How to Have Creative Ideas: 62 games to develop the mind [Import] [Paperback]

Edward De Bono (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2008

Everybody wants to be creative. Creativity makes life more fun, more interesting and more full of achievement, but too many people believe that creativity is something you are born with and cannot be learned.

In How to Have Creative Ideas, Edward de Bono (the inventor of lateral and parallel thinking) has created 62 different games and exercises built around random words, to help encourage creativity and lateral thinking. For example, if the task were to come up with an idea for a new restaurant, and the random word chosen was “cloak,” ideas generated might be: a highwayman theme; a Venetian theme with gondolas; masked waiters. Or, if asked to make a connection between the two random words “desk” and “shorts,” readers might come up with: both are functional; desks have knee spaces and shorts expose the knees.

All the exercises are simple, practical and fun, and can be performed by anyone.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The master of creative thinking.”–Independent on Sunday

“[De Bono] is a one-man global industry whose work is gospel in government, universities, schools, corporations, and even prisons, all over the world.”–Times 2

“Simple, practical and great fun. Best of its kind.”–Management Today

About the Author

Dr. Edward de Bono is widely regarded as the leading authority in the direct teaching of creative thinking. He is the originator of the term “lateral thinking,” and his books have been translated into thirty-seven languages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vermilion (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 009191048X
• ISBN-13: 978-0091910488
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #865,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excercises to Sharpen Your Mind, September 12, 2007

By 

LaurenMarie (CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Have Creative Ideas: 62 games to develop the mind (Paperback)

The whole book, except for an introduction in the front, is comprised of 62 games (exercises) designed to help you learn to make connections where none appear on the surface. This is not a book you read through when you're bored. There is no story. There is no secret sage advice to implement within these pages. It does not provide ideas for that new logo design you just can't seem to figure out.

Some may be frustrated at the way the book is set up because they are looking for quick fixes for mental roadblocks for their artistic creativity. Don't approach How to Have Creative Ideas looking for answers or easy steps to follow to get your creative ideas. It's a bit of work, but it's fun and exciting to see the results!

I do highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to exercise their mind and expand their ability to think differently. I can see that it would be most useful to marketing people, entrepreneurs or anyone seeking to make their business serve their customers better.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 62 Ways to be creative, May 9, 2008

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Have Creative Ideas: 62 games to develop the mind (Paperback)

The brain is a self-organizing system and thus has evolved to use logic and linear reasoning as the basic mental instrument to form stable symmetric or rational patterns. This is done primarily in order better to deal with a stable universe. Doing so has for many eons been basic to human survival. However, over time it was discovered that asymmetric or novel, or counter-intuitive thinking, or "symmetry-breaking" or more accurately "pattern breaking forms of thought," proved to have even more survival value.

By definition creativity means to bring something new of value into being. de Bono believes that the brain is designed specifically "not to be creative," but to continue to form stable patterns for dealing with, and helping to make the universe more stable. Thus to him there is nothing at all innate about being creative. It is not an in born talent but a skill that must be learned, developed and then applied.

This book is his primer for teaching new creative habits of mind and generally for how to improve one's creative thinking abilities; and then for how to apply them to new situations. In difficulty, this book comes prior to his other book on "Lateral Thinking," and thus is an easy introduction to some of his most important more advanced thinking techniques.

Presented here are 62 exercises covering a wide range of areas from mind games, to mind exercises to, word games, general brainstorming, reverse sorting, and even random word and number associations, to humor, which in de Bono's way of thinking is the sine qua non of creativity.

Each exercise is designed to teach an important rudiment of what de Bono calls asymmetric thinking, which in his view is a key underlying percept of all creative thought. Like everything else, becoming good at creative thinking is a case of "practice makes perfect," and here with de Bono as the master tutor, one can feel his creative juices beginning to flow. This is one of de Bono's most accessible books. It is both very powerful and an easy introduction to his more advance teaching concepts, concepts that it has taken him a long time to perfect. Five stars.