1B: Ways To Get Ideas

Heres a link so you can read Ditkoff's, "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideals."

This article gives it readers ways to go about coming up with new ideas. The article talks about how you can reinvent things that inspire you. So many ideas out there are just a combination of multiple ideas to create new ones. Challenge old patterns and try to make them your own. You should follow what inspires you because it will help you stay motivated in what you are doing. You also need to surround yourself with your idea so you are always thinking of ways to improve it. It goes on to talk about how you need to be able to not only tolerate your failures, but capitalize on them so you can learn from you mistakes, which will ultimately improve your final results. You need to also listen to yourself because sometimes your subconscious will prove to be of use. Sometimes you need to take a break and work on something else so your mind can take a rest and then come back to the situation with a fresh train of thought. You should surround yourself with a diverse crowd to allow yourself to take in all insights, which you can apply to your idea to make it that more original.


I think the "Make New Connections" section is a very good suggestion, especially for music artists in this day and age. There a new genre of music emerging called "Mashup." These types of artists take sample tracks from other musicians. They loop these track along with others to create there own unique mixture of music.

"Tolerate Ambiguity" is also another section that I believe to be important especially in the media industry. Because this industry doesn't really have a linear path that you can follow from the beginning you need to be flexible and tolerate your failures. This will allow you to grow and figure out what type of career choice is best for you. For example, man professions in the music and video industry have many failure before they have a breakthrough. From their failures you are able to see what they did wrong and how the audience reacted to it. This ultimately gives them the ability to keep makes better material as time goes on.

"Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends" is also another very important section. In you culture there are many trends that go in and out of style. As an artist you need to be knowledgeable about the changing of trends and be ahead of the curve. Being ahead of the trend curve will give you the ability to capitalize on the situation and introduce your type of media at the appropriate time for the most success.


"Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends" 

 9. What trends in the marketplace most intrigues you? In what ways might these trends shift in the coming years-and how might your most inspired be in sync with this imagination?

     The trends in the music industry intrigues me the most. Just take a look at hip-hop. The music genre of hip-hop emerged in the late 80s and early 90s. It has been transforming since then through the work various artists. In the late 90s, many of the hip-hop artists along with up and coming artists started making rap, which is similar to hip-hop, but the lyrics and instrumentation give off a darker/angrier feel. These new rap artists were considered "gangstas,""badass," and  "hard." Today, there is no sign of hip-hop or even rap for that matter. It has been transformed into a club/r&b/rap style of music. Many of the hip-hop/rap artists, including 50 cent and Eminem have jumped on this band wagon. These are rappers that have talked about shooting and killing people in the lyrics from their previous work. They try to give off the image of being "hard" and "gangsta," yet now they are making this happy go lucky club music for people to go dance to.
     Children that aren't even in high school yet are getting their hands on this music through one web portal or another, something that there parents might not even know how to do. Now little Amber can play her favorite R. Kelly song "Trapped In The Closet" in her mommy's car after she gets picked up from 5th grade. Then she can get front seat tickets to go see him live in concert, yet only to get pissed on by her beloved R.K. Now that's pure irony, which I believe is classified under one of our six binary terms, objective. You can now say confidently with your newly gained knowledge that little Amber's excitement to see R. Kelly in concert was abruptly short circuited through objective irony.
     I kinda went off topic there, but personally I find this hilarious and disappointing, but more hilarious. Too many artists are going too mainstream. They're not creating something new for themselves, but rather they are tapping into the next new jackpot of sound. The G-Unit is now the G-Babies. I'm not saying I don't like all of this new wave club music, but what mean to say is that I wish hip-hop/rap was not forgotten about and in some ways replaced.