Richard Feynman advised would-be geniuses, “You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind…” Here’s how breakthroughs get started.

A fascinating psychology study reveals a disturbing truth: the world around is ripe with potential inspiration that is far too often unrealized simply because we aren’t looking.

Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” But to connect, you’ve got to disconnect, too. A growing body of research demonstrates the benefits of literally “looking at nothing.”

Tina Fey reveals the technique she learned from Lorne Michaels the moment she needed it most: when deciding to she’d play Sarah Palin on SNL.

Pianists play the piano. Swimmers do laps. But what about innovators? What do they do? Innovators generate abundant options. Try this.

Our instinct is to retreat inwardly when tasked with the challenge of coming up with ideas. Instead, we should get out. Here’s my favorite way to find ideas.

Most folks want to stop diverging as quickly as possible. As soon as a reasonably good idea comes up, there's a collective sigh of relief which says, "Whew! We did it! Mission accomplished!" …

Edison is one of history’s most prolific inventors. He made regular professional use of a common personal past-time: napping.

What makes an idea a good idea? Research suggests that the best idea — irrespective of commercial merits — is actually the one that provokes thinking the most.

David Ogilvy said, “The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape the tyranny of reason.” Sound impossible? Here’s how to do it.

"Catching the Big Fish," deconstructs David Lynch's creative process. Of particular note is a simple technique he calls gathering firewood…

You might think the best place to start designing is smack dab in the middle of the bell curve. But it’s not. The history of innovation teaches that the best breakthroughs (even for the middle of the curve) come from the extremes.

What is your regular creative training regimen? David Kelley once told me, “I think people fail to realize that the first-order goal is to be getting in practice. The first step is training your mind to think differently.”

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most celebrated architects of the twentieth century. I was delighted to discover two routine habits that contributed to his breakthrough thinking.

Subconscious processing has tremendous potential to deliver breakthrough thinking. But you can only tap into that potential if you actually care about a problem.

When we use information, it cements it into our long term memory. We know that inputs fuel output. What’s much more surprising is that outputs reinforce inputs, too.

How do you know when it’s time to iterate?Founders have to be willing to adapt based on real-time feedback, and iterate accordingly.

Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson says that framing a meeting — like the d.schools, “Flaring or focusing?” meeting-opener — helps teams do the work they need to do, in the way they need to do it.

The fundamental responsibility of the innovator is to forge new connections. But how does one do that? Here are a few starting suggestions.

After a dozen years teaching at Stanford’s d.school and consulting with the world’s top leaders, the most useful measure of creativity that Perry Klebahn and I have found is deceptively simple.