Welcome to a special TUESDAY post here at The Naked Idea. For those of you who are part of the book tour – welcome! My name is John and my blog is (usually) about charities and how to communicate with your donors clearly through design – so today is a slight departure from my usual topic. Enjoy and please feel free to leave your comments.
I was asked to be part of a special “Post2Post Virtual Book Tour” by Paul Williams of Idea-Sandbox.
This week’s book is called Jack’s Notebook by Gregg Fraley.
As the cover says, it’s a business novel about creative problem solving. I have to admit, when I pulled it out of the envelope I groaned. Business novels are SO boring. And one on creative problem solving? What was I thinking.
This is a blog about charities! This a blog about communicating graphically and sensibly to your donors. This is going to be a stretch.
Jack’s Notebook is about a character named Jack. Jack is working two dead end jobs, with no girlfriend and no hope until a late night walk home ends in a lightening strike and a rescue by an angel.
This is no ordinary business novel I quickly realized.
According to Fraley, this is a book for “anyone who wants more ideas.”
And as a small business owner – I want more ideas. As a creative person who works in an evolving industry – I want more ideas. As someone who likes to find new ways to examine a problem – I want more ideas.

I got a chance to ’sit down’ Gregg to discuss Jack’s Notebook.

ID: Where did the idea of Jack’s Notebook come from?
GF: The first thought of it came after reading Eli Goldratt’s The Goal. The Goal is a novel that educates about the Theory of Constraints, a pretty arcane, but powerful concept. I thought at the time that somebody should write a novel that teaches creative process.
ID: I think you mentioned the Introduction of Jack’s Notebook – there are other worthy books that define CPS?
GF: There are several books that amplify or define CPS. The first one goes back many years, “Applied Imagination” by Alex Osborn, was introduced about 1950. Sidney Parnes did several scholarly works, including “The Magic of the Mind.” through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. More recently Gerard Puccio, Mary Murdock and Marie Mance published “Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change”. CPS is more formally known as the Osborn-Parnes model of Creative Problem Solving. All these books are fairly academic and my goal with Jack’s Notebook was to reach people who wouldn’t normally pick up a book on creative thinking.

ID: And I think you achieved that – as a creative who has read more books about business than any creative person should – I really enjoyed the mix of fiction and theory.
Where did the inspiration for Jack’s story come from? And is Jack coming back?
GF: Jack’s “backstory” is similar to my own, I was once a budding photographer, and I as well spent time working a plethora of crap jobs. However, it’s really not autobiographical beyond that. I never had a mentor for one, and I didn’t learn CPS until I was in my late 30’s. After I learned it I thought, gee, wouldn’t it have been great to have known this when I was really struggling? I started writing the book to teach the CPS process but a funny thing happened — the story took over! It really took on a life of it’s own. Funny thing about creativity, even with a process it is unpredictable. Jack will come back, probably a good deal older, and his challenges will be more business oriented…but we’ll see, the story could take over again!

ID: I think – as a small business owner – I related to Jack’s story and the challenges we place in front of ourselves… and to have a tool like CPS to remove those challenges – especially in such a freeing way (ie: there are no real wrong answers) is quite liberating.
Can you “nutshell” what Creative Problem solving is? Explain it quickly and simply?
GF: Nice to hear that perspective. It is after all a business book. It was sort of a tough call, because it borders on personal empowerment. The simplest way to explain CPS is it’s a series of lists. In each list you get imaginative, or divergent. Then, you make a selection, and move on to your next list.

The first set of lists you make have to do with challenge exploration, the second set are ideas to solve the challenge you pick, and the last set are lists of ways to improve your ideas and get into action.

It’s best used on complex problems, situation, or opportunities. You don’t need a formal process to find your lost car keys!

ID: As you know the focus of my blog is on charities and how they communicate with their donors graphically but why should every executive director (of a charity) have a copy of your book on their desk?

GF: Well, running a charity is a complex challenge and CPS is a tool for addressing complex challenges. Jack’s Notebook is also a reminder of the need to search for creative solutions to intractable problems. And, if I can be so bold as to say it’s inspirational, it provides hope when the days are darkest that creative options are out there, they exist, they can be thought up. Leaders have the power to do great creative things — my book is a tool to help them do that.

ID: Well said.
GF: Thanks!

I would suggest Jack’s notebook to anyone who is looking for a new way to solve problems or wants more ideas – and frankly – who isn’t?

I thank Gregg for sitting down with me and chatting about his book as well as Paul for asking me to be a part of this book tour.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.