Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

If we all knew the idea we'd not be writing blog posts like this, reading them or doing workshops on the matter. We'd be busy pulling that limitless supply of creativity out of its hole to see the light of day and bring us riches, joy, learning and new friends.

However, given that we're not, over the next month or so (or however long it takes me to splurge out those thoughts) I'll be summarising on this here blog some of the best online and offline reading and viewing that has attempted to answer that question, throwing in my own unresearched but tried and tested notions (and a few that haven't even got that far). This post will change to reflect the updating posts that will take a peek at:

1. Why it's important to (want to) know Where Good Ideas Come From.
2. Stand There And Do Nothing: Designing beautiful solutions rather than solving ugly problems
3. Creative Genius. Man At Work: Arguments for not working as a team
4. Getting Creativity Done (GCD): How to get productive and clean down the mental decks
5. Nurturing creativity: Worrying about "Tanya's Bow" or the Dinosaurs: Some arguments for caring about the team, not pissing them off and really understanding what failure is
6. Finding your tribe
7. Creating visions, not missions

As they're posted, please leave comments, disagree, add your own links, videos and pictures. I hope that by the end of it we'll have a resource to which we might come back with the stories of how the works, thoughts and attitudes of others have changed the way we operate.

Bookmark this post and come back to it for updates, and subscribe to the blog to get a daily email or RSS feed in your reader every time there's a new post. Take a look at my instructions on how to subscribe.

Brill pic from Chris Metcalf

Comments

[OllieBray]

Really looking forward to this run of post Ewan.

[Christian Long]

Respect your instincts/radar, Ewan. Looking forward to following your breadcrumb trail as you explore the "good ideas" trail.

[cursilloinscotland]

sdg

[chris]

Are you interested only in creativity within your own current sphere of influence, or - to take my own area - where a poem comes from , for instance?

Sorry about the abortive post above - I was having difficulty in posting anything here!

[Ewan McIntosh]

Interested in all areas where creative ideas might have a positive effect. Poetry included!

[Nick Moreno]

You are tackling a difficult subject and I look forward to reading all you discover about creativity. Creativity is Creativity. My interest is in creative sales strategies and how not to sound like every other salesperson.

[chris]

You've driven me to post about this for myself.

[john]

Have a full toolkit and an empty mind.

Like others I am looking forward to seeing where this goes a few nice contradictions in store I hope.

[Ewan McIntosh]

Moi? Contradictions? Of course, John ;-) This whole thing is a set of contradictions and I hope we can tease out which parts might be more helpful than others :-)