Zig Zag

With the prevalence of computer technology and outsourcing, new jobs and fulfilling lives will rely heavily on creativity and innovation. Keith Sawyer draws from his expansive research of the creative journey, exceptional creators, creative abilities, and world-changing innovations to create an accessible, eight-step program to increasing anyone's creative potential. Sawyer reveals the surprising secrets of highly creative people (such as learning to ask better questions when faced with a problem), demonstrates how to come up with better ideas, and explains how to carry those ideas to fruition most effectively.

This science-backed, step-by step method can maximize our creative potential in any sphere of life.

• Offers a proven method for developing new ideas and creative problem-solving no matter what your profession
• Includes an eight-step method, 30 practices, and more than 100 techniques that can be launched at any point in a creative journey
• Psychologist, jazz pianist, and author Keith Sawyer studied with world-famous creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Sawyer's book offers a wealth of easy to apply strategies and ideas for anyone who wants to tap into their creative power.

Introduction: Choosing Creativity 1

Step One ASK: How the Right Questions Lead to the Most Novel Answers 19

Find the Question

Search the Space

Transform the Problem

Step Two LEARN: How to Prepare Your Mind for Constant Creativity 49

Practice Deliberately

Master Your Domain

Learn Forever

Balance Specialty with Generality

Step Three LOOK: How to Be Aware of the Answers All Around You 73

Use Fresh Eyes

Grab New Sights and Cool Sounds

Render It Visible

Step Four PLAY: How to Free Your Mind to Imagine Possible Worlds 101

Visualize

Relax

Find the Right Box

Be a Beginner

Step Five THINK: How to Have Way More Ideas Than You’ll Ever Need 129

Ideate

Transform

Schedule

Step Six FUSE: How to Combine Ideas in Surprising New Ways 153

Force-Fuse

Make Analogies

Do a People Mash-Up

Step Seven CHOOSE: How to Pick the Best Ideas and Then Make Them Even Better 173

Know What You’re Looking For

Host an Idea Competition

Look Past the Good

Edit, Revise, Improve

Step Eight MAKE: How Getting Your Ideas Out into the World Drives Creativity Forward 195

Draw It

See It

Build It

Make It Concrete

Reflect on It

Conclusion 215

Appendix A: Outline of All of the Steps, Practices, and Techniques 229

Appendix B: The Research Behind the Eight Steps 237

References 243

Acknowledgments 261

About the Author 263

Index 265

Keith Sawyer, PhD, is associate professor of psychology, education, and business at Washington University in St. Louis. An accomplished jazz pianist and former video game designer for Atari, he has published widely on the topics of collaboration and creativity. His book Group Genius won awards from Library Journal and (800) CEO-READ and has been translated into many languages. He is the proud owner of a collection of vintage Grateful Dead bootleg tapes, his childhood piano teacher’s old (but working) accordion, and a 1982 BMW motorcycle (also working). To learn more, visit keithsawyer.com.

The cover shows a surprising solution to a classic creativity challenge. See page 123 to learn more.

Can you be more creative? Absolutely, and Zig Zag shows you how. Dr. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist, professor, jazz pianist, and former video game designer, is one of the world’s leading experts on creativity. To develop his accessible eight-step creativity program, Sawyer explored the lives of exceptional creators, tapped into the back stories of world-changing innovations, and analyzed laboratory experiments that delved deeply into the everyday creativity that all of us share. He discovered many surprising secrets of highly creative people—how they question assumptions when presented with new problems, how they get beyond creative blocks, and above all, how they negotiate the many twists and turns along the way.

Zig Zag draws on these secrets to provide an eight-step program that will help you achieve greater creativity—whether you’re looking for new ways to excel at your job, build a fulfilling career, develop a more deeply satisfying personal life, find fresh, clever, permanent solutions to nagging problems, make better decisions, bring about change in your community, and more.

Zig Zag provides an unprecedented collection of more than one hundred practical, hands-on activities that will keep you moving down the creative path. These research-based techniques help you ask deeper questions, see the world in new ways, and develop novel ideas. Zig Zag is your guidebook to the surprising, unpredictable, and fascinating journey that leads to greater creativity.