Can't Innovate? Borrow

If you can't create, borrow someone else's ideas, advises David Kord Murray in his book, "Borrowing Brilliance".

Borrowing other's ideas is common to most creative thinkers, as Murray points out. Everyone, from Albert Einstein to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs "stood on the shoulders of giants", so don't feel guilty about borrowing ideas yourself.

The difference between being perceived as a pirate and a creative genius is how obviously and from where you borrow.

Why should we be so concerned about having brilliant ideas anyway? Murray argues that everyone has the capacity to be creative -- and they'll need to be to thrive in business in years to come.

We've left the 'Information Age' and reached the Conceptual Age (itself a concept borrowed from Dan Pink), where taking information and creating new concepts is the real currency.

Far from being a product of divine inspiration, there is a methodology to creation and Murray -- who claims to have worked as a NASA engineer, a business entrepreneur and an innovation director for software company Intuit - has fine-tuned it to six easy steps:

• Defining the problem.
• Identifying ideas to borrow.
• Combining these ideas to create an original idea.
• Incubating the idea to distill a solution.
• Testing the idea objectively.
• Enhancing the idea.

"Borrowing Brilliance" is a very digestible read, with Murray drawing on his own experience of clawing his way back from being an failed, alcoholic entrepreneur to a highly respected creative within a Fortune 500 company.

He also uses case studies of how innovators such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and George Lucas (yes, just the fact that the Star Wars director is mentioned in the same sentence as the others makes intriguing reading) borrowed and refined earlier ideas to produce work that transformed the world in their own way.

Murray tries to distance himself from theory-led business books, which he does with honesty and humour, even though he draws on weighty subjects such as history, philosophy, psychology and neurology.

Much in the book will provoke the response "well, I knew that" from the reader -- it's true there isn't anything new in it.

But the way in which Murray combines a number of concepts to help mere mortals go through the steps in the creative processes is enlightening.

True to the subject, Murray borrows shamelessly from other creative thinkers, such as Edward de Bono, but he's not ripping anyone off -- just saying the same thing as them, in another way.

Anyone who has to or wants to innovate in their job should be able to take something away from this book. Reading it, it's difficult not to feel inspired and filled with confidence about producing creative ideas that are useful.

It shouldn't take too long to read it either. If you can though, don't buy it -- borrow a copy.

(Pic: Kay Kim(김기웅) cc2.0)