{"product_id":"thinkertoys-isbn-9781580087735","title":"Thinkertoys","description":"\u003cb\u003eRethink the Way You Think\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn hindsight, every great idea seems obvious. But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas? \u003cbr\u003eIn this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking \u003ci\u003eThinkertoys\u003c\/i\u003e, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. Michalko’s techniques show you how to look at the same information as everyone else and see something different. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWith hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, \u003ci\u003eThinkertoys\u003c\/i\u003e will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.\u003cb\u003eContents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePreface to the New Edition    xi\u003cbr\u003eThe Barking Cat (Introduction)    xvii\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003einitiation    \u003c\/b\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eChapter One: Original Spin     3\u003cbr\u003eChapter Two: Mind Pumping     11\u003cbr\u003eChapter Three: Challenges     22\u003cbr\u003eChapter Four: Thinkertoys     35\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart One: Linear Thinkertoys\u003c\/b\u003e     41\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGroup A\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter Five: False Faces \u003ci\u003e(reversal)\u003c\/i\u003e     43\u003cbr\u003eChapter Six: Slice and Dice \u003ci\u003e(attribute listing)\u003c\/i\u003e     53\u003cbr\u003eChapter Seven: Cherry Split \u003ci\u003e(fractionation)\u003c\/i\u003e     60\u003cbr\u003eChapter Eight: Think Bubbles \u003ci\u003e(mind mapping)\u003c\/i\u003e     66\u003cbr\u003eChapter Nine: SCAMPER \u003ci\u003e(questions)\u003c\/i\u003e     72\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGroup B\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter Ten: Tug-of-War\u003ci\u003e (force-field analysis)\u003c\/i\u003e     111\u003cbr\u003eChapter Eleven: Idea Box \u003ci\u003e(morphological analysis)\u003c\/i\u003e     117\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twelve: Idea Grid \u003ci\u003e(FCB grid)\u003c\/i\u003e     126\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirteen: Lotus Blossom \u003ci\u003e(diagramming)\u003c\/i\u003e     132\u003cbr\u003eChapter Fourteen: Phoenix \u003ci\u003e(questions)\u003c\/i\u003e     137\u003cbr\u003eChapter Fifteen: The great Transpacific Airline and Storm Door Company \u003ci\u003e(matrix)\u003c\/i\u003e     144\u003cbr\u003eChapter Sixteen: Future Fruit \u003ci\u003e(future scenarios)\u003c\/i\u003e     150\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGroup C\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter Seventeen: Brutethink \u003ci\u003e(random stimulation)\u003c\/i\u003e     157\u003cbr\u003eChapter Eighteen: Hall of Fame \u003ci\u003e(forced connection)\u003c\/i\u003e     170\u003cbr\u003eChapter Nineteen: Circle of Opportunity \u003ci\u003e(forced connection)\u003c\/i\u003e     179\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty: Ideatoons \u003ci\u003e(pattern language)\u003c\/i\u003e     184\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-One: Clever Trevor \u003ci\u003e(talk to a stranger)\u003c\/i\u003e     190\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart Two: Intuitive Thinkertoys\u003c\/b\u003e    199\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Two: Chilling Out \u003ci\u003e(relaxation)\u003c\/i\u003e     203\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Three: Blue Roses \u003ci\u003e(intuition)\u003c\/i\u003e     210\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Four: The Three B’s \u003ci\u003e(incubation)\u003c\/i\u003e     218\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Five: rattlesnakes and Roses\u003ci\u003e (analogies)\u003c\/i\u003e     223\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Six: Stone Soup \u003ci\u003e(fantasy questions)\u003c\/i\u003e     239\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Seven: True and False \u003ci\u003e(janusian thinking)\u003c\/i\u003e    248\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Eight: Dreamscape \u003ci\u003e(dreams)\u003c\/i\u003e     256\u003cbr\u003eChapter Twenty-Nine: Da Vinci’s Technique \u003ci\u003e(drawing)\u003c\/i\u003e     261\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty: Dali’s Technique \u003ci\u003e(hypnogogic imagery) \u003c\/i\u003e    268\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-One: Not Kansas \u003ci\u003e(imagery)\u003c\/i\u003e     273\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Two: The Shadow \u003ci\u003e(psychosynthesis) \u003c\/i\u003e    281\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Three: The Book of the Dead \u003ci\u003e(hieroglyphics)\u003c\/i\u003e     287\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart Three: The Spirit of Koinonia\u003c\/b\u003e    293\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Four: Warming Up     299\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Five: Brainstorming    311\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Six: Orthodox Brainstorming    323\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Seven: Raw Creativity    341\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart Four: Endtoys\u003c\/b\u003e    363\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Eight: Murder Board     365\u003cbr\u003eChapter Thirty-Nine: You Are Not a Field of Grass    374\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIndex    381\u003cbr\u003eAbout the Author    395“Shows you how to expand your imagination.” \u003ci\u003e--Newsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A special find. Period.” \u003ci\u003e--Executive Edge\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A must-have book in any business setting.” \u003ci\u003e--Women in Business\u003c\/i\u003eMichael Michalko is one of the most highly acclaimed creativity experts in the world. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he organized a team of NATO intelligence specialists and international academics in Frankfurt, Germany, to research, collect, and categorize all known inventive-thinking methods. His team applied these methods to various NATO military, political, and economic problems and produced a variety of breakthrough ideas and creative solutions to new and old problems. After leaving military service, he was contracted by the CIA to facilitate think tanks using his creative-thinking techniques. He specializes in providing creativity workshops, seminars, and think tanks for clients who range from individuals to Fortune 500 companies.\u003cb\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE BARKING CAT\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhat would you think of someone who said, “I would like to have a cat, provided it barked”? The common desire to be creative, provided it’s something that can be easily willed or wished, is precisely equivalent. The thinking techniques that lead to creativity are no less rigid than the biological principles that determine the characteristics of cats. Creativity is not an accident, not something that is genetically determined. It is not a result of some easily learned magic trick or secret, but a consequence of your intention \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eto be creative and your determination to learn and use creative-thinking strategies.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe illustration below shows the word “FLOP,” which we all know and understand. Look at it again. Can you see anything else?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOnce we see the word “FLOP,” we tend to exclude all other possibilities, despite the strange shapes of the letters. Yet if you look at the “O” in flop, you can see a white “I.” Now if you read the white outlines as letters with the “I,” you will see the word “FLIP.” Flip-flop is the complete message. Once found, it seems so obvious that you wonder why you were, at first, blind to it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBy changing your perspective, you expand your possibilities until you see something that you were unable to see before. This is what you will experience when you use Thinkertoys. You will find yourself looking at the same information everyone else is looking at yet seeing something different. This new and different way of seeing things will lead you to new ideas and unique insights.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThinkertoys train you how to get ideas. They are specific hands-on techniques that enable you to come up with big or small ideas; ideas that make money, solve problems, beat the competition, and further your career; ideas for new products and new ways of doing things.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe techniques were selected for their practicality and range from the classic to the most modern. They are divided into linear techniques, which allow you to manipulate information in ways that will generate new ideas, and intuitive techniques, which show you how to find ideas by using your intuition and imagination.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA popular children’s puzzle shows six fishermen whose lines are tangled together to form a sort of maze. One of the lines has caught a fish; the problem is to find which fisherman it belongs to. You are supposed to do this by following each line through the maze, which may take up to six tries, depending on your luck. It is obviously easier to start at the other end and trace the line from the fish to the fisherman, as you have only one possible starting place, not six.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is how I researched and developed Thinkertoys. Instead of presenting a catalog of all known creative techniques and abandoning you to \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003epuzzle out which ones actually work, I started with the \u003ci\u003eideas\u003c\/i\u003e (fish) and worked backwards to each creator (fisherman). Then I identified the technique that caught the idea.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSome readers will feel that they profit more from the linear techniques and will discount the intuitive ones. Others will prefer the intuitive and discount the linear. You can produce ideas using both the linear and intuitive techniques, and should not limit yourself to one or the other--the more ideas you generate the better.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis book will change how you perceive your own creativity, while stripping creativity itself of its mystique. You will, perhaps for the first time, see endless possibilities stretching before you. You will learn how to:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Generate ideas at will.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Find new ways to make money.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Create new business opportunities.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Manipulate and modify ideas until you come up with the most innovative and powerful ideas possible.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Create new products, services, and processes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Improve old products, services, and processes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Develop solutions to complex business problems.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Revitalize markets.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     See problems as opportunities.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Become more productive.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Be the “idea person” in your organization.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Know where to look for the “breakthrough idea.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e•     Become indispensable to your organization.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThinkertoys do not \u003ci\u003erender\u003c\/i\u003e the creative experience, they suggest it. To illustrate, let us imagine me drawing a rabbit on a blackboard. You say “Yes, that’s a rabbit,” although in reality there is nothing on the blackboard but a simple chalk line. The rabbit appears because you have accepted my motion that the space within the line suggests a rabbit. The line limits the content by suggesting \u003ci\u003ea significant form.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI must stress that it is not enough to read the book--to create your own ideas, you have to use the techniques. Try to explain the joy of skiing to a bushman who has never left the desert. You can show him some skis and a picture of a snowy mountain, and perhaps get some of the idea across. However, to fully realize the concept of skiing our bushman must put on the skis and head down a mountain. If you merely read these techniques, you will have no more than a suggestion of how to get ideas. You’ll be like the bushman standing in the desert, staring at a pair of skis and a photo of the Matterhorn, with a small notion of what skiing might be.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEach Thinkertoy is a specific technique for getting ideas to solve your challenges. Each chapter contains a blueprint that gives precise instructions for using the technique and an explanation of why it works--including anecdotes, stories, and examples of how real heroes used each technique to produce ideas and breakthroughs. I call them heroes because they left behind a mark, a sign, an idea, an enterprise, a product, or a service that reminds us of their innovation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI also use illustrations, puzzles, charts, and hypothetical examples to demonstrate how various techniques work. Some of these hypothetical examples present usable ideas for new businesses, products, and services. These ideas are the gold beneath the river of words continually rushing past.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEach chapter begins with an inspirational quote from \u003ci\u003eThe Art of War\u003c\/i\u003e by the legendary master, Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu wrote his extraordinary book in China more than 2,400 years ago, but his principles are as applicable to \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ecreativity in business as in warfare. Long a classic for Japanese businesspeople, his book is now required reading at many leading international business schools. From Tokyo to Wall Street, business leaders quote and apply the principles of Sun Tzu.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis new edition contains new Thinkertoys “Lotus Blossom,” and “True and False,” updated examples, and an entirely new group-brainstorming section with several new techniques.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA friend of mine, Hank Zeller (an executive, entrepreneur, inventor, and poet), once described creativity this way: “When you realize that you just came up with an idea that betters anything that has been done, well, your hair stands up on end, you feel an incredible sense of awe; it’s almost as if you heard a whisper from God.”","brand":"Ten Speed Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300660596965,"sku":"NP9781580087735","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781580087735.jpg?v=1767742450","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/thinkertoys-isbn-9781580087735","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}