Inspired

Back in my early days, David Stuart (an inspiration to me, but that’s not my story) of The Partners introduced me to a little book called A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young.

He was an American advertising executive who gave a lecture to advertising students on this subject and subsequently realised that he had hit on something that no one else had put down in writing – the formula for coming up with ideas.

It’s a simple notion, but one that I believe in. In short, it is a five stage process: 1 Gather raw material; 2 Masticate (I had to look this up to make sure I was doing the right thing); 3 Forget about it – go and do something else while your subconscious goes to work; 4 An idea will pop into your head while not expecting it; 5 Make the idea work.

Sounds easy enough – but it’s not always that easy to give stage three our full attention. However, here at Hat-Trick, we usually like to do other things as a part of our working lives – not only to wait for the ideas to pop out, but also because there’s so much inspiration to be had outside of our doors.

I must admit that stage four often comes to me during visits to the loo, so drink lots of water – that’s my advice.