"Applied Imagination"

Anticipative imagination

2007-12-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

p.33-34

The highest form of anticipative imagination is creative expectancy. "When we look forward to something we want to come true, and strongly believe that it will come true, we can often make ourselves make it come true." That is the nub of creative expectancy, as stated by Doctor Albert Butzer.

The vice versa technique

2006-05-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

p. 279

"Switcheroo" is Hollywood's name for topsy-turvy creativity. Many a movie plot has been thought up, or sparked up, by having the man bite the dog instead of vice versa.

p. 281

John Wanamaker likewise believed in reversing the obvious. His right-hand man said of him: "Wanamaker deliberately planned to do the unexpected thing in an different way. So much was this true that some of his associates used to figure on the very opposite of what he was expected to do, and this opposite would be the best guess."

Rearrangement

2006-05-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

p. 273

Self-questioning can help us project our own imaginations into still other correlative fields. Countless ideas are to be found in the realm of rearrangement.

Rearrangement usually offers an unbelievable quantity of alternatives. For instance, a baseball manager can shuffle his team's batting order 362,880 times - 362,880 ways of arranging the same nine players! Yes, there are countless alternatives - countless leads to ideas - to be had through questions like: "How else can this be arranged?"... "What if the order were changed?"

A well-filled mind.....

2006-05-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

p. 64
A well-filled mind is certainly essential to creativity, since facts are the wherewithal of ideas. But grave danger lurks in memory-stuffing. In his The Aims of Education, Alfred North Whitehead warned: "We must beware of what I call "inert ideas" - ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations." And yet nearly every curriculum stresses the intake and retention of such data.

Setting the "working mood"

2006-05-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

pp.118-119

Just as baseball players swing two bats before stepping to the plate, we need to flex our imaginations when approaching a creative task.

....

Open-mindedness is so essential to creativity that we sometimes have to ward off influences which might close our minds while in quest of ideas. It would have been easy for Pasteur to have taken for granted the cause of silkworm disease when he went to the south of France to save it from ruin. The local silk-worm-growers tried to tell him just what the disease was and what caused it. Had he heeded their theories, he might never have found the answer that meant so much to France.

Setting a time - picking a place

2006-04-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

p.220-221

If we set aside a definite place for creative thinking, we can best lure the muse. This rule should govern those who are in business. "We should take time out for thinking up ideas - nothng else," said Don Sampson. Too many business men tackle routine first, usually because it is easier.

...before we turn out the lights, we could actually jot down the best thoughts we have been able to dream up while awake. The very making of these notes tends to free our minds and thus enable us to fall asleep sooner. And these notes tend also to engrave our minds with thoughts which may lead to worthwhile ideas, even while we sleep.

Intimates can encourage the best

2006-02-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

p.52

The discouragement that hurts creativity the most is that which comes from those we love. Within a family, praise is at its greatest premium. Parents should stop, look, and listen before ever uttering the slightest discouragement of a child's creative efforts. Praise helps a child creatively when given face to face, but it is even more powerful when spoken to others and overheard by the child.

Try three things

2005-12-16T03:04:00.000-08:00

p. 53

Doctor Roma Gans has stressed the need to build self-confidence in the young; and she further points out that there's a difference between a child's willingness to try three things - getting two successes and one flop - and trying only one thing that can be perfectly done.

Encouragement cultivates ideation

2005-12-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

p.50
Even though Thomas Carlyle was right in saying, "a certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man," creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated. Unfriendliness can make us stop trying. Wisecracks can be poison -...... Every idea should elicit receptivity, if not praise. Even if no good, it should at least call for encouragement to keep trying

Afraid to look foolish?

2005-11-23T04:28:00.000-08:00

p.46

"Another tendency that mitigates against creativity is a yen to 'conform.'.....The fear of 'looking foolish' goes with wanting not to seem different."

"Which is worse - to look foolish to others, or to look foolish to yourself? Some may think that some of your ideas are half-baked, but what could be sillier than for you to let that stop you from trying to make the most of your mind?"

"And I have tried to point to them that truly intelligent people admire creative effort, realizing as they do that almost all the good in the world came from ideas that many 'condemned' as foolish.

Imagination Exercise

2005-11-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

p.59

In our generation, our work environment does not provide much imaginative exercise. Earlier generations were forced to practice creativity under all circumstances and in all professions. Ingenuity was required on the job and imaginative exercise drills did not have to be contrived.

Deliberate Idea -Finding; p.134

2005-11-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

"Charles Kettering told about a man who came to see his new Diesel engine. "I would like to talk to your thermodynamics expert about it," said the visitor, "I am sorry," Kettering replied, "we don't have anyone here who even understands the word 'thermodynamics,' much less is an expert on it. But if you want to know how we developed this engine, I'll be glad to show you."