In 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas, Mitch Ditkoff presents readers with suggestions to assist in the creation of innovative ideas. While I agree that all of his suggestions are good, there were three that stood out to me the most.
The first of Ditkoff's ideas that really stood out to me is number five: fantasize. Ditkoff simply reminds us to think of a fantasy solution to whatever obstacle you are attempting to overcome and see what you can learn from your “fantasy solution.” He uses Gary Kasparov, the Soviet Union's chess master who successfully beat a supercomputer, as an example. Ditkoff writes that Kasparov gave two reasons he was able to beat the computer, “intuition and the ability to fantasize.” In Media 101 we learned that creative jobs offer more job security than others because they are not in danger of being replaced by computers. Our ability to use our imagination is what sets us apart from computers. I will continue to incorporate this into my creative process by imagining my ideal outcome and finding a way to make it possible.
The next of Ditkoff's ideas that I find to be particularly valuable is tip number six: define the right challenge. This tip reminds us to begin with the end in mind. It is essential to understand the problem you are attempting to solve when searching for a solution. I once heard someone say that if you don't have a destination, nowhere is just where you will go. I have already begun to implement this suggestion into my creative process and it has definitely helped. I have found that it makes my entire creative process much quicker and more efficient. When I was working on my soundscape assignment during last Friday's lab session, I thought about what I wanted the final product to sound like as soon as I read the assignment. By beginning with the end in mind, I was able to select the right kind of sounds to create the mood I was going for. Rather than spending a long time playing around with sounds without a goal, I began with a fairly solid idea of what the final product would sound like. I will definitely continue to follow this suggestion in the future.
The last of Ditkoff's ideas I am going to write about is number eight: take a break. Ditkoff writes that it is ok to take a break when you get frustrated or stuck. He cites the story of Seymour Cray, a computer designer, as an example. Cray would often take a break from his computer research to work on a tunnel he built under his house. During his time working on the tunnel, he would take his mind off things for a while and come back for a fresh start later. I have always taken breaks when working on long projects and I have found that it can be very helpful. In my personal experience, I have found that after an extended period of time working on one thing, I tend to lose focus. I find it helpful to take a nap or go for a walk to allow myself to think about other things for a while. In the end, I make up for the time I spent doing something else because I am so much more efficient when I return to the task at hand. I find it takes me longer if I decide to plow straight through and try to do everything all at once.
The suggested activity I decided to try out for myself was a part of number four: make new connections. As suggested by the activity, I made three lists: ten nouns, ten verbs, and ten adjectives. Here is my list:
| Nouns | Verbs | Adjectives |
| Car | Run | Hot |
| House | Jump | Cold |
| Bottle | Skate | Big |
| Door | Wash | Small |
| Printer | Find | White |
| Computer | Eat | Black |
| Box | Laugh | Strong |
| Dog | Write | Weak |
| Lawn | Read | Bright |
| Shoe | Clean | Dark |
When I thought about combining the words find, car, and small, I thought of some sort of device to help you find your car keys when they get lost. Another idea I had came from combining computer, read, and small. An example of this is a device like the Amazon Kindle. I also thought of combining computer, read, and bright to come up with something to put over a computer screen that is too bright to prevent people from getting headaches while looking at bright screens for long periods of time.
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