As we stated earlier, everyone in search of ideas should cultivate first of all the habit of careful observation. This habit is essential to clear thinking. Ideas gained through observation are usually of the most vivid kind and appear to be much more definite and specific than those acquired by other means. Observation has been the source of good ideas ever since man arrived on this planet.

The primitive seemed a poor competitor against the pow­erful animals that were his rivals in the fight for survival. They had greater size, strength and speed, tougher claws and many other powers besides which his assets were weak and puny. But by means of his constructive imagination, well backed up by observation, these obstacles were over­come by man and he was able to outwit his adverse condi­tions. What Nature had denied him in physical powers, he supplied to himself through the exercise of such of his thinking as he could make dynamic and constructive.

Seeing the claws of animals, he took for his own use the idea of the rake and the hoe. He created artificial claws and teeth; imitating those he saw the animals possessed, making them in the form of spears, knives, axes and other tools.

From the woodpecker he visualized the gimlet; from the beaver the trowel; from the rolling log, a wheel to drag his burden. Seeing a floating log, he imagined the idea of boats to carry him across the water. And in turn, he imagined step by step all the ingenious improvements, comforts, buildings, clothes, foods, tools and inventions that have kept him alive and advancing through the ages.

As a general rule, Nature did it first. The spider taught us to spin. The human eye gave us the principle of the camera. The arm taught us about levers. The sun and moon suggested ways to measure time. A large leafy twig was the first sunshade. A sea shell was the first spoon. The fish, ages later, was model for the submarine, and the bird founded the aviation industry.

The primitive woman, style-conscious as she may have been, did not at a single step create what passes for mod­ern attire. Each article of dress started simply, and gradu­ally evolved.
It is so with all ideas. They begin simply, and only time and experience evolve from it a complex matter at which the uninitiated wonder as though it had sprung at one leap from the magician’s mind.

The term “observation” is generally used to refer only to the sense of sight, but it may also be used in connection with the other senses as well. It is just as truly observation if we use the sense of hearing, taste, touch or smell.

Careful and fruitful observation requires that one should cultivate keen sense perception. When one looks at a thing he should really see it. He should notice every characteristic of the sounds he hears. He should sharpen his sense of taste and of smell, and his fingers should be sensitive to the distinctions, however slight, between soft and hard, wet and dry, warm and cold, rough and smooth, tense and flexible. In all his observations he should be keenly alert and sensitive.

It is well to look for the unusual in everything, ever the commonplace. Most people notice only the plainly obvi­ous things and do nothing to exercise their sensibilities As a result we have dullness and boredom in our lives instead of vigorous enjoyment of all the things around us that are waiting to stimulate our minds, prod our thinking and give us the materials for many an idea.

All these habits of careful observation, of wide reading of always being on the lookout for material, should be sought, not necessarily with the view of any specific use, but for the purpose of broadening information and deepening thought. The object should always be the improving of oneself by adding to one’s stock of information, that there may always be a full storehouse of material which may be drawn upon at will, making up that subtle background of authority and individuality which molds an idea in the long run.

Before the industrial era mankind had few benefits be­yond those which Nature unassisted was able to supply. Since that time, man has tired of the slow process of evolu­tion. He has found out how to utilize Nature’s laws to ad­vance his own creative ideas. He has realized that what­ever the need might be, whether new steel alloy, a syn­thetic rubber, a motion picture film, it can only be pro­duced by adhering to Nature’s laws. It must be created. Creative knowledge does not come of itself out of nowhere. It is built upon previous ideas and experiences.

Experience alone, however, was too slow. It also lacked reliability, for there was too much of an element of chance as to whether one would have the experience needed. So from relying upon experience, man utilized a creative idea to produce creative ideas–he devised experimenting as a process.

Soon he realized that an experiment had to be carefully planned and controlled. Further, the initial plan had to be continually revised as new facts developed. He learned that Nature, like himself, could answer but one question it at time. If he wished to discover the effect of more than one variable condition he could best do this by analyzing he influence of each one separately, namely by allowing only one at a time to vary, and keep the others constant. This is a clue for your own experimenting, whether you do it with materials or with ideas.

It has been said that certain intellectually honest, enthusiastically persevering individuals, endowed with insatiable curiosity, keen power of observation, ingenuity, patience, common sense, and the urge to take infinite pains, have been notably successful in inducing Nature to reveal her secret methods. You don’t need all these qualities, but they help, just as in the case of the industrious man who died possessed of a fortune of $100,000. It helped that his uncle had left him $99,000.

Observation is perception with a purpose. You can be responsive to sensations without either perceiving or observing. This is usually called thoughtlessness, wool gathering, or mind wandering. As has been well said, “Every normal creature has seen the lightning flash, but Benjamin Franklin observed it.” Extend your eyes and your ears into unfamiliar matters and consider continually how some idea gleaned from one of these fields can be put to use by you in your own project. Listening, too, which is much more than keeping your mouth shut, should be cultivated observantly with a view to accuracy and precision.

Observation depends on 2 things: first, trained senses, and second, organized information on the subject of the observation. There is some question whether a keen judge of human nature with indifferent senses can judge a person better than a keen-sensed person who has indifferent knowledge of human nature. The only lesson to take from this debate is to realized that the ideal is to combine keen senses with expansive knowledge of a subject. With limited sense training you’d lack accurate material to combine with your past experience. With limited knowledge you might be so engulfed in details of observation that you couldn’t stand back and view the situation as a whole and give the detail meaning.

Many of the traits we discuss herein, if cultivated, have values beyond helping you to get ideas. Observation is surely one of these. It is to your interest in every way to cultivate your power of observation. The sense of observation may be defined as attention applied not only to your usual occupation but also to every circumstance of life. Far too common is it for us to go on living, year after year, without learning anything from what happens all around us. It is wise, when you look at a thing, to see it. Train yourself to observe not only accurately but quickly. This is at the foundation of making contrasts, similarities, additions, eliminations and proceeding with all the processes involved in the search for ideas.

Observation is necessary to anyone who wishes to progress at all in the field of ideas. It forms the basis of success in art, literature, science, business, government, personal relations and any endeavor. An artist is able to put life into their work because they have observed the subject they wish to represent on the canvas. Playwrights or novelists succeed according to the accuracy of their psychological observations. Knowledge of the human heart requires a sum of experience which can only be gained through extensive observation. The business person must be a keen observer to evaluate the people with whom they deal the goods or services with which they are involved. First hand knowledge based on personal observation makes for confidence, originality, leadership, memory, imagination, purpose, achievement. The basis of all detective work is keen observation and accurate interpretation. Will anyone say a good detective is not an idea producer? Observation and accurate interpretation are the basis of all hidden opportunities.

Most people have considered creativeness an elusive ability that is born, not made. They look upon a new idea as an accident that descends from the ether and just dangles before the eyes of some fortunate person. But as we shall see, there is no mystery or magic involved. The whole problem resolves itself merely into getting the right combinations of old ideas or parts of old ideas int a new, practical or interesting arrangement.

To be sure, information gained from wide experience prepares one to see a particular subject in relation to other things and to have a proper sense of proportion about values and possibilities. With this sense of relationship closer and sounder analysis is achieved. The widely informed person can do a better job of recognizing pertinent and significant factors than one who is not so alert. So, keep exposing yourself to new experiences. Avoid doing things exclusively by force of habit. Habits have many valuable and profound uses, but we can carry this to extreme. The idea seeker must be flexible, not bound by tradition, the same old thing, the habitual reaction. They should go to different restaurants, go to work by a different route, avoid the same vacation every year, read books in different fields, meet people in different groups or classes, expose themselves to new and different situations and experiences.

It may be said, before considering the various sources of material for particular ideas, that there is present in every completed idea the broad general background of your individuality. Often it is this background of individuality that determines whether an idea is to be a success or a failure. The whole person is always present in every sincere effort.

Therefore, try to know yourself and your real interests, for the enthusiasm which interest begets has great carrying power. To develop a fundamental approach to getting ideas, start by listing your own skills, special talents and experiences. You cannot make the most of your assets in the fields you know best, and permit them the opportunity of being useful to you, if you do not know what they are. Decide whether your skills or interests are primarily scientific, artistic, business, social, mechanical, organizational, visual and domestic. Decide whether you prefer details or generalities, whether you think better concretely or abstractly. After you decide in which you are strongest, list the rest in order of their appeal for you.

In addition, there are certain character qualities which are useful, not only in getting ideas, but in any phase of successful living. These include open mindedness which enables you to judge new ideas or things on their merits, avoiding their rejection because they are strange or unfamiliar. Also planning, which helps you to work out in advance the details of what you must do to achieve the results you want. Without planning, you leave things to chance, to hit or miss, trial and error. Likewise carefulness, which permits you to carry out your work with painstaking effort, thoroughness and cautiousness in avoiding mistakes. Overlook this, and you perform your work in a slipshod manner, which surely cannot reach a result in which you can take pride.

Very important, of which we shall speak later on, is observation, whereby you can pick out the facts of a situation, the facts that count, enabling you to analyze and form sound judgments. Without this valuable trait, the real facts of a situation are obscured, and inconsequential factors loom more important that the essential mater. In addition, there is resolution to stick to the right decision once you have made it, rather than wavering changing your mind and being unpredictable to yourself, not to speak of being unreliable where others are concerned. A valuable asset is patience which enables you to stay with a task which makes severe demands on your attention particularly if the outcome is in doubt and overdue in coming. Without this, you tend to be restless, irritable, causing the haste that makes waste, and resulting in serious errors. From this brief comment it must be apparent that mental efficiency is important to the creative thinker. Those who realize this and work to develop their mental faculties are the ones who stand the best chance of becoming skillful producers of ideas. Ideas can be produced by a process of combinations and permutations, but they are more fun when the spark of individual fire is added.

Unfortunately we are not always so successful when we have to produce an idea out of nothing. It is the people with ideas who win most of the desirable places in the world. The person who can create something new and different is wanted—and rarely by the police! He is in demand for his ability to develop ideas. Those who achieve conspicuous success in business and advertis­ing, in radio, drama, literature, journalism, in politics, so­ciety, and indeed all the professions and walks of life can attribute the large portion of their success to their capacity for getting and using their ideas.

Many large corporations maintain research departments which do nothing but look for and create new ideas. It is the new in automobiles, airplanes and technology in general—the new in government, politics, labor and industrial relations—the new in fashions, entertaining, advertising, books—that people constantly seek. We even say “What’s new?” as a greeting instead of “Hello.”

Many people work long and hard at a piece of work only to discover that their idea was no good to begin with. Why not make your ideas count for something? Do you have difficulty in getting ideas in the first place?

It is interesting to note that your education, race, age or experience have nothing to do with your success as an idea producer. You do not have to be a scientist, a technician, a writer, an artist. If your idea requires skills in these direc­tions you can hire them later if needed. Successful ideas come from persons in all walks of life, all ages and the least experience. No credentials are needed to go in the idea producing business. Even the sick and disabled can participate in this rewarding activity.

Neither do your ideas have to be of long lasting value. As soon as they are utilized they make their contribution in increased production, jobs and sales even if only for a short time. Change and novelty may be useful in themselves and may encourage further ideas. Since every new idea is merely a combination of two or more old ideas or parts of old ideas, every new idea contains parts or material for a still newer one.

The need for new ideas is universal. Nothing in the world is completed to finality and cannot ever be, for the world changes from instant to instant. And nowhere is change so persistent, so quickly taken up, as lively and active as in the United States. We are an active people, quickly bored, restless, and eager for change. Whole books have been written about induced obsolescence, the deliberate creation of changes in things which still possess much utility, wear, or beauty, merely to make them old fashioned or dated, so that new and different things will be purchased. It may be highly uneconomic, but it is profitable, especially to the idea producer.

I used to think of creating ideas as something tinged with considerable mystery. Like many others, I believed that it could not be developed, that it happened or did not happen. Yet I could not reconcile myself to the notion that God was bothering to send inspirations in the form of better mouse traps or fancier perfume bottles. I came to the con­clusion that getting an idea was a process—part of the cause and effect processes that control all of life. Since there must be a reason for what happens, the matter comes down to knowing the reason and applying the method.

What then is the process of creating ideas?

People have been successful in extracting the wealth of the earth for their use but they have not learned to seek for the untold wealth which lies hidden in their own hearts and minds. It is in human beings as it is in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold concealed.
To get ideas is a matter of creative thinking. It is a method for those who wish to get results in their own fields of work and in their own lives, for people with ideas live more enjoyably and more profitably than those without. A method of producing ideas is fundamental for any occupa­tion and for life itself.

Everything that man produces begins as an idea. From the wrapper on a loaf of bread or the tube of shave cream all the way up to the latest best-seller; from nylon stock­ings to television; from seedless grapes to a magazine printed in Braille for the blind—all began as an idea.

Most of our ideas come from someone else. Where does “the someone else” get them? Is there any way we can get an idea, better yet, a succession of ideas, by ourselves? Yes, there is a way, and I don’t mean inspiration which some people would like to meet by appointment in a lunch room.

Developing an idea is much like developing an invention. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter and founder of the Royal Academy, tells us that invention is little more than a new combination of those images which have been pre­viously gathered and deposited in the memory. Despite the ingenious preacher, nothing can come of nothing, at least by manmade efforts. He who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.

Accordingly, the idea searcher explores human experi­ence and thought—history, psychology, science—anything and everything for analogies and stepping stones for the imagination. The more extensive our acquaintance with the work of those who have excelled, the more extensive will be our own ingenuity. Then when an image comes to us, we can use it, juggle with it, be receptive to its possibilities, not simply hold it isolated as an amusing or interesting curiosity, but have it as a basis for experiment. Most of us get ideas that we do not develop in this way, and nothing ever comes of them.

Some people have their heads full of so-called bright ideas all the time, but only too often they are merely half-baked notions. The techniques suggested herein should im­prove the quality of the ideas so they really become work­able and useful. Practicing better methods need not mean getting more ideas when one is prolific already, but it should mean getting better ones.

To be receptive to the creative impulse, one must have a certain discontent, a confidence in the potential ideal, a sense that betterment is always possible. This gives birth to constructive curiosity.

We are all inventors in minor things. The one who would improve a thing must realize its present qualities and its possibilities; must recognize that the possibility of per­fection outweighs the probability of imperfection. We do not, for example, believe that violin strings have been made to create horrible discord, although the probability of dis­cord is far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the violin, there are thousands who cannot.

To get an idea, observation is the first requisite, analysis the second, faith the third. Without observation, the need or opportunity would not be recognized. Without analysis, the method would not be devised. Without faith, the im­pulse would be lacking. The successful effort, then, com­bines a physical, a mental and a spiritual activity—in other words, a union of all our available powers directed toward a single goal.

Perhaps this sounds harder than it is. How does one create in nature? One plants a seed. One allows it to germinate. Surely that is a simple pattern. But it involves the same three points Observation. You see a need or a chance to grow a certain thing. Analysis: You do not plant a grapefruit seed to grow a beet. You consider the condi­tions and other factors. Faith: If you did not expect a grapefruit plant to grow from a grapefruit seed, you wouldn’t bother in the first place. We must keep a sense of direction toward our goal. A traveler in Rome asked some­one, “If I go straight from here, how far is it to the Vati­can?” “Well,” was the reply, “if you keep straight on the way you are going, it is nearly 25,000 miles, but if you turn around and walk the other way, it is about a mile and a half.”

In the production of ideas there is a similarly straight road, a definite method, so clear that it may be called a technique. Whenever an idea is produced, this procedure is followed, knowingly or not. And this technique can be cultivated. It is the purpose of this book to show you both in theory and practical analysis, how to arrive at new ideas, together with specific methods for developing meaningful ideas quickly and at will.

The early portion of the book necessarily deals in part with the theories. But the major part of it concerns actual formulas, techniques and practical examples of how people have used them to produce the ideas that are more or less familiar to us now, and how you may use them to forward your own purposes.

The new frontiers of the coming age will not only be in the form of new worlds to conquer, but in the conquest of the world we know, as well. And this can be accomplished only by ideas. We stand upon the threshold of a new world of ideas. On the other side of the door can be a bright tomorrow.