In the end it all comes down to the idea. Obviously there is no single “idea”. Didn’t Plato say that we don’t invent anything new, just remember what we’ve forgotten? James Webb Young has identified in the classic publication: “A technique for producing ideas” the various parts that an idea-person will need to go through to be able to come up with great ideas. And remembering “forgotten ideas” is one of them. An idea will come from having a ” vast library” of images, texts, experiences in ones mind and being able to connect these with the issues at hand. I have written earlier on this blog about seeing it. James Young describes this very graphically as before there is the idea it feels like one is on a vast ocean, while all of a sudden an island pops up. Sailing on the vastness of a homogenic blueness, the island appears, but it has a foundation on which it is based.

Analogous the idea must have a foundation as well, and this can be a combination of hard facts as well as semingly unrelated elements or disciplines. While studying architecture, I hardly read any books on “architecture”, but was more interested in books on geography, or psychology. Multi and cross disciplinary studies are the thing for producing ideas, stepping out, over borders, having no respect for limitations, undulging in imitations and healthy plagiarism is what we need if we want to come up with ideas. Tom Peters is urging for companies to take on designers on their boards, my arguement is to create a mix of disciplines and backgrounds in any team or board. Don’t forget that Darwin was a geographer by training and stumbled into biology to formulate evolution theory and Einstein was a third class engineer. The future is to the Jack of all trades who can bring in unusual perspectives and thus great ideas.