How do you find inspiration for great ideas? A few smart minds explain.

28 April, 2014 / Articles

“I think all good things come out of non-intentional conversations. It’s not like ‘Hey I need to sit down and talk to you about this specific thing. It’s let’s just brainstorm and shoot the breeze and then that’s when all the best stuff comes. I even created a space in my home that tries to encourages those types of conversations. It’s a music studio basically. One whole side of the studio is all whiteboard. When we’re playing music of course everyone puts up song notation and stuff. But I keep erasing it and then writing people in to just have talks. There’s no real specific focus. It may be what’s next in your career. That’s where the best [stuff] comes.” – John Battelle, author and Federated Media founder.

“Personally, very simply, the idea that you should always do different things. You cannot be part of the pack because what’s the point. So distinction is important, it forces you to think doubly hard. You put a few things on the wall, then you come back and you say ‘I hate them all.’ Maybe I like one thing. You build on it, you build on it, you build on it, be super critical. I drive my people insane because I tell them no, it’s not different enough. It’s not cool enough. It’s not nice enough.” – Aereo chief executive Chet Kanojia

“I think it’s paying attention and noticing. Wayne Gretzky was a good hockey player because he focused on where the puck was going not where the puck was and having a sense of where the puck is going partly by your own history and your own instincts but mostly by meeting people and talking to people and getting a sense of where the momentum is building.” — Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, chairman of Case Foundation and Revolution.

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