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since i’ve been listening to the book the art of innovation by Tom Kelly of IDEO I have not only been inspired, but motivated to push the bound of my own creativity. the chapter on brainstorming is especially good, and here are some of the ideas that Tom Kelly puts forth in his book, The Ten Faces of Innovation.
Here is a great summary from GreenBusinessInnovators…
June 16th, 2008 by Patrick Dominguez IDEO Brainstorming Next time you’re ready to brainstorm, try out these “rules” of brainstorming from IDEO, which Steve Bishop from IDEO shared at the Sustainable Brands 2008 conference. According to Steve, these brainstorming guidelines appear everywhere at IDEO, from conference rooms to business cards.
THE SEVEN RULES OF BRAINSTORMING (FROM IDEO)
1) Defer judgment
Don’t dismiss any ideas.
Any idea is a good idea, no matter how crazy.
Nothing can kill the spirit of a brainstorm quicker than judging ideas before they have a chance to gain legs.
2) Encourage wild ideas
Embrace the most out-of-the-box notions because they can be the key to solutions.
The whole point of brainstorming is coming up with new and creative ideas.
3) Build on the ideas of others
No “buts”, only “ands.”
Sometimes people say crazy and bizarre things, like “make it on Mars”, but there is some element of truth in it. When you build on the ideas of others, you might bring those crazy ideas back down to earth and make them real innovations.
4) Stay focused on the topic
Always keep the discussion on target.
Otherwise you can diverge beyond the scope of what you’re trying to design for.
5) One conversation at a time
No interrupting, no dismissing, no disrespect, no rudeness.
Let people have their say.
6) Be visual
Use yellow, red and blue markers to write on big 30-inch by 25-inch Post-its that are put on a wall.
Nothing gets an idea across faster than drawing it. Doesn’t matter how terrible of a sketcher you are.
7) Go for quantity
Aim for as many new ideas as possible. In a good session, up to 100 ideas are generated in 60 minutes.
Crank the ideas out quickly.
TAKE ACTION: What is the next situation in your business when you’ll be able to apply these brainstorming practices?
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Want to learn about related brainstorming strategies from IDEO? Check out this blog post with 7 ways to help brainstorming and Six surefire ways to KILL a brainstorm.
ran across this article before heading to bed. it is an excellent primer on brainstorming. i highly recommend it! thanks andy... see the link for his web site below. ___________________________ When I first started facilitating brainstorms, you could describe them in three ways: big, formal and scheduled. Now, brainstorms are impromptu gatherings in a hallway or at a side table, people are chosen by random selection, and we're together for no longer than 30 minutes. If you've never tried this type of "in a flash" brainstorm, or want some tips to improve your next one, here's some instructions and helpful tips. Instructions Did You Get Your idea? Another reason why this style of impromptu brainstorming is its flexibility to start another brainstorm in a few minutes. I've packed as many as six brainstorms into one day, grabbing up people as they're free, or if they need a bit of a mental break from their other work. If you don't get your idea in one brainstorm, you'll likely get it in the next. Or, use the next brainstorm to refine and enhance the ideas from the first. Tapping Into Unconscious Thinking Another reason why I like this system: its inherent way of stimulating "unconscious thinking." Your brain continues to think about something even if you don't realize that it is. There's a chance that you - or one of your brainstormers - will walk away from your 15-minute brainstorm and think of an idea later - even tomorrow. Do you care if the idea comes out in the brainstorm? You shouldn't. You should only care that whenever someone has an idea, they know there's a place to capture the idea. That's another reason why I suggest people hang the flipcharts in a public space. Tell brainstorm alumni to add ideas as they think of them. I also hang up the one-page brief and invite anyone who walks by to add ideas. Who knows when someone - anyone? - will think of an idea? One time our client came to the office and we showed them our 'ongoing' brainstorm. He loved the idea, and even contributed to it on the spot. He then called me the next day with another idea. This client was also the type who was generally extremely negative in brainstorms, so this was an ideal way to engage him in the brainstorm process, but separate him from the actual brainstorm.
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Andy Eklund has more than 25 years experience as a creative director in marketing, communications and public relations. If you found this article helpful, you can get additional tips, hints or suggestions from our blog (http://www.andyeklund.com) or our website (http://www.aqus.com.au). Thank you! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy_Eklund |
As I have said many times: if you want to learn how to be a great presenter, look outside the public-speaking and presentation-skills literature, and certainly look beyond advice on how to use ephemeral software apps like PowerPoint and Keynote. Every year it seems a new book comes out with practical applications for presenters and speakers, even though it's not a book about presentations at all. For example, best-selling books like A Whole New Mind, and Made to Stick had valuable lessons and applications for presenters; some of the ideas from those two books ended up in Presentation Zen. This year, thanks to the Authors@Google speaking series (where I also spoke in March), I stumbled across this 50-minute talk by Dr. John MedinaBrain Rules. I was impressed with the content, so I bought the book. Then I read the book, and was blown away. In a way, we already know the rules put forth by Dr. Medina in his book, such as vision is the dominant sense (rule#10). We certainly know the power of the visual — a picture is worth a thousand words, etc. — yet we fail to take advantage of this properly in the area of presentation design, web design, document design, and so on. We all know that people don't pay attention to boring things (rule #4), yet the majority of presentations on this planet are less than compelling (to say the least).Using our brains
Because most of us are not brain scientists, we have virtually no knowledge of how the brain works. If we did, we wouldn't try to drive and use our cell phones at the same time, or create high-stress office environments, or design schools where most of the real learning is done at home, or live on 3-5 hours of sleep a night, etc. What Brain Rules attempts to do is explain what brain scientists know about the brain in ways that we can use to improve our daily lives at school and work. I highly recommend the book. Brain Rules is one of the most informative, engaging, and useful books of our time. Required reading for every educator and every business person. My favorite book of 2008. Seriously – if you can get only one book this year, make it this one. At about 20 bucks on Amazon.com (with a nice DVD with useful video segments), it's a great value. Still, depending on where you are in the world or your current economic situation, even $20-30 is a lot more than free. But you're in luck. John Medina was very gracious in building such a good website and giving many of the ideas from the book away for free on his site and in videos on YouTube. And the Google talk has some good stuff too. The segments on the website also cite the sources of the original research.12 brain rules outlining a few of his key points from
All 12 brain rules have practical applications for our personal and professional lives. I read the book (twice, so far) with presentations in mind. I created a slide presentation below which is a rough compilation of some key ideas and quotes from just three of the chapters. (1) Exercise. People who exercise "outperform couch potatoes in long-term memory, reasoning, attention, and problem solving," says Medina. (2) Attention. "You've got seconds to grab someone's attention and only 10 minutes to keep it." (3) Vision. "Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images." People should "burn their PowerPoint presentations," says Medina, "and make new ones."
