Whack On the Side of the Head

What Hacker News says

1. furyofantaresNov 2019
   As a personality trait? No. As a mode of thought? Yes.

   You can learn a new mode of thought. You have to be open, and not dismiss things early, which means allowing yourself to follow ideas which have obvious flaws or which totally impractical. It helps to have confidence that you'll use your practical, analytical, and more closed mode of thought later. But first you've gotta jump out of the local maxima and try to find something new. Generate ideas as if you're high; highdeas are usually bad and that's ok, your sober self will be around to check it out later. Maybe the idea will be thrown away then, and maybe it won't.

   There's a great John Cleese talk on open vs closed thinking that you could look up on YouTube. A good book on the subject is A Whack On The Side Of The Head.

   Edit: That said, there's also something to working with another person, and each focusing on one of these roles more than the other. Like author and editor. Lots of things follow this pattern of splitting these roles up among people.

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2. nickjjApr 2019
   If anyone likes this sort of idea, they should check out the book: A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative[0]

   There's a section where he talks about thinking about other businesses or activities that are outside of your main focus, and after you go through that process you may come up with different ideas for your own business. It's pretty easy too. Just look around your room or where ever you are for objects and then think about how they are manufactured -- stuff like that.

   I remember seeing a piece of lumber (I was reading outside) and it got me to think about how efficient some lumber manufacturers are. They might make 2x4s and other processed wood which they sell to retailers, but there's so much waste produced during the process in the form of sawdust and those manufacturers figured out how to sell their sawdust waste.

   I never would have ever thought about something like that on my own, but it got me to think about how I can reduce waste and cross pollinate some of the things I create (code, blog posts, videos, etc.).

   [0]: http://amzn.to/2CqmvqH (yes it's an Amazon affiliate link and no I don't care if you Google it instead. I just happened to have the link handy since I wrote about the book on my site in the past.)

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3. jayliewOct 2010
   Recently I've set out on a quest to actively find new ideas; going as far as making it a goal to find one new idea a day (no matter how crazy, for the sake of flexing my brain and getting it better at stumbling on opportunities). This is as opposed to my previous method of passively reading about things and hoping that as things accumulate in my head, I will subconsciously one day while taking a shower have a eureka moment and think of an awesome idea (which does happen, just not as frequent as I would like).

   I've found that by just sitting down and clearing my head and forcing myself to think really hard, trying to connect the dots half-baked ideas and just mixing it up with random thoughts, I've gotten a whole lot better at thinking up of ideas. Patrick (patio11)'s article about his not understanding why people complain they can't find ideas really gave me a good kick in the side and motivated me to do this: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busin... and I do find his comment about "walking in a store to find what people buy" a great starting point! I also have this book which I recommend 'A Whack on the Side of the Head' http://amzn.to/bm6vW4 which certainly did literally help me look at ideas in a different light and generate new ideas.

   As a part of my effort to just find new opportunities, I've been documenting meta-algorithms to find algorithms (if a business idea/model is an algorithm). An entry I just added is:

   * Learn a new concept, algorithm, (e.g. 'Programming Collective Intelligence' http://amzn.to/cMLnKj), and apply it to some problem in a different field (e.g. non-technical things in real life, or things I use such as Facebook, Twitter, etc). <-- An example of this: I read up on Shazam's clever algorithm and tried to use that method to solve something else.

   Does anyone else collect such meta algorithms?

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4. noahfMar 2010
   I'm actually attempting to read all 100 in a year. I've read 13 in just under a month.

   So far I've enjoyed everything. It's not that bad if you get rid of TV.

   I would say that the summaries/reviews in the book are just that, short/quick summaries or brief reviews. I'm sure with some of the books it would suffice to just read the review in "100 best," but I've really enjoyed a good handful of them so far.

   The actual book is a great supplement to reading them.

   So far I've only hit one that bored me to death (Innovator's Dilemma)

   For example - Chasing The Light - Amazing Book. A Whack on the Side of the Head - Loved it. Purple Cow - Classic.

   http://noahfleming.com/blog/100-business-books

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5. GibbonApr 2009
   I second the war of art.. excellent book.

   The classic book on creativity is "A Whack on the Side of the Head" by Roger Von Oech (http://www.amazon.com/Whack-Side-Head-More-Creative/dp/04464...). It is the book to read on creativity, along with his other book "A Kick in the Seat of the Pants"

   His card decks (Creative Whack Pack, Innovative Whack Pack and Ancient Whacks of Heraclitus) are also very useful for breaking bad habits, generating ideas, divergent thinking etc. somewhat like Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards,which I recommend (http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/)

   For more practical examples, exercises and inspiration, I like Creative Sparks (http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sparks-Concepts-Exercises-Ing...) and Caffeine for the Creative Mind (http://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-Creative-Mind-Exercises-Brain...)

   EDIT: I'd also recommend Organizing from the Right Side of the Brain "http://www.amazon.com/Organizing-Right-Side-Brain-Organized/... for tips on how creative types organize their workspaces. Handy if you're right brained, a pack rat, like "messy" workspaces or dislike the anal-retentiveness of Getting Things Done.

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6. mdeOct 2008
   Enjoy this phase! Idea generation can be a lot of fun. Get some books to stimulate. I've gotten a lot of mileage from "A Whack On The Side Of The Head" and "Creativity" (Csikszentmihalyi). Watch some TED talks. Go to your local unconferences and meet people and see what they're working on. Team up on those connections.

   Share your ideas as they come. Record everything that comes to mind. Get feedback. Iterate.

   Meanwhile, you can be educating yourself on the business side of things: starting a business, people/listening skills, presenting, marketing, etc. You're already here; that's a pretty good start. But books like "The Art Of The Start", "Founders At Work", and the Seth Godin variety are worth their weight in gold.

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