How to Get to Great Ideas: A System for Smart, Extraordinary Thinking

Sliver award winner in Business Reference 2020 Axiom Business Book Awards

What makes a great idea? Where do great ideas come from?

The highly practical lessons in HOW TO GET TO GREAT IDEAS are based on neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics. Written by the former Creative Director of OgilvyOne, Dave Birss, this book offers a brilliant new system for conceiving original and valuable ideas. It looks at how to frame the problem, how to push your thinking, how to sell the idea and build support for it, and how to inspire others to have great ideas. It proves that any organization - and any department within an organization - can become a fertile environment for ideas.

Combining a practical research-based system with fascinating insights and inspiring and humorous writing, the book is also accompanied by the problem-solving system RIGHT THINKING. This is a tool that shows organizations a more effective way to generate more effective ideas and is based on the thinking in the book. This is available online and in person from the author.

Dave Birss spent 20 years as an advertising creative, coming up with ideas for many of the world’s biggest brands. Along the way, he led the creative departments of a number of the UK’s top agencies, including Poke, OgilvyOne, and McCann Worldgroup, winning many awards along the way.

This experience led to him becoming the Editor at Large for The Drum Magazine. Since then he’s taught at universities and organizations all over the world. He’s the author of A User Guide to the Creative Mind, a handbook for creative thinking that’s recommended reading on many of the world’s top advertising courses.

He’s the founder and editor of the online magazine OpenForIdeas.org, where he’s collecting the best thinking on every stage of the creative process for business. He’s also the brains behind RIGHT THINKING, a system for generating effective ideas. He’s currently working with companies around the world to help them use the system to improve their thinking.