Browse > Home / Books / A Technique for Producing Ideas - James Webb Young

A Technique for Producing Ideas - James Webb Young

August 11, 2007 · Print This Post Print This Post · Email This Post Email This Post


I attended the PDMA a couple weeks ago and Jim Perdiew was kind enough to pass out a couple books to the attendees. “A Technique for Producing Ideas” by James Webb Young was one of those books. It is a 40-50 page read that is very simple and insightful. It describes the steps one of the great advertising copy writing minds of our time used for producing his ideas. The book outlines 5 steps to producing ideas. They are:

  1. The Gathering of Materials - both the materials of your immediate problem and the materials which come from a constant enrichment of your store of general knowledge.
  2. Working Over the Materials - Simply thinking about all the materials you have gathered and how that relates to your general knowledge.
  3. Incubating Stage - This is what most of the world gets wrong. This is when you stop thinking about it all together. Go do something else that consumes your conscious thought and let your subconscious work it out. The underlying wisdom buried beneath your own personal thinking will deliver the answer when you least expect it. Just don’t think about it.
  4. The Birth of the Idea - The Eureka Moment!
  5. Final Shaping and Development - This the cold grey dawn of the morning after. This is when you take your fledgling idea out into the world of reality and learn maybe it wasn’t so marvelous. But stick with it, be patient and see if it grows. Many an idea is lost at this moment. Let others contibute and mold it. If it is truly a good idea it will resonate and begin to grow.

I have a copy in my office if anybody would like to learn more.

Last 5 posts by David

Written by David · Filed Under Books 

Comments

One Response to “A Technique for Producing Ideas - James Webb Young”

  1. Wade on August 13th, 2007 8:33 am

    Yes, yes, Incubate. Fester and Boil. Brew those thoughts. I do that a lot, I think. Hold on I’ll be right back.

Got something to say?

You must be logged in to post a comment.