{"id":4760,"date":"2010-12-06T07:46:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T12:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=4760"},"modified":"2024-11-26T15:38:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T20:38:50","slug":"imagination-the-spark-that-ignites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/12\/06\/imagination-the-spark-that-ignites\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagination – The Spark That Ignites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s a different sort of post – written in two parts for the left-brain and the right-brain. I think my point is made equally well in both! See which of the two parts appeals most to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Left Brain Post<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1983 a book was published that still has a huge influence on me today: A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative<\/a><\/em>\"\". I was in my first job after graduating in 1980, working at the Canadian Industrial Innovation Centre at the University of Waterloo. I think that I had a reasonably good mind at the time, but\u00a0this book helped me realize that it worked in a thoroughly\u00a0logical and linear manner. I was dealing with people who were highly creative and who came up with things that\u00a0involved what we\u00a0call today lateral thinking<\/em>. Somehow they could break out of the paradigms in which logic and natural progression reign and which normally produce incrementalism rather than breakthroughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incrementalism is great. In fact, in the absence of a breakthrough, there is nothing better! Incrementalism is a low risk way of moving forward. But it definitely limits opportunity to just a miniscule part of what it could be. The full range of opportunity goes instead to those who think differently, because the way they think creates opportunity rather than waiting for opportunity to present itself. They use imagination as the spark to ignite creative thinking, open up new opportunities, and expand their potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens more or less naturally for right-brain thinkers can be developed systematically by left-brain thinkers. Here are some core strategies for stimulating imagination and creative thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n