What questions are people asking?
What is a brilliant or creative idea?
An idea is the solution to a problem. A creative idea is a solution that’s new and useful. A brilliant one is a really, really creative one, one that’s better than any other solution. The “how” you define a problem , it follows, is the foundation of all creative thought. Human beings are problem solvers -- that’s why we’re so creative and why we dominate the planet. In his book, Dave explains, that new solutions are merely combinations of existing solutions.
Are all creative ideas borrowed?
Yes, because the materials used to construct an idea are other ideas. You can’t make something out of nothing and so when it comes to new ideas you have to make them out of existing ones. It’s a law of intellectual physics. However, how you connect and combine the borrowed materials will determine the originality of an idea. You adjust the things that you borrow. For example, you could borrow the idea for a golf club from an existing club, but then make the sweet spot bigger and so come up with a new idea for a golf club (this is what Calloway did with the Big Bertha driver in the 1990’s). And you can borrow from an observation of something physical and use it to make something conceptual.
It can’t be that simple, can it?
The concept of creativity is very simple. The material for a new idea is borrowed from an existing idea, and then adjusted to better solve whatever problem the thinker is trying to solve. However, the application of creativity can be quite complex. What materials do I borrow? Where do I find them? How do I combine them? How do I arrange them? These questions, and others, are answered in the book, but coming up with new ideas isn’t easy. It takes practice and patience. At the end of the day it’s a trial and error process. New ideas are made out of existing ideas – that’s simple to understand – but which ideas do you borrow – that’s difficult to answer. Just because you know how a magician performs a trick doesn’t mean you can do it. But it’s no longer a mystery, right?
What makes one idea better than another?
Since an idea is the solution to a problem, the idea that better solves the problem is the better idea. This is why the problem definition is so important. Not only will it determine how you build the idea, it will determine the quality of the idea.
How do you borrow brilliance?
First you define your problem. Then you look for places with a similar problem and ask yourself: How did they solve it? For example, if you’re designing a new software program and identify “navigation” as a problem, then ask yourself: Who else has a navigation problem? You’ll answer: other software designers, web designers, sailors, pilots, truck drivers, explorers, and rats caught in a maze. Then you’ll look to see how each of these people solves the problem. Therein lies the key to Borrowing Brilliance. Use the problem as a map to look for the solutions. If you’re a businessman and borrow from a competitor, it’s considered stealing, if you borrow from outside of business, from science or art, then it’s considered brilliant. The place you borrow from will determine the creative perception of the new idea.
Where did the first idea come from?
According to scientific philosopher Karl Popper, all knowledge begins from an observation. This is probably true. The first humans made observations, like a rock rolling down a hill, and used that to construct the idea for the first wheel. Even today, some of the best ideas are “borrowed” from observations, but surprisingly, most creative ideas are constructed with the simple intellectual gymnastics of borrowing and combining existing ideas.
If your theory is true, then why is creativity so difficult?
Creativity is simple in concept but incredibly difficult and daunting in practice. Figuring out what to borrow and combine can drive one insane. Four independent variables combine into millions of permutations. Since your mind is filled with millions of ideas that can potentially combine with millions of others, the possible number of permutations is incomprehensible. This is what makes it so difficult. In the book, though, Dave gives you different techniques to help aid you in the search, but he admits that it’s still very difficult. He only takes the mystery out of it.
Why don’t creative people admit to borrowing brilliance?
Two reasons. The first is because society puts economic value on an idea and so no one wants to admit to borrowing. “The secret to creativity,” Einstein said, “is knowing how to hide your sources.” We’re told not to plagiarize, that it’s the opposite of creativity, when in fact there’s a fine line between the two. Borrowing is at the core of creativity. We’ve developed legal devices to protect the thinker, things like copyrights, trademarks, and patents. But these only confuse the thinker and make us hide our sources. The second reason is that creative people use the subconscious mind to construct ideas and so the ideas appear to them, as Stephen King says, “out of a clear blue sky.” However, the subconscious mind has been busy, in the shadows, borrowing and combining, so when it presents the idea to you, in an “aha” moment, you don’t see the borrowings and combinings, the idea appears to be completely new and original.
Why do you say ideas are evolutionary?
It’s the way the mind works. It’s the way all biological systems create. Two or more things combine to make a new thing. It’s true for species and it’s true for ideas, after all, they’re biological in origin, too. The human mind is a complex biological organism, a new thought is when two or more existing nerve cells are connected and combined and wired together. One idea is built out of another idea. In business, you can see it in the evolution of a product or product category. The telegraph evolved into the gramophone, the gramophone into the phonograph, the phonograph into the magnetic tape recorder, the tape recorder into the Sony Walkman, and the Walkman into the iPod. You can trace the ancestry of any idea like this just as Darwin traced the ancestry of different species.
Where did Dave borrow the idea for this website from?
First he went to the sites of some of his favorite authors. He looked at the Heath brothers site www.madetostick.com and got some ideas for overall structure and layout. He looked at Laura Reis’s site and how she effectively used video’s to present herself and her ideas at www.ries.com. He liked the way the authors of Freakonomics made their site look very similar to their book, so he borrowed ideas from www.freakonomics.com, too. Then he went to the site www.hulu.com which is a new site that shows streaming television and movies and borrowed how they present these videos to the user. These and other things were combined and put together by his designer, Chris LaValle at www.dacapoco.com. First they borrowed from Dave’s competitors (other authors) then they borrowed from farther away places, like a site offering streaming video. Chris took all these ideas, combined them, adjusted them, and turned into something new and different. They used the ideas from the book to construct the site.
Are there any, truly, original ideas?
It depends upon how you define “original”. Before the Italian Renaissance of the 14th century there was no concept of “originality”. Creativity was thought to be a collaborative effort, one artist copied another artist and was expected to make improvements on the copy by combining and adjusting the existing idea. No one signed their work, the artist wasn’t important, only the creation. However, when the free market started to put a “price” on work from certain artists this caused them to start signing and protecting their creations. Copying became a bad thing. This drove the creative process, Dave says, into the shadows, laying a fog of misunderstanding over it. Soon, concepts like trademarks, plagiarism, copyrights, and patents arose … and with them the concept of “originality”. Therefore, originality is a concept born of economics, not creativity. You can learn more about this in Dave’s book and how to tap into the true nature of creative thought.
Why is defining a problem so important?
Everything in the creative process is based upon the definition of a problem. It’s the foundation upon which all ideas are constructed. An ill-conceived problem leads to an ill-conceived solution. The problem determines the materials you gather to solve it. The problem structures the solution by combining things with a similar metaphor. And the problem determines the criteria upon which you judge and evolve the idea. Get it wrong and everything else you do is done in vain. So, you need to periodically return to the first step of Borrowing Brilliance and reconsider the problem. Are you solving the right one? Without a clear understanding of the problem your ideas will be trivial, at best.
Why is the world so complex?
If Dave’s hypothesis is true, if creativity is the result of a combination of existing materials, then you’d expect, over time, for ideas, concepts, things, and our entire world to become more and more complex as a result of the creative process. Of course, this is exactly what you find as you examine the history and evolution of ideas, concepts, things, and the world itself. It’s a world that’s becoming more and more complicated, just as all organic species become more complex over the eons as a result of their own evolution. While Leonardo da Vinci is admired because he mastered many different subjects, the world he lived in and the subjects he studied were not as complex as they are today. In the fifteenth century, he could read a few dozen books on mathematics and understand most of what there was to be understood. Today, it’s impossible for anyone to read all the math books in the world, there are millions of them. To master a subject now a person has to specialize in a specific branch of mathematics, like advanced algorithmic analytical geometry. Of course, this leaves little time to study engineering, botany, medicine, and architecture. Sadly, there will never be another da Vinci, another Renaissance man, not because people are not as smart but because the world is just too complicated for someone to master and contribute to multiple subjects.
I’ve come up with an original before, I didn’t borrow it, so that blows your theory, right?
No. I’d examine your idea more closely. You’ll find that it is a combination of existing ideas and that you developed it in the shadows of your subconscious mind and so not aware of the evolution of it. The subconscious is the womb, where ideas are conceived, away from the harsh light of conscious thinking. Inside, thoughts mingle and procreate by combining with each other and making new ideas in the process. However, when they appear to you it’s hard to determine their ancestry, the ideas your subconscious used for conception.