Ways to get Ideas

In Mitch Ditkoff's "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas" http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/49.06.14Ways he describes the many unique ways to come up with brilliant ideas. His fourteen ways of coming up with "breakthrough ideas" are creative and yet simple. They are everyday suggestions that everyone can use. He also includes ways to go about looking for that one breakthrough idea. Each idea is different and they can all contribute into helping someone come up with a new breakthrough idea. The whole article helps to relate some famous ideas and how the creator came up with them to the average joe and how he can come up with his own ideas. Following your fascination and immersing yourself in your work are his first two suggestions. Tolerating ambiguity and making new connections are his next two suggestions. Fantasizing and defining the right challenges follow new connections. Listening to your subconscious and taking a break are next. Noticing and challenging new patterns and trends and socializing with a diverse group of people are two other suggestions. Brainstorming and looking for happy accidents are two more of Ditkoffs suggestions. Using creative thinking techniques and suspending logic are his last two suggestions for ways to get breakthrough ideas.
 I think one of the more important suggestions is the seventh suggestion. Listen to your subconscious. This is really important and a good suggestion because your subconscious defines who you are and knows what your limits can be. If it is a truly impossible task, deep down your subconscious will realize it and you need to listen to it. Your subconscious is just like your instinct and can get you out of tough situations. Your subconscious will come through in the end and help you come up with that one breakthrough idea. Consciously you can only think of a number of ideas that mostly will make some sense. However on the subconcious level of your mind u can create amazing ideas that might not make sense to you at the time but as they move to the forward part of your brain you can begin to pick up on the idea and it will make more sense then.
 Ditkoffs second suggestion is also important in getting a breakthrough idea. Immersing yourself in what you want your idea to be can greatly increase your odds of coming up with the breakthrough idea. The more you put yourself out there and on the line of what you are trying to accomplish the more you have a chance of accomplishing it. Putting yourself in the mindset of complete immersion in the search for the breakthrough idea will more often come up with results than if you do not immerse yourself. As a wise man once said, knowing is only half the battle. The other half can come through hard work, which can be easier if you immerse yourself in your topic so that you will know all aspects of what you are trying to create.
Ditkoff's last but certainly not least suggestion is, in my opinion, the most important suggestion of the fourteen. Suspending logic can lead to unexpected and sometimes amazing results. Most if not all great inventions were created in this way. Over analyzing things in some cases can help but more often than not it can deter you from coming with a truly brilliant idea. If you just "go with the flow" and abandon all signs of logic you can often come up with a new and ingenious idea. This sort of ties into the idea of listening to your subconscious even if you do not understand it at first, later it will make sense.
 At the end of Ditkoff's first suggestion of following your fascination he challenges us to think of what idea captures our attention. He also asks the audience to honor this fascination and think about how we can honor it today. An idea that catches my attention is the idea of a video game that is just a total virtual reality game in which u go into a room and stand on a platform and some other version of you in a video game like world does what ever u do in that room. Players could fight against each other in a action type game without hurting each other. It could also offer physical activity in the form of a video game and thus still be fun. I am going to honor this fascination in the future by hopefully becoming a video game designer. I really want to push the boundaries of the video game world and move it out of the console stage. Don't get me wrong I love the console and have one myself but I think video games have too much potential to be stuck inside of a box. The wii and the xbox kinect have started to push the boundaries and I am really excited to see what the future holds and hopefully I will be able to come up with the necessary steps needed to help push this idea into reality.

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