What a Great Idea! instructs readers on how to challenge and defeat widely held notions that stifle creativity. Based on his hugely successful seminars, Chic Thompson, one of the country's leading students of the creative process, promotes aggressive and visionary thinking and unleashes readers' creative processes.

Gives exercises and information to get from brainstorming to the finished product in four steps: freedom, expression, creation, and action.

Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial ''dead white men,'' are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion? In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius's De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?

All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and A Freaking Job! is the story of the GenY/Millennial generation told through the individual story of author Paul Angone. It’s a story of struggle, hope, failure, and doubts in the twilight zone of growing up and being grown, connecting with his twentysomething post-college audience with raw honesty, humor, and hope.

It has sold more than 200,000 copies since 1992--and now the most imaginative guide to thinking creatively is back, in a new and improved version. Author Chic Thompson knows that everyone wants to be more creative--and he knows how to make it possible. That’s why the Harvard Business School released a case study on him. Thompson has had unparalleled success teaching readers how to harness their ingenuity to generate new product ideas, resolve difficulties in the workplace, and overcome bureaucratic language and "killer phrases” that stifle innovation. The good news is that this great-looking, thoroughly updated edition features even more brain-stimulating suggestions, exercises, action sheets, tips for using new technologies, ideas for encouraging creativity at home, and much more.

How to Have Great Ideas is the essential guide for students and young professionals looking to embrace creative thinking in design, advertising and communications. It provides 53 practical strategies for unlocking innovative ideas. Strategies include improvisation techniques, changing the scenery, finding hidden links, looking to nature for inspiration, combining unusual systems, challenging set boundaries and many more. Each strategy is packed with great examples of successful contemporary and historical designs – from a designer dress made out of an old typewriter to ticket machines powered by recycled bottles in China, via the reimagining of famous brand logos and mis-use of photocopiers. Packed with practical projects to kick-start inventive thought in idea-blocked moments, this book explores creative thinking across all visual arts disciplines.

The next big idea is out there—You just have to know how to spot it Creativity is crucial to business and design success. How do you unleash bursts of creativity, increase occurrences of spontaneity and ultimately find great ideas? Through anecdotes, interviews, quotes, tips, creative exercises and success stories from the biggest corporations in the country, author Sam Harrison shows you how to think outside the box—then throw away the box for good. You'll be encouraged to: Listen and observe Step outside your daily routine Explore through travel Find ideas in nature Break out of ruts Learn from mistakes Get past the surface Connect existing ideas Busy professionals CAN learn how to peek under the mundane to find the magical, to find insights rather than information, and to learn what makes their clients laugh, cry, scream—and ultimately buy.