Tl;dl: Freakonomics interviews people who got great ideas

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Freakonomics on good ideas

“368. Where Do Good Ideas Come From?” from Freakonomics Radio by Stitcher on Apple Podcasts

Discover the hidden side of everything with Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) – from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything.

Luck

Motion

Prepared mind

Distinctive action

Margaret Geller – feeling free. So an idea can come

  • structured the shortcut approach to a view
  • Used a new tech 
  • Had a new map of the cosmos

George Dyson – tried 5,127 times to improve the vacuum

  • Saw something badly designed
  • Saw a factory that had a good process for sucking out dust 
  • 5 years of tinkering and he got the vacuum

Christophe Nieman – combinatorial formula for freshness

  • Prompted with a topic like a headline
  • X suggests these symbols
  • Y suggests these symbols
  • Spin them together
  • Consider complications of X and Y as symbols
  • Try to combine them and another new direction is revealed

The cue –

  • Intrinsic motivation. Making for yourself. More creative. (Advertising people say their greater passion is for their art school passions, which advance more slowly though)
  • Extrinsic motivation. Making for a requirement. Less creative. But constraints help you ship. 

Michael Beirut – pentagram designer, an extrinsic motivation from clients. 

  • Chuck Close: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”
  • Work and be ready so when the assignment comes you can invent the solution. 

Ann Pasternak – Ex-CreativeTime, Brooklyn Museum

  • giving a commission:

Charlotte Niemuth – HBS Prof on designing a creative team

  • Size is 5. Not more than 7
  • Start by discussion in group of problem
  • Then separate individual proposal development
  • Then bring back together
  • Team emergent phenomena
  • Brainstorming: the key to brainstorming is shutting down dissent said originator Osborne; permitting criticism/debate caused better more creative sessions in experiments or in juries. Less debate = less quality of investigation. Even when the dissenter is wrong; it’s important because it challenges your thinking. 
  • Eg Troublemakers help

Ai Wei Wei – troublemaking

  • his family style 
  • Had little to say on where his ideas come from

Jorinde Voigt – Berlin artist

  • subconscious

Maira Kalman 

  • what you feel in your gut
  • my own feelings, subconscious 

Conan O’Brien

  • responding to a good idea, improvisation
  • Travel

Roseanne Cash

  • Museums

Jennifer Egan – 

  • responding to other work
  • Non-repetition 
  • People watching at baseball games

Saul Perlmutter – find mind-boggling stuff. Being boggled.