147: How to Get Ideas

📚 Book Report: Jack Foster's classic; AI+Creativity update

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It’s rather surprising this book still needs to exist

But it does.

How to Get Ideas (Amazon, Goodreads) by creative director Jack Foster is reassuring yet tough, pragmatic yet philosophical—just the right blend of anecdote and acumen for those charged with shipping ideas.

I had been working in advertising for a few years when I discovered Foster’s book (first published in 1996). I was developing a Copywriting curriculum for a course at Emerson College. Alas, Luke Sullivan’s classic, Hey Whipple (Amazon, Goodreads) hadn’t been published yet. But I felt like I’d struck gold—as Foster helped illuminate the grand precept of an ideas person.

And this was really the first time I realized, hey, I am an ideas person. Not just a Copywriter, or Creative Director. To be an ideas person is to have an expanded purpose, a broad creative calling. To be an ideas person is to be deliberately so. Or as Foster puts it,

“The ones who come up with ideas know that ideas exist and know that they will find those ideas; the ones who don’t come up with ideas don’t know that ideas exist and don’t know that they will find ideas.”

You might be surprised how many humans fall in the second category. Or not. After all, the business of being an ideas person is psychological, political, not always reliable, festooned with anxiety, thrilling when it isn’t maddening, and too often a ridiculous way to make a living. And yet, here we are.

Foster’s book was the first of many to set me straight. To frame the business of creativity in reasonable terms, with high standards. But not just artistic standards.

“Getting an idea depends on your belief in its existence. And your belief in yourself.”

The roots of surviving, never mind thriving as an ideas person begin deep within. It’s not just a matter of confidence, or bravado, but an ability to be candid with your own perception. You need to be able to recognize your own fragility, your hesitations, the “rules” you’ve invented often without much consideration. An ideas person is often their own worst enemy.

“If you're like most people, many times your thinking is inhibited because you unconsciously assume that a problem has restrictions and boundaries and limitations and constraints, when in fact it doesn’t.”

“Business people ask the wrong questions all the time. Many times these questions are based on assumptions so deep-seated they don’t even know they’re making them.”

Foster taught me the utility and importance of being on fire

“Do you really believe in your idea? Then why let people who haven’t thought about it and worked on it a tenth as much as you have put the kibosh on it? Attack.”

While this might appear, out of context, as strident, selfish positioning—the word “attack” probably got you—Foster is actually speaking inward, to your own motivations. Attack those doubts inside, which are much easier to produce. It’s simply too easy to fold, to abandon an insight which just needs a little more love. Being on fire is a constant challenge. But, as I wrote in a previous tribute, “Being on fire increases the likelihood those around you will catch fire, too.”

How to Get Ideas continues to burn bright even in this advanced age. The book is chock full of relevant quotes and expedient practicalities. It offers sage direction which stands the test of time.

Jack Foster lived to 84.

Born John A. Foster, he began his professional career in insurance. As his biography puts it, he was 18 years old, “when he got the idea to raffle off his weekly paycheck. Fifty cents to win $27.50. The first week he made a profit of six dollars. The next week he collected $53 for the raffle.”

Foster soon moved from Illinois to Los Angeles, joined the mailroom of Erwin Wasey Advertising, and eventually worked his way up to the role of Executive Creative Director at Foote, Cone & Belding. He was named “Creative Person of the Year” by the Los Angeles Creative Club. He taught advanced advertising courses at USC and UCLA. In addition to How to Get Ideas, Foster also published the very useful book, Ideaship: How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace (Amazon, Goodreads). Vern Burkhardt at IdeaConnection hosted a lengthy interview with Foster on the release of the second book.

Back when people like me used to tout books like Foster’s on Twitter, I shared many accolades. To the point where my phone rang and it was Jack Foster himself on the line. He couldn’t have been more charming, or grateful.

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AI+Creativity Update

🤔 Speaking of evaluating creativity—Sir John Hegarty has wise council on the efficacy of ideas in his weekly update.

🎙️ Something new: A weekly recap podcast for this newsletter. Here’s the first episode (Overcast, Apple, Spotify).

🤖 ✏️ “The hardest part of working with AI isn’t learning to prompt. It’s managing your own ego and admitting you could use some help,” says Greg Shove, CEO of Section (Prof G/Scott Galloway’s startup). I thought this piece was very cogent.

🎂 To celebrate her 40th natal day, strategist Zoe Scaman posted Forty Lessons. I love #6, #14, #18, #23, #24, #30, #31, and #37… but #7 is my favorite: “Not everyone is going to get it, not everyone is going to meet you where you are, and that’s not a reflection of your worth. People can only connect with you to the depth that they’ve connected with themselves.”

🤖🕹️ Researchers at Google DeepMind have created an environment using Stable Diffusion to render a 20fps video game, in this case, Doom. Two years ago we could barely render still images of useful quality. Soon, we might render complex, realtime simulations.

🤖😵‍💫 “What’s the best way to prompt?” is the most common question I receive when coaching generative AI. Thank goodness Shubham Vatsal and Harsh Dubey at NYU have, “read … 44 research papers which talk about 39 different prompting methods on 29 different NLP tasks.” Their research suggests Chain-of-Thought (CoT)—i.e. “Let’s work this out step by step”—prompting works better, generally speaking, for most complex, text-centric tasks if you’re using the latest frontier LLMs. The key here, is to cite a few examples in your prompt to help guide the LLM toward a more productive response.

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