Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)
Michael Michalko





Format: Paperback, 394pp.
ISBN: 9781580087735
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Pub. Date: May 15, 2006 2 edition

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Description and Reviews
From The Publisher:

Thinkertoys will teach you how to generate new ideas for businesses, markets, sales techniques, and products and product extensions. Packed with fun and practical tools and exercises, it outlines 30 practical linear and intuitive techniques that can be used by individuals or groups to tackle and solve business problems in fresh, creative ways.

This new edition contains updated examples, three new Thinkertoys and an entirely new group brainstorming section with five new chapters. Michael is also the author of Thinkpak (A Brainstorming Card Set), which is a novel creative-thinking tool that is designed to facilitate brainstorming sessions and Cracking Creativity (The Secrets of Creative Geniuses) which describes the common thinking strategies creative geniuses have used in the sciences, art, and industry throughout history and shows how we can apply them to become more creative in our business and personal lives.

Most people of average intelligence, given data or some problem, can figure out the expected conventional response. When confronted with problems, we fixate on something in our past that has worked before. We ask, "What have I been taught in life, education or work on how to solve the problem?" Then we analytically select the most promising approach based on past experiences, excluding all other approaches, and work within a clearly defined direction towards the solution of the problem. Because of the soundness of the steps based on past experiences, we become arrogantly certain of the correctness of our conclusion. Typically, we think reproductively, that is on the basis of similar problems encountered in the past. This is why we so often fail when confronted with a new problem that is similar to past experiences only in superficial ways, or on the surface, and is different from previously encountered problems in its deep structure. Interpreting such a problem through the prism of past experience will, by definition, lead the thinker astray. Reproductive thinking leads us to the usual ideas and not to original ones. If you always think the way you've always thought, you'll always get what you've always got--the same old, same old ideas. My "Thinkertoys" are creative-thinking techniques that will change the way you think. Each "Thinkertoy" contains specific instructions and an explanation of why and how it works including anecdotes, stories, and examples of how others have implemented the technique to produce their breakthrough ideas.


About the Author

Michael Michalko is a leading creativity expert who specializes in leading creative thinking workshops, seminars on fostering creativity, and think tanks. His clients range from Fortune 500 corporations such as DuPont, Xerox, Kellogg's, General Electric, Kodak, Microsoft, Exxon, General Motors, Ford, AT&T, WalMart, and Hallmark to governmental agencies. As an officer in the U.S. Army, Michalko organized a team of NATO specialists and international academics in Frankfurt, Germany, to research, collect, and categorize all known inventive thinking methods. After leaving military service, he was contracted by the CIA to facilitate think tanks and brainstorming sessions. Michalko currently works with clients worldwide.

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