How to Sound Like You’ve Read: A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young

This is part of a series where I read books so that you don’t have to. Simply pick an opinion from the choice of four below and wheel it out in front of your colleagues to sound like you know what you’re talking about:

The layman says, “The book lays out a simple five-step process for creating ideas, but this can actually be boiled right down to two key steps: gathering stimulus and letting that stimulus gestate naturally. Ideas are not generated by sitting in a dark room and thinking really hard until you come up with something; they come from gathering insights about the brief and the wider world, then stepping away from the problem until an idea presents itself.” 

The academic says, “If there’s a single underlying thesis, it’s that the unconscious mind does the heavy lifting in creative thought. There is a fairly established precedent for this idea, going right back to the early thinkers in the field of psychology, including Wundt and Freud. There’s a body of modern-day research to support this as well; a 2017 study at Columbia University found that moments of inspiration (“piercing moments”) typically strike when enough relevant information has accumulated in the unconscious mind and a certain critical threshold is reached. Moreover, concentrated thinking was shown to undermine inspiration.”

The optimist says, “Unlike a lot of similar books promising access to the secrets of effective idea-generation, there actually is a genuine step-by-step process being laid out here. Creativity isn’t represented as a mysterious, implacable force; it’s just something that comes to us when we fuel ourselves with the right stimulus, and in the rush to generate ideas we often forget to give ourselves the raw material to work with. For anyone who struggles with idea generation, it’s comforting to be able to equip yourself something tangible.”

The contrarian says, “In practical terms, there isn’t actually that much of a technique on offer here. It essentially amounts to ‘read a lot, then go for a walk’. Does this technique really help under the pressurised conditions that planners and creatives often find themselves? The practical reality is that we often need to be able to generate ideas quickly, and we can’t always wait for a ‘eureka’ moment. The book also focuses on idea-generation as a singular pursuit; there’s no real thought as to how collaboration can play a role in this, which feels like a missed opportunity.”