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4
four

step two– generating new
ideas

G Howard Head – an analogical approach to business success
G Eureka?
G The Mind Gym: six mental workouts and their related routines
G ground-rules for productive mental workouts
G mental workout one – checklists
G mental workout two – stimulus materials
G mental workout three – combinations
G mental workout four – free association
G mental workout five – analogical thinking
G mental workout six – upside-down thinking
G moving to step three
G Thomas Alva Edison – idea generator par excellence

Where do good ideas come from? Should you lie in the bath like 103
Archimedes? Should you sit under a tree waiting for the proverbial
inspirational apple to fall? Or should you work with what you’ve already
got, using a range of idea-generating techniques to shape, challenge,
overturn, shock and surprise your way to new insights and ideas?

This way is certainly hard work – it’s the 99 per cent perspiration and
1 per cent inspiration evoked by arch-innovator Thomas Edison. But
it’s certainly effective.