- “I studied the work of Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School. She is one of the country’s foremost experts on business innovation and she said, “All innovation begins with creative ideas.” Okay, I said to myself, that makes sense, but how do you define a creative idea? What is it? Over time I came up with this simple explanation: A creative idea is one that’s new and useful. A new idea that isn’t useful, I reasoned, isn’t worth much in the business world. I could design a car with square wheels, it would be new and different, but it wouldn’t be of much use. Later I’d come to realize that this definition transcended business, for it also applied to science, entertainment, and even the arts.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 13
- “Since ideas are born of other ideas, this creates a fine line between theft and originality. In fact, it was during the inquisition of Isaac Newton, after having been accused of stealing in the creation of calculus, that he successfully defended himself with the confession, “Yes, in order to see farther, I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” In other words, Newton pled guilty to the obvious, that he built his ideas out of the ideas of others.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 15
- “According to Richard Posner, a judge for the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and author of The Little Book of Plagiarism, “. . . in Shakespeare’s time, unlike ours, creativity was understood to be improvement rather than originality—in other words, creative imitation.” He goes on to explain that “the puzzle is not that creative imitation was cherished in Shakespeare’s time, as it is today, but that ‘originality’ in the modern sense, in which the imitative element is minimized or at least effectively disguised, was not.” In his book he explains that the concept of originality and plagiarism arose during the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth century. Before this time, it was unusual for artists, architects, scientists, or writers to sign their work. Innovation and creativity were understood to be collaborative efforts in which one idea was copied from another and evolved through incremental enhancements. The concept of plagiarism didn’t exist. Copying and creating were rooted in the same thing. The person who copied had an obligation to improve the copy, that was it.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 17
- “The Origin of a Creative Idea: Step One: Defining Define the problem you’re trying to solve. Step Two: Borrowing Borrow ideas from places with a similar problem. Step Three: Combining Connect and combine these borrowed ideas. The Evolution of a Creative Idea: Step Four: Incubating Allow the combinations to incubate into a solution. Step Five: Judging Identify the strength and weakness of the solution. Step Six: Enhancing Eliminate the weak points while enhancing the strong ones.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 24-25
- ““A problem is the foundation of a creative idea.” In other words, a creative idea is built upon the problem one is trying to solve. It’s the starting point.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 34
- “Alexander Fleming observed a consistent pattern of fungus on the culture dishes he left in his laboratory. Then he noticed the breaking of a pattern, that one dish had a zone around the fungus where the bacteria didn’t seem to grow. First he noticed the making of a pattern, the fungus, then he recognized the breaking of that pattern, the absence of fungus. He set the dish aside and later used it to isolate an extract that destroyed bacteria. That extract became known as penicillin.” Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (David Kord Murray) Page 46
- May 19, 1995- Tuesday – Quito Ecuador…“We were going to go shopping today with the Castillo’s but we decided rather to come home. We had a little misunderstanding, Elder Hanks & I, so we ended up talking for 2 hours. He’s a stud. I’m learning a lot about myself because of him. I need to watch my pride and my way to share ideas. I usually share my ideas almost obligating the people. It’s because I talk with a lot of confidence and really feel I’m right. It’s something I need to watch.” – Clinton Brown Missionary Journal
- April 6, 1996 – Saturday – Quito Ecuador…” On the bus ride home (and ever since then) my comp & I have been receiving a ton of ideas and revelation on our program. We started a fast with the purpose of having all Stake Mission Presidencies established in this month. Right now we’re getting so many ideas on how to do it. The Lord answers prayers & fasts!!” – Clinton Brown Missionary Journal