Where Good Ideas Come From

In my earlier comment about where ideas come from I was referring more to a constituency of people - those on the fringes of their organizations, such as part-timers, temps etc. - who were a great source of ideas but are often not asked for their ideas.

Although the reason they come up with these ideas is precisely what drives many creative-thinking techniques, such as those mentioned earlier in this conversation (I also like very much the new book Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small), my point is that we often ignore the people who are subjected every day to these same stimuli and, as a consequence, already have a lot of great ideas.