by James L. Adams
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Product Description
James Adams's unique approach to generating ideas and solving problems has captivated, inspired, and guided thousands of people from all walks of life. Now, twenty-five years after its original publication, Conceptual Blockbusting has never been more relevant, powerful, or fresh. Integrating insights from the worlds of psychology, engineering, management, art, and philosophy, Adams identifies the key blocks (perceptual, emotional, cultural, environmental, intellectual, and expressive) that prevent us from realizing the full potential of our fertile minds. Employing unconventional exercises and other interactive elements, Adams shows individuals, teams, and organizations how to overcome these blocks, embrace alternative ways of thinking about complex problems, and celebrate the joy of creativity. With new examples and contemporary references, Conceptual Blockbusting is guaranteed to introduce a new generation of readers to a world of new possibilities.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Know what Keeps you from Being Creative, 2008-01-23
This book approaches from a different prespective the question of how a person or an organization can become more creative. Most creativity books give you techniques that will trigger creative ideas - brainstorming, picture prompts, role playing. These are all good techniques, but Adams addresses creativity by answering the question: What are the factors (conceptual blocks) that keep us from being creative in the first place? Knowing these factors - cultural or professional bias, fear of looking silly - for example, allows us to move beyond them. To my mind, this knowledge and the use of creativity techniques are a one-two punch that gets you creative results. The book does have its share of creativity techniques, but the most important knowledge to walk away with is the knowledge of those things that hinder our creativity. Edward de Bono, another creativity guru, also explores on the reasons why people's creativity is stifled, but his approach is somewhat narrower, focusing more on the default mechanism of the mind that tends to focus on pattern recognition and therefore on pursuing the routine rather than the different (see Mechanism of Mind and Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step (Perennial Library). Adams' book, in contrast, is more comprehensive in dealing with the various conceptual blocks. If you want to be more creative, I highly recommend this book as a starting point or as a close companion to other books that have creativity techniques and exercises.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Cultivate Your Thinking!, 2007-03-16
My dad gave me a copy of this book for Christmas in 1978 when I was a junior in college. I enjoyed reading it then, and I've read it numerous times since. I can say now with some length of perspective that in my opinion it's a definitive classic on this topic and I'd say it is probably the most influential single book in my engineering career. It's enabled me to think of things of that no one else does, and more often than not it's because of ideas I picked up here. The solutions are enduring too. The nine-dot problem, the ping-pong ball in the tube, the spacecraft panels opening without a damper are examples I think back to when faced with technical challenges that have no apparent easy answer.
I cringe inside when people want and push for systematic and methodical ways to solve problems. It's almost a religon to some that the pretense of an imagined rigor akin to mathematical proof will always lead them to "correct" answers. It's not that those methods are wrong but they're quite incomplete and tend to only reinforce the mental blocks you already have.
If you want to unconfine your thinking and leverage the power of both halves of your brain, then put this book in your cart, buy it, and read it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
thought-provoking and practical, 2006-07-15
I found this book excellent for expanding one's intellectual arsenal of problem-solving skills. As the author himself admits, no single person will benefit from all the techniques described in this book, since every person has a unique way of thinking. Nevertheless, becoming familiar with the existing techniques will allow you to pick and choose the ones that work for you. Personally, I found many of these techniques to be applicable in every-day situations, in addition to solving scientific problems.
As an added bonus, the book includes a list of excellent references to cognitive science and psychology material for the interested reader.
The only minor complaint I had was that the material could be a bit better organized. Sometimes it reads more like an enumeration of techniques rather than a coherent text.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
To get a better idea, decompose and know thyself, 2005-09-24
This book is great for a lot of different industries. I am in the software industry. James Adams has some great ideas on creating great ideas. This is a book that makes the phrase "think outside of the box" make sense and puts some content to the cliche. This book is a very good book for inventors or anyone in the creative frame of mind. We all have some values we hold and it is the ability to re-evaluate these values to create that breaks us out of our molds. In other words, our perspective on the world can actually inhibit or assist us with creativity. Mr. Adams helps to put these values in a container to assess what is helpful and which are not. I keep a copy of this book for occasional reference.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Helpful, but not systematic, 2005-08-04
The book provided some ideas for opening up new neural
pathways that could increase creativity, but didn't describe
a systematic method for doing so.
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