Edward de Bono's book review “Serious creative thinking”

I accidentally stumbled upon this book about a month ago and immediately bought it. Agree that in almost any field of activity, and even more so in web design, the constancy of the generation of new ideas (as well as the constancy of bringing them to realization) plays a significant role. So why not learn to look for creative ideas?

Dr. Edward de Bono is widely known as one of the leading experts in the field of practical training in creative thinking. Methods of non-standard (lateral) thinking is a systematic approach to creative thinking using formal methods, the action of which is based directly on the properties of the human brain. In 1969, the author first suggested that the neural networks of the brain belong to self-organizing systems. Today, these ideas are central to theories of thinking.
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The book is positioned as a synthesis of the author’s experience in applying the methods of “non-standard (lateral) thinking”. The purpose of writing the book is to rid the methods of de Bono from the distortions they have acquired over the 25 years of their successful testing. Written in a somewhat academic style, the book consistently first prepares, and then teaches to put into practice the methods of thinking proposed by the author.

Let's start with the name and design. The appearance of the book successfully masks the book on the store shelf from an untrained eye, but otherwise I do not even want to find fault with it. Normal gray paper and thick cover.

The content of the book is divided into three parts, which could be called "what is thinking", "methods of thinking" and "what to do about it," but as you guessed, the author called them somewhat longer, respectively, "The need for creative thinking" "Tools and methods of non-standard thinking" and "Application of creative thinking".

The first part of the book prepares the person for perception of the author’s thinking methods. The term “non-standard (lateral) thinking” is explained, which includes what is not. How “thinking outside the box” is associated with creativity, etc. etc. It will not give you any practical knowledge, but its prerequisites will help to work correctly with the methods from the second part.

The second part “Tools and methods of non-standard thinking” is divided into chapters, each of which is devoted to its method. Some tools, such as the “creative pause”, are so simple that they are not actually perceived as something new. However, they helped me "realize" some natural impulses that I committed every day without thinking. Therefore, I recommend reading not only “interesting” methods, but everything.

And finally, the third part is designed to help you resolve the situations associated with the application of the methods described in the second part. Various cases are presented and issues of applying creative methods at the organization level are raised.

What can a book give?

If you do not have psychological education and you have just heard about Edward de Bono, you have a great opportunity to learn how our brain works, what patterns are and how they can be broken. (As a bonus, you’ll learn how to get crazy for 10 minutes.) This is definitely useful.
“Thinking outside the box” and creativity are not the same. The book does not teach you to be a creative person, but will help you find new ideas. The embodiment of the idea is yours.

This book is not a textbook, but a generalization of work experience, immersion in theory and other “delights” of academic work, will not please everyone who wants to learn how to generate ideas. As far as I understand, that’s why the author’s arsenal is a “tutorial of creative thinking” . Perhaps you need him.
And finally, the three most typical Internet-oriented tasks that are much easier to solve when using the methods of the book:

• Coming up with "fresh" domain names and names.
• Creating ideas for illustrations, or visual design.
• Creating working ideas of "new" services

How interesting is the book?

I'll try to start from far away. I have, almost always, there is a very real line of 5-7 books to read. Books come from various sources, this is fiction and technical literature. The order of reading is constantly changing, due to the current need and the position of the stars, but I’m trying to figure out that the value of the book plays an important role in these fluctuations.
So, the book "Serious creative thinking" bought in the last turn overtook in the right to read such recognized monsters as the second edition of Igor Ashmanov's second site promotion on the Internet and Yana Frank 's Diary of a Designer Maniac . So, think for yourself.

- Original review of Nomagic.ru.
- Buy a book on OZON.ru