The story of the thirsty crow who drank water from a pitcher by dropping pebbles into it has always fascinated me. Initially for reasons like what would have happened to the crow if it had not thought of this idea or was there any other way to drink water from the pitcher. Later on, the story amused me because it conveyed the importance of getting the right idea at the right time.

A lot of inventors and creative people have said that they get great ideas in the most random places. Some while standing under the shower or while in the bathtub, some when they were running, some when they were in a remote island on vacation and some others while they were asleep.

All of us can relate to that moment when a new idea just pops up in our mind. Where do they come from and why did it not occur to another person sitting in the same room and working on the same problem? Or sometimes, why did an idea not occur to us when many other people in the room could think of it?  I am amazed at the uniqueness of the ideas that occur to each person.

I have always felt that ideas come from some place deep down in the brain. That is where it feels the most electric while dealing with an incoming idea. That is where it hurts the most when an idea doesn’t work out the way it was intended to.

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Idea is: a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action. This is in relation to the completion of a work or duty.

It is important to not confuse it with a “thought”. Thought is a mental process that keeps on going in the mind, unabated.

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Plato was one of the first philosophers to discuss ideas in detail. Later John Locke suggested that we acquire ideas through our experience of the world.

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I  thought of the occurrence of ideas as an involuntary process which just happened. It just came to me from somewhere and I wasn’t sure if I actually owned it. Often times, I am left confused at the complexity of the mind which comes up with these ideas.

Another point that has always intrigued me is: Do these ideas follow a pattern? The search about this led me to an article by Drew Boyd. He mentions in the article that most creative ideas follow patters. Read this interesting article here. Where Do Creative Ideas Come From?

First is subtraction: this is the elimination of a core component – something that seemed essential at first.

Next is task unification: where a component of a product has been assigned an additional job. One that it wasn’t designed to do.  

Then there is multiplication: many innovative products have taken a component and copied it, but change the component in some counterintuitive way.

Then we have division: where you take a component, or the product itself and divide it along some physical or functional line and then rearrange it back into the product.

And finally attribute dependency: this is where a product has a correlation between two attributes of the product and its environment. As one thing changes, another thing changes.

These five patterns are a crucial foundation to being more creative.

There are innovators who speak about the eureka moment when the idea just happens to them. While in the shower or in a stranded island. But, interestingly,  Steven Johnson in his Ted Talk: Where-Good_ideas-Come-From talks about the importance of a social platform (coffee shop to be specific) for the occurrence of Good Ideas.

He describes a new idea is a new network of neurons firing in sync with each other inside your brain. It is a new configuration that has never happened before.But the braising of of that idea must have started long ago.

Everything Begins With An Idea.” – Earl Nightingale

Great ideas from great thinkers and innovators changed the course of history. There could be a great idea brewing within us at this very moment. Our job is to braise it and let it come out when the stars align (read as neurons align) for that unique network of neurons to fire in sync inside the brain.

Here’s to all ideas big and small !

Picture Courtesy: Pixabay

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