The Four-C Process of Ideation

It has been said that writers don’t necessarily have more ideas than other people; it’s just that they notice when they do have ideas. Writers develop a sort of metacognition, which is an awareness of one’s own thought process.

In fact, this process isn’t unique to writers; it is prevalent in anyone who devotes mental energy to discovering and developing new things.

Ideation involves a four-stage process: first, the occurrence of the idea; second, the awareness of the idea’s occurrence; third, a reflection on the idea in the context of what the thinker already knows, and finally, an assessment of the quality of the idea. “Is this idea any good or not?”

A useful taxonomy is what I call “The Four-C Process of Ideation,” concept, conscious, context, and conclusion. Concept is the initial idea. Conscious refers to the self-awareness that an idea has occurred. Context assesses the idea in relation to a broader conceptual framework, and Conclusion is a judgement about the merits of the idea.

When you brainstorm ideas, you cycle through the four Cs over and over again. You cast aside the ideas that fail to meet an initial assessment and further investigate the ones that do. Some turn into blind alleys that lead you nowhere, and you subsequently discard them. Others, however, lead to rich discoveries and additional new ideas. That’s just how brainstorming works.

Ideas flow through your mind more or less continuously. Flow is your natural mental state while both awake and dreaming. In fact, stopping the flow of ideas feels about as natural at first as stopping the flow of your breath. Maintaining focus on a single idea is challenging, as you can attest if you have ever tried meditation. It takes incredible mental discipline to shut out all distractions and prevent your mind from flowing. The “wandering mind” is a good metaphor, since ideas inspire other ideas, which inspire other ideas, not bound by linearity, moving in one direction and then zigging, then zagging like the serpentine steps of a drunken sailor. Mental flow is never-ending non sequitur.

You are probably familiar with the process of arriving at an idea, pausing to ask yourself how you arrived at that idea, and then trying to retrace the mental associations back to some seminal idea. This happens in conversations too. For example, you may find yourself in a coffee shop talking about Game Theory, and your friend suddenly pauses and asks, “How did we get on this topic, anyway?” The two of you take a minute to retrace the chain of ideas in reverse that got you there. Game Theory came from the discussion of the movie A Beautiful Mind starring Russell Crowe, who was also in the movie Gladiator, which featured the Colosseum in Rome, which sprang from a comment about Italian architecture, which related to your friend’s trip to Italy, prompted by you ordering an espresso in the coffee shop. That’s how you got to the topic of Game Theory.

When you are brainstorming, you shuffle through the Four-C process over and over again: idea, awareness of the idea, consideration of the idea in context, and assessment as to the quality of the idea.

Some of the most original thinkers are those people who are open to ideas that others discard. They allow themselves to consider ideas that may not have immediate application but merit further exploration. Some call this an intuition for good ideas. Others call it mental flexibility. They are the ones who allow themselves to play with an idea, tinker with it, turn it over in their minds before moving on. They are like the inventor who picks up an object that is unfamiliar, turns it over with his hands, looks at it from different angles, wonders about its original purpose, and considers what else it could be used for. Original thinkers engage in a sort of mental playfulness, an ideational flirtatiousness.

These creative thinkers tend to spend more time lingering in the third step of the four-step process, considering the new idea in the context of what is already known. The neuroscientist David Ingvar coined the term “memory of the future,” and I like that concept in the context of ideation. Experiencing a “memory of the future” involves bridging a new observation with what you already know from previous experiences to anticipate the future. My dog exhibits a “memory of the future” when she sees me pick up her leash. She understands from previous experience that the leash in my hand means we will be going out for a walk. This idea gets her excited, and she usually runs to her water bowl to gulp down as much water as she can hold. I believe this is the K-9 equivalent of filling her pen with as much ink as possible so as to leave as many messages to other dogs as possible. But that’s just speculation.

The ideation process involves a form of “memory of the future.” When you encounter a new idea, you consider it in the context of what you already know, and you anticipate its impact in the future.

This is no different from your decision-making process when playing a game such as blackjack. When the dealer deals you the cards, you are faced with a choice (hold or ask for another card), and you assess the merits of each choice (how likely are you to win or lose the hand). You reflect on your current hand in the context of hands you have played in the past to anticipate the results in the future. You are experiencing a blackjack “memory of the future.”

The Four-C process of ideation is linked to the concept discussed here about the spontaneous element meeting the persistent element. The spontaneous element is the new idea; the persistent element is what is already known.