Imagination
The first step towards your creative success

By Jonathan Halls

Creativity is the process of turning a new idea into reality. 

It might be something revolutionary.  The photocopier and motor car are good examples of ideas that revolutionized the way we work and live.  It may be a new way of doing something, such as a business or production process. 

It may also be a creative expression or piece of art such as a cinematic film, novel or website.

The ICE Creativity model is a three step model that helps you develop fresh new ideas for business, media or community into reality. 

The first stage is imagination, second is critique and the third execution.  For more details, read ICE Creativity Model.

The ‘Imagine’ Mindset

This section of the talkshowconfessions.com Creativity Portal is all about the first stage of ICE, imagination. 

We’re sharing techniques on this site that will help you unleash your imagination and help you dream up many ideas.

ICE Stage One involves developing the imaginative mindset.  It involves clearing your mind of preconceptions, value judgments and expectations. 

It requires your mind to foster curiosity, challenge, positive discontent, a belief that any problem can be solved, and suspend judgment and criticism.

Aim for as Many Ideas as Possible

The purpose of the Imagine stage of the ICE Creativity model is not to create one perfect idea but as many ideas as you can.  It’s about quantity, not quality. 

Don’t even think about whether your ideas are any good.  The law of averages guarantees we’ll generate good ideas if we’re aiming for quantity. 

The more ideas you generate, the more those ideas stimulate more ideas.  You may be pleasantly surprised.

Learn From Kids

The best group of people to learn creativity from is children.  Children make a habit of dreaming up all sorts of wild and whacky ideas that adults probably wouldn’t entertain in a second. 

Kids haven’t had the life experience adults have.  They are less cynical and don’t doubt new ideas.  They generally haven’t learnt a negative mindset that kills innovation with that cliché, “yes, but.”  They tend to ask, ‘let’s try.”

To be imaginative, you need to believe anything is possible.  And spend your time generating as many ideas as possible. 

So how can you unleash your imagination?  We’ve listed some of the techniques we use with people when we running workshops on creativity or helping organizations dream up new ways of doing things. 

Click on the highlighted techniques for details on how you can use these yourself.

Techniques to fire up your imagination

Copyright © 2006 Talkshow Communication Ltd and Licensors.  All Rights Reserved.
 

How to reprint these articles: the small print

Except where stated, the author, Jonathan Halls, owns the copyright to the articles published on this website, except where stated.  These articles are published in the spirit of helping you develop your creative skills.  You are welcome to reproduce these articles as long as a number of conditions are met.  These are:
 
1. Full authorship must be acknowledged with reference to this website, including a link. 
2. The context of comments, opinions and general layout of these articles must not be changed or distorted from the original. 
3. If the article is being used for a training course you are running or is distributed to more than five people, you must advise the author as a mandatory courtesy.  We like to know how these articles are being used and how they help people improve their communication. 
4. The article cannot be commercially reproduced for profit without prior permission granted by the author.