
Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?” (1959) - xtacy
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531911/isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/
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jhallenworld
I used to work at IBM, which used to have "Think Fridays"\- you were supposed
to use Friday afternoons for creative purposes.

Patents at IBM are very easy to submit and the process is somewhat like a
game: basically you fill out a web form with the idea, which triggers a
process to vet the idea and eventually get the patent written and filed if
it's good. You get a small bonus for each accepted patent (and another after
filing I think). You get a larger bonus after your first patent and after
every fourth patent (called a plateau). You get a nice plaque for each
plateau.

I have eight patents from this system, but there are IBMers who use it to
enhance their income and have 100s of patents (they have a large stack of
plaques). They have the discipline to use every Think Friday to come up with
and submit a new idea- maybe one out of three will make it all the way through
and be filed. Some form brainstorming groups. They often pay attention to new
technologies and get ideas from how they could be used as components. Many
ideas come from the interaction of components. (Many of mine are from
hardware/software interfaces).

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GFischer
IBM's is a sad example of how the patent process is abused (although I guess I
should blame the game, not the players).

If said patents were filed and shelved for some time, they should hold no
validity in court afterwards.

Edit: that said, it is interesting how they came up with said patentable ideas
:) , and it does fit with what Asimov said about the intersection of
components, and daring being encouraged (at IBM, take note!).

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jacobolus
> _If said patents were filed and shelved for some time, they should hold no
> validity in court afterwards._

That’s how it works right now. The “some time” is 20 years after the filing
date.

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GFischer
Yes, you're right :) . I was thinking of a drastically shorter timeframe in
case of non-enforced patents, and maybe to be determined by a judge or jury.
Say a few years at most, or maybe varying according to the field (doesn't make
the same sense for tech advancements to be accorded the same length of
protection than medical ones, say.).

Still, much wiser heads have written lots about this :)

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ianai
I don't think the law can differentiate between medical/technical/etc patents
to that fine a degree.

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nappy
Thanks for sharing this. I read this around when it came out, but giving it a
second read has helped clarify some of my thinking.

Something I find helpful is to have sessions where the goal is to come up with
the _worst idea_ you can about a specific topic or problem. This can be for
both fun or profit. The key benefit of this is really opening up the field for
a free and open discussuion. When a friend and I did this recently (for fun,
not profit) and asked ourselves what is the worst "uber for x" we could
imagine, we came up with Stork: an app that matches children as they are born
with optimal parents, exchanging newly-born babies if the naive approach,
having your own kid, would be bad match based on measurable variables. This is
an awful, awful idea. But is it the seed of something interesting in adoption,
babysitting, matching children to the right school, helping small children who
have difficulty making friends find them? Maybe.

I thing good ideas rarely become great ideas, whereas great ideas frequently
have some seed of initially being horrible ideas contained within them, e.g.
en app that lets you sleep in strangers' homes on air mattresses, sending dvds
via usps in paper envelopes, etc.

Something else I frequently do is preface a wild idea with "This is a horrible
idea, but: " which I find helps lead to an open discussion, without people
feeling challenged, or overly seriously approaching a conversation that is
meant to be open. It can help signal that you want their thoughts and
comments, and aren't explicitly issuing a challenge, trying to have a debate,
or making a statement you already believe to be true and they might feel
obliged to disprove.

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cableshaft
So I write humorous stories and design games in my spare time. While writing
one story a couple of months ago I tried coming up with the most boring ideas
for games I could think of to add to the story, because at that point having a
few dumb games in the scene would be funny.

One of the three "bad ideas" I came up with was basically just putting
numbered cards in order. But apparently my brain isn't content to just leave
it at that, and it started whirring, and thought of a bidding system to add to
it...and now it actually sounds interesting and I made some cards and some
chips and I'm planning to playtest it with a couple of friends tonight.

Oops. It was supposed to be a terrible game, but it might actually turn out to
be fun.

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nappy
Sounds fun, would love to give it a try.

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cableshaft
Playtest went extremely well. My friend is going to playtest one of his
designs with a well-known designer in a few weeks and suggested I tag along.
If he likes it, it might get published pretty quick. If not, I've got a
meeting with a publisher in a few months, and I'll show it to them then.

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aethos
>But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must
be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in
general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is
particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The
individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others wont object.

Absolutely true. Brainstorming only works if anything goes.

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Pica_soO
Truer Words were never spoken.

What particularly annoys is also that every idea must have a creation story,
aka a logical explanation how it came to be in a logical,incremental,
analytical step by step way. Even if it never was born this way.

I guess, "I stuffed strange stuff and books into my brain- and one sunny day
my sub-conscious gave birth to this. It can invent a how-its-made-story too,
if you need that." scares a lot of people, because the process cant be
learned, not be controlled, not refined or quantified.

~~~
halspero
Agreed. The process is spontaneous and natural. But it can be _and usually is_
damaged, that is confined to smaller and smaller areas of one's life or
worldview.

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JoeCortopassi
If you work at or are otherwise involved in a startup, here is your key
takeaway: _cross connections between fields is fundamental to creativity_. If
you eat, breathe, and sleep software, you will only look at your problem space
from the perspective of a software engineer. Startups already nail pre-
requisites like informality, permissiveness, and relaxation

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rasur
It's not unknown for the ingestion of chemicals to "help" with this,
especially on the 'making cross-connections' front.

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wfo
Also people tend to use certain substances to lower inhibitions, to generate
an environment where creativity is allowed and enjoyed and stupid mistakes can
be laughed off later -- if you say something dumb then tomorrow you can all
laugh because it's not that you're dumb, it's the substance talking.

It felt like Asimov spent the whole essay just at the brink of suggesting they
open bottles of wine at these sessions without quite saying it.

But you don't need much for this effect (even a placebo would likely do) and
too much tends to be detrimental.

Certain deeply creative fields really lend themselves to this sort of 'help'
be it from alcohol or the more mild drugs like marijuana or hallucinogens for
whatever unexplained reason -- music, comedy, writing, art. It's not unheard
of even in those fields which are a little more technical, though it's much
less common, though there are some very vocal well-respected examples. Jobs
and Sagan to name a few are really the poster children for this sort of
'enhanced-creativity'.

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johnsmith21006
Love the article but disagree on a couple points. First, the ideal is two
where both are creative as they work off each other. You can NOT do the
creative part with non creative it is too hard. Tons of miss understandings.
If they talk about the session they will explain wrong and cause a lot of
angst in the group, division, company, etc. Or explain but not provide the
reasons as they might not understand the bigger picture.

A huge issue is if the creative person is not the boss or have very strong
Influence it is very difficult to get a non creative on board.

With that said I really enjoyed the article. Plus would not be surprised if
others disagree with me based on their own experiences. Think parts could be
very individual and dependent on external factors.

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nappy
I think there is some responsibility on the part of the "non-creative" here.
It's very important to communicate when you are challenging someone directly
and believe something to be true vs. throwing around ideas for comments and to
generate new ideas. When a key business decision is being made, points of
disagreement are exactly that, something to be debated and decision to be
made. For someone who is less creative, it's easy to see everything this way.
For a creative trying to come up with ideas and have a discussion,
communicating clearly and upfront the purpose of your thoughts can go a long
way. "I think we should..." frames a conversation very differently than "Hey,
this is is a little crazy, but what would happen if..."

Also, I don't think the world is cleanly split into "non-creative" and
"creative", but completely accept this simplification for brevity here :)

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samuelathlan
Actually, ideas often comes up when you do not seek them, during sleep, while
driving, while meditate (although meditation is meant to help us managing our
brains and thoughts), etc...

I tend to create into my calendar all these spaces to allow me to think about
new ideas and to always have a pen or an iPhone to note everything I think
about!

Individuals and Groups create value, make sure you create your value from your
side.

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babyrainbow
>My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required.

And it isn't too hard to imagine, in this age of perpetual connectivity and
distractions and mandatory use of a mobile phone (by social pressure),
creativity has dwindled to almost nothing...

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Balgair
His suggestions at the end for how to structure such a thing are glaringly
similar to DnD. This is maybe why DnD remains so popular yet small and
intimate.

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dest
Could you please expand "DnD"? It is not obvious to me

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yojex
Dungeons and Dragons

