, Egyptian burial customers to Modern Art. Every facet of life had fascination from him. Second, he was an extensive browser in all sorts of fields of information. For it is with the advertising as with the cow: no browsing, no milk.
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