Mitch Ditkoff believes that breakthrough ideas are not a once in a lifetime occurrence, but rather something that can be brought on with the right mental stimulation. Whether you think that great ideas are produced within the minds or individuals or snatched out of the collective ether by creative individuals, Ditkoff claims that using any of his fourteen methods can help spark innovation. I critiqued three of them.
#4. Make New Connections
Ditkoff is of the opinion that innovation can result from combining two pre-existing ideas into one. He uses such modern necessities as MTV, roller blading, and water to exemplify his claim. Ditkoff says that the originators of these products created them by making “a new, intriguing connection” between two apparently disconnected things. The reason we do not make these connections regularly is due to the box in which we place ourselves. Should we break out of the mold – ethnicity, social class, profession, however one chooses to define oneself – these connections would become apparent to us all the time. Combining existing elements does occasionally provide useful and more efficient tools like the printing press. However, much of the time, it produces the sort of unnecessary junk sold on QVC in the early hours of the morning. This method of thinking might very well work for some, but as a general rule you are just going to end up with a Snuggie.
#5. Fantasize
When Gary Kasaprov beat the supercomputer Deep Blue in a chess match in 1989, he credited his win to his human intuition and ability to fantasize. This is probably aside from the point, but Kasaprov played Deep Blue again 8 years later and lost. Anyway, Ditkoff reveals that fantasy – the unseemly activity often left to societal scum like small children or perverts – can actually be a useful creative tool. You can’t, after all, spell fantastic without, “fantas.” Which is also in the word fantasize. And who doesn’t want to have fantastic ideas? While you might have thought that imagination was best left to Spongebob Squarepants or people with ponytails who drive a Volkswagen bus, it can actually lead to a creative spark in the average mind. Doh! I will admit that whenever I listen to music or have to ride the bus back to Columbus, my mind is going to be wandering aimlessly a few thousand miles away. I’ve had some of my best ideas when I’m just letting my mind wander. But isn’t this a bit obvious? Are there actually people who have no grasp on the connection between imagination and creativity?
#9. Notice and Challenge Existing Trends
This makes sense. Many successful people have made it simply by noticing a trend and either perfecting or subverting it. People like Mark Zuckerberg or almost every pop star in existence have made a fortune simply by following the right trend. Michael Bay noticed that explosions and attractive starlets draw audiences, so he made an entire film alternating shots of giant robots fighting and Megan Fox. Some of the most interesting artistic movements have come from revolt against the ideas of the past. Surrealism and Dadaism spring to mind. If you find yourself successfully questioning something that everyone else takes for granted, you’ve probably got a good idea on your hands. However, this line of thinking can backfire miserably. Start acting contrary just for the sake of it and you’ll find yourself in a dive bar, wearing an ironic hat and whining that you liked Animal Collective before they were popular.
Maybe I am being too harsh on Ditkoff. The intended audience of the article seemed to lean less toward film student, and further toward middle aged businessmen. It is possible that this article could be helpful to someone that was in desperate need of ideas. However, I found most of his suggestions to be more common sense than anything. The Einstein quote that Ditkoff chose to put at the top of the article almost controverts everything he is trying to say. Einstein was saying that his greatest ideas came unexpectedly – while he was shaving. Not when he was sitting around making word lists in a frantic attempt to make intriguing new connections between them. Sometimes you cannot force true inspiration.
I followed the prompt from suggestion #4:
“Make three parallel lists of ten words. The first list? Nouns. The second list? Verbs. The third list? Adjectives. Then look for intriguing new connections between them.”
Unfortunately, none of my intriguing new connections seem very plausible or necessary.
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