Thought Catalysis
Posted by Eitan Tue, 02 May 2006 14:36:00 GMT
Recently some new ideas have come to me out of activities that I did not expect would generate any. In this blog entry I'd like to enumerate sources or catalysts for ideas, for generating thoughts.
Revisiting things you already know: you will likely see them from a new point of view. This will usually happen because time has passed. You've changed, you're not exactly the same person you were when you originally studied the material. That's what happened to me as I prepared to give my set of talks at NFJS last weekend.
Attend talks given by others. It's very likely that the same topic will be presented from a different angle, a different point of view.
Get together with other developers. A NFJS conference might do the trick. JavaOne is coming up. Maybe your local JUG meeting.
Even if a topic is not related to the work that you're currently doing, you might be surprised to find once in a while that a situation is discussed that is analogous to yours, albeit in a different domain, a different context.
Provoke thoughts in others. That has the tendency to amplify the thought process. You might not be prepared for an avalanche of feedback, ideas triggered by your original provocation. That happened to me recently after I demo'd some software I was working on to a couple of friends / colleagues.
A few friends recently decided to get together for Friday lunch meetings. It's been a great opportunity to discuss what each of us are working on, articles or books we came across that grabbed our attention or interest. We always have more to talk about than time available, which is a positive sign.
