Quotes About Inspiration

Buy a small notebook and begin carrying it with you wherever you go. When you see great design, make a note of it.

IDEO is one of the world's most respected design firms—the creator of everything from those fat-handled toothbrushes for kids to Apple Computer's first mouse to the Palm V. How do they do it? The secret would make an MBA squirm: Empathy. In the IDEO universe, great design doesn't begin with a cool drawing or a nifty gadget. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of people.

Amabile and others have found that extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks—those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion. But for more right-brain undertakings—those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding—contingent rewards can be dangerous.

In those situations, the ability to move others hinges less on problem solving than on problem finding.

was trying to solve a problem: How can I produce a good drawing? The second was trying to find a problem: What good drawing can I produce

the R-Directed aptitudes so often disdained and dismissed—artistry, empathy, taking the long view, pursuing the transcendent—will increasingly determine who soars and who stumbles. It's a dizzying—but ultimately inspiring—change.

They have an intuitive sense of what I call the "Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Theory of Innovation": sometimes the most powerful ideas come from simply combining two existing ideas nobody else ever thought to unite.

in a time of abundance, when the largest rewards go to those who can devise novel and compelling creations, metaphor-making is vital.

the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity, which holds, in part: "Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity."11

motivators"—things like enjoyment of the work itself, genuine achievement, and personal growth.

Not always, but a lot of the time, when you are doing a piece for someone else it becomes more "work" than joy. When I work for myself there is the pure joy of creating and I can work through the night and not even know it.

ingredients of genuine motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—they

The most deeply motivated people—not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied—hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. Motivation

One of the most enduring scenes in American literature offers an important lesson in human motivation. In Chapter 2 of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom faces the dreary task of whitewashing Aunt Polly's 810-square-foot fence. He's not

Ferlazzo makes a distinction between "irritation" and "agitation." Irritation, he says, is "challenging people to do something that we want them to do." By contrast, "agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.

Know everything about the history of your profession and then forget it all when you design something new.

The lesson: Clarity on how to think without clarity on how to act can leave people unmoved.

Meantime, British organizations such as the London Business School and the Yorkshire Water Company have established artist-in-residence programs.

Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.

I say, "Get me some poets as managers." Poets are our original systems thinkers. They contemplate the world in which we live and feel obliged to interpret and give expression to it in a way that makes the reader understand how that world turns. Poets, those unheralded systems thinkers, are our true digital thinkers. It is from their midst that I believe we will draw tomorrow's new business leaders.

Motivation comes in spurts—which is why Stanford psychologist B. J. Fogg recommends taking advantage of "motivation waves" so you can weather "motivation troughs.

A brief reminder of the purpose of their work doubled their performance.

It is in fact the discovery and creation of problems rather than any superior knowledge, technical skill, or craftsmanship that often sets the creative person apart from others in his field."8

Science fiction inspires scientists, but it doesn't exist to dictate what our future should look like. Great science fiction is fun to read and it makes you think, period. Claiming anything more than that is dicey. Grand visions of the future were more prevalent in the golden-age science fiction, but all fiction is a reflection of the current times. As science moves more quickly, the horizon of science fiction tends to recede closer to the present.