This great book will help you build practices that generate ideas. Subtitled "The Natural History of Innovation," Steven Johnson finds seven core methods of innovation in nature and history, providing concrete suggestions for personal and organizational use.

Here's the money quote:

The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let other build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent. Build a tangled web.