1WHY A “2.0” NEW EDITION?
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.”
– Ben Franklin
I bring you good news!
Creativity is not random. There are reproducible tools and tactics that can help you think smarter and more creatively about personal challenges.
I help people-executives, entrepreneurs, kids, teachers, and just plain folks-invent ideas for solving their problems 52 weeks a year using the Eureka! Way. In the 48 hours prior to this writing, I’ve used some of the methods detailed on these pages to help:
• A frustrated young woman find the courage to follow her dream.
• The owners of a small but spectacular restaurant invent ideas for attracting new customers and generate additional revenue.
• A VP at one of the world’s most respected corporations create 75 choices for growth.
• The executive director of a non-profit discover ways for turning momentary positive momentum into stable long-term income growth.
For the past decade, my life and the world of the Eureka! Ranch has been focused on turning the art of creativity into a reliable, renewable science.
When creativity is conceived of as an art, it’s ethereal and fickle; a slippery intangible. As creativity moves more toward being a science, it becomes more predictable and dependable, a trustworthy tool that can be wielded to yield real results.
Years of mining through mountains of data have unearthed a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t as far as enhancing the ability to generate ideas. The teachings on these pages are grounded in original research involving thousands of big companies, small companies and start-up entrepreneurs who have participated in Eureka! Ranch Inventing projects, as well as Eureka! Institute lectures and seminars. Everything you’ll read about in here you can apply to your career and your life.
Warner Books, a division of Time Warner, published this book in its original form in January 1994. It became a creativity classic, reprinted by dozens of book clubs and international publishers.
As the years passed, my understanding of the creative process evolved. By measuring and analyzing over 6,000 invention teams and over 10,000 business-building ideas, I developed a new understanding of what drives success.
Simply speaking, this new material had to be incorporated into Jump Start Your Brain, so I contacted Warner Books with the news. They told me to cool my jets. They saw no problem, saying the book was selling.
But I was bothered. Finally, my frustration rose to action level. I called Time Warner and bought back the rights to the book. With the help of Richard Hunt, my publisher, I’ve recast this book based upon how my perceptions have been changed based on quantitative research.
Correcting past works is something my hero, Ben Franklin, America’s first great inventor and entrepreneur, articulated in his epitaph:
“Here lies the Body of B. Franklin Printer; like the cover of an old book, it’s contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost: for it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new & more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author.”
What’s New?!
From a big picture perspective, the three most important changes from the first edition are:
1. FEAR, not lack of FUN, is the key issue.
The first edition declared, “Fun is Fundamental.” Instead, there is another “f word” even more critical to creativity—fear.
But, when we measured real people inventing real ideas to solve real problems, we found that increasing levels of fun did not correlate with the production of more big ideas. We tried every manner of measurement and questioning to validate the importance of FUN. It didn’t matter: increasing the fun factor was NOT as fundamental to creativity as was decreasing the fear factor.
What we discovered was that as the level of fear increased, the number of high quality ideas dropped. Fear could be the pressure to produce, the presence of a particularly scary boss, or simply not wanting to appear foolish or stupid.
2. Diversity is a much greater issue than I initially thought.
The first edition stated that diversity was an additive to stimulus when it came to creating ideas.
The data clearly shows that diversity delivers an exponential kick. When you connect with others who have different mind-sets, experiences, and backgrounds, you realize a ginormous leap in your creativity. Diversity is not just about people-although people are a great way to connect with new ideas-diversity is about exploring, accepting, and adapting to fresh ideas and insights.
Diversity is so important that it cannot be left solely to those moments when you gather together for an ideation or brainstorming session. In recognition of the importance of diversity, this edition contains a bounty of ideas and advice for making connections with other
