Where Ideas Come From

Talking About Ideas

How do we talk about ideas? With words and metaphors. And the precise words we use to talk about ideas affect how successful we are at innovation.
IDEAS IN SPACE

When do we employ a spatial metaphor in talking about ideas? Any time we use a word or phrase which implies discovery, distance or direction.
IDEAS ARE BORN

We plant the seeds of an idea. It sprouts, it hatches. An idea is born, grows up, evolves ... these are generative metaphors for ideation.
IDEAS ARE MADE

We build on other people's ideas, we plug one idea into another, one idea is more fundamental than another ... all these are constructive metaphors applied to ideation.
(BRAIN)STORMING

The relatively rare weather metaphor in ideation, suggesting the chaotic, even random, experience of ideation, involving both heat and light.

What Are Ideas?

What are ideas, really? This is a suspiciously basic inquiry, but despite the huge emphasis in the last decade on innovation, creativity, brainstorming, ideation, etc. there hasn’t been enough discussion of the fundamental nature of ideas.

The goal of this project is to look closely and deeply at how we talk about ideas as a way of helping us to work with and manage them. Part of the investigation is related to the metaphors we use to think about ideas. Is it a spatial metaphor? A generative metaphor (ideas are born, evolve, etc.)? A constructive metaphor (building ideas, shaping them, etc.)? The metaphors we use to describe ideas shape our conversations, tools, and processes.

Where Do They Come From?

“Where do they come from?” is another fundamental and closely related inquiry. There’s a tendency to focus on the psychology or neuroscience of ideation, which are both important. But the answers that come from this research don’t always relate to our direct experience of ideation.

In practice, philosophy may have just as much to contribute to how we think and talk about the process of ideation. The concern with the nature of ideas goes back to Plato and continues to the present.

How Do We (Get) Them?

All the customary ways you might phrase this question (How do we create ideas? How do we find them? How do we come up with them?) imply specific concepts for where ideas come from, demonstrating how strongly metaphors shape how we deal with ideas. Do we find them, or do we generate them? Or do we make them?

There are thousands of different approaches to ideation, creativity, and innovation out there, and all of them depend in part on a particular conception of what an idea is.

Talking About Ideas

IDEAS IN SPACE

IDEAS ARE BORN

IDEAS ARE MADE

(BRAIN)STORMING

What Are Ideas?

Where Do They Come From?

How Do We (Get) Them?