I’ve spent most of my working life in one aspect or another of marketing and/or communications. One of the more interesting challenges in the profession is finding fresh thinking and a different perspective for each new mission.
No matter how we try to separate ourselves from what we’ve experienced before on a given subject or theme, it is seemingly impossible to free ourselves from what’s gone on before. The goal, of course, is to approach a challenge without being encumbered by the past so that creativity and free expression will emerge.
Thinking “outside the rut” is extremely difficult. Right out of college I was of the opinion that creativity was a gift enjoyed by only a few (who usually ended up in advertising). But what I learned from a short, 50-page book I read about 40 years ago, has many times bailed me out at crunch time.
The book was titled A Technique For Producing Ideas, and the author was James Webb Young, one of the premier, if not the greatest, copy writers ever for the famous J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.
If I’m correct in what I remember from back then, his concept was simple. Pour everything you know about the “problem” into your brain for a concentrated period of time. It could be hours or days of focused thinking at the conscious level.
Then totally forget about it for a day or two and let your subconscious “solve” the dilemma. What is absolutely amazing is that when you go back to the “problem” several days later, more often than not, you can come up with a fresh, interesting perspective.
I’ve used the technique time and time again through the years for employers, clients and in my own personal experience. My assumption is that what the conscious mind cannot do (get free from past “ruts”), the subconscious mind is able to accomplish in an unfettered way.
Got a challenge before you? Do the hard work of concentration well, and then let your subliminal circuits lead you toward a possible solution.
2 comments:
So I realized I totally do this. Mondays I read and think and write about the upcoming message, we talk about it in our worship planning meeting, and then it sits. Wednesday, usually a trip to the library, read some commentaries, let it sit. Fridays, after it's percolated, I write.
I didn't remember you ever talking about this book, but it must have got in me by osmosis.
I may have never mentioned the book, per se, but I'm almost sure I would have talked about the concept at one time or another. You may have "subliminally" picked it up. If not, you're telepathic (which I have sort of always believed anyway). Can you hear the theme from "Twilight Zone"?
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