http://changethis.com/
Link to 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas
Mitch Ditkoff wrote a book Awake At the Wheel. This book is about how everyone has ideas but people just need to learn how to channel their creativity to think of great ideas. Every idea can bring something to the table. If the idea is good at the start then it is easy to go with. If the idea is bad then you can build off of it or learn from it. One of the biggest points Mitch Ditkoff says is that just because your idea does not work doesn’t mean it is bad, It just means switch it up and try something similar but change it. I recently read an excerpt from the book entitled "14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas" that you can read at the link above. This section of his book generally outlines how to explore every idea you receive. No idea is dumb or simple. Every idea that you come across can be manipulated into something BIG. In Mitch’s first few ways to get breakthrough ideas he really focuses on thinking about things that you enjoy and branch off from those ideas. For example, in his first two main ideas “1. Follow Your Fascination” and “2. Immerse”. These ideas are simple. Don’t try and write a story about a baker in New York City if you don’t know the first thing about baking or New York! I am obsessed with filmmaking and all my ideas I generate are used directly for filmmaking. I believe that Ditkoff is right about a lot of his statements he makes. I don’t believe that Ditkoff is a creative genius constructing these 14 ideas, but all of his points are pretty on point.
The next point that really stuck out to me was “3. Tolerating Ambiguity”. This idea was that most great ideas start from a small idea and are modeled into something wonderful. If you try to think of a great idea you will not, but if you try to think of something that could actually work then slowly tweak the idea to blossom into something more elaborate.
The only point that Mitch states that I did not like was, “12. Look for Happy Accidents”. I did not like this point because if I was generating ideas and I had an accident good is not always going to come of it. Also, “happy accidents” do not happen often and if you look for them while attempting to be creative then they will happen even less often. I do understand what he means by when something bad happens try to reshape the misfortune to a positive outcome.
I really feel that Mitch Ditkoff’s "14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas" underlining theme is that think positively with every idea you have. Write down every idea you ever think of and If your thinking positively and productively you can spin every idea small or simple and turn it into something very useful.
3.What new idea of yours is bubbling on the brink of breakthrough? In what ways can you stay
with it, even if something in you is impatient for a breakthrough?
The third prompt “Tolerating Ambiguity” really made me think about an idea I have had brewing in my head lately. I had a dream a few weeks ago that I can not even remember now, but it sparked this movie idea of an awkward male college student that wears velcro shoes. I do not know if I can use this idea for a short 1-2 minutes film in my Film Techniques class where we use 8mm film, or I can develop this idea into something bigger that I can try and make in the future. At the moment my idea sounds very boring and simple, I can not remember the rest of it. I found out telling yourself to remember your dreams before you fall asleep helps you remember them, and of course writing dreams down right when you wake up helps as well. I really like the Velcro shoes idea for a movie character because it immediately separates the character from the rest of the world. Nearly everyone knows how to tie there shoes and I thought a twenty year old intelligent college student who does not tie his shoes would some how build a great story around it. I’m impatient about this because I could be very wrong. Velcro shoes? Really? It’s a very simple idea but I guess I just have to work harder on the concept.
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