The Ideas of Ditkoff

http://changethis.com/ 

Ditkoff’s article discusses 14 ways for someone to think of new ideas.  A lot of them involve taking a step back and looking at the situation from a different angle.  Sometimes when we become so focused on or so obsessed with something it is hard to see what is staring you right in the face, and the thing right in front of your eyes could be an earth shattering, culture changing, miraculously, incredible, brand spanking new idea.  Ditkoff also discusses that there are 2 different ways of thinking.  The business, “left brain” oriented people believe that “I think, therefore I am.”  Creative, “right brain” oriented people tend to believe more along the lines of “I am, therefore I think.”  He calls these two different approaches of thinking, Western and Eastern.

I concur with the majority of Ditkoff’s suggestions on way to get new ideas.  The three that I thought suck out the most to me, personally, are ideas number 1, 5 and 11.

Idea # 1 – “Follow your fascination”

            I believe that following what you find fascinating is a really good suggestion on how to come up with new ideas.  “Out of the thousands of ideas with the power to capture our imagination, the fascination felt for one of them is a clue that there’s something worthy of our engagement.” I especially liked this comment that Ditkoff made about how if some thing fascinates you there is probably a reason behind it all, so why not explore it and figure out why this fascination occurred?  I can incorporate this into my creative life by further investigating ideas, things, objects, people, art, opinions, and whatever else fascinates me.  While digging deeper into this fascination, new thoughts and ideas could result, which is, after all, the entire point.  Also with following my fascinations, I could learn a lot along the way.  This could help with developing new ideas in the future.

Idea # 5 – “Fantasize”

            Daydreaming isn’t only for children; it is a way for an individual of any age to come up with a revolutionizing new idea.  In Ditkoff’s words, “fantasizing is exactly how many breakthrough ideas get their start—by some maverick, flake, or dreamer entertaining the seemingly impossible.”  Fantasizing or daydreaming is something I do CONSTANTLY.  I dream about the future, what I will be doing, where I will be living, what will be going on the in the world around me.  I also fantasize about different movies that I would like to create one day.  I think of story lines, the dialogue and perhaps who will play the characters. It is almost as if I am seeing and playing the movie in my head.  When I think up something new I quickly open my eyes and jot it down and then quickly close my eyes to continue the thought.  Sometimes I use music to facilitate daydreaming.  As I listen to certain songs on my Ipod I close my eyes and picture a story line that could be occurring as this song plays in a future movie.  This is how I often think up the soundtracks for my “impending” films.  Fantasizing is an excellent way to conjure up new ideas.

Idea # 11 – “Brainstorm”

           

            “Two heads are always better than one,” is a philosophy everyone should apply to their thought process.  Brainstorming is a great strategy to come up with new ideas. Ditkoff believes that “ all you need to do is frame a meaningful question, invite the right people, and facilitate the process for helping your think tank riff creatively. If you are not the right person to facilitate, you probably know someone who is. Ask them.”  If someone gets stuck on something, and you are brainstorming, more times than not one of the other people there will be able to pull you out of the place where you’re trapped.  Brainstorming is something that I have recently learned to incorporate into my own life.  It is strategy used, probably most often in the field of work I wish to pursue.  When scripts and screenplays are being created there are often a handful of people in a room throwing ideas around, trying to figure out what will work and what will not.  During the 48 Hour Shoot-Out winter quarter, the team I was working with gathered around and brainstormed different scenarios and ideas to include in our script.  If one person had tried to accomplish this task alone, it probably would have taken hours, but due to the fact that we brainstormed we whipped that script out in record timing. 

I will be executing the prompts of Idea # 11 – “Look for Happy Accidents”

-          Prompt: What “failed experiment” or unexpected outcome might be interesting for you to reconsider? Who else might you invite to participate in this effort?

A “failed experiment” that might be interesting to reconsider is a script that I started my junior year of high school entitled “Heavy Metal Drummer.”  It was a movie based on and named after a song by the band Wilco.  I would invite my friends who are also Video Production/Media majors to help me with it since they have a background in film/movies and writing screenplays.  Together we could, perhaps, fix the film where is needs fixing and come up with a great story.