• Think big. Bigger than that.
• Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.
• Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
• Don’t poll your friends. It’s your art, not an election.
• Be prepared for the Dip.
• The hard part is finishing, so enjoy the starting part.

Most of these ‘rules’ are about finishing an idea – seeing it through to the end (or in case of the ‘the Dip‘, knowing when to quit).

Read the rest of the list over on Seth’s blog, there’s more than a few left worth reading! (and yes this was a little bit of a Seth Godin fanpost but I really feel he’s on a role lately with the ’shipping’ thing!)

After 45 minutes, the performer has gathered 32 dollars. Most of which donated by people who didn’t stop to listen but made a contribution none the less as they walked passed the violinist.

After an hour the man by the name of Joshua Bell – one of the greatest musicians in the world – picks up his coat and hat after playing one of the most complicated and beautiful pieces ever written. He carefully packs up his instrument, an in 1713 hand crafted violin valued at $3.5 million dollars. A masterpiece by legendary violin maker Antonio Stradivari at the peak of his ability. The same violin which enthralled a crowd willing to pay $100 for a glimpse of this performance just two days before at the Boston Theatre.

This performer, this artist didn’t capture the attention of but a handful when playing unannounced, and posing as any street artist.

Perceived Value

The story above is entirely true, and part of an experiment as conducted by the Washington Post back in 2007 called ‘Pearls Before Breakfast‘. The original experiment explored our perception of value. The perceived value of the artists performance, despite its brilliance (or actual value) was 0 to well over 95% of its audience. There were no cheers, standing ovations or even an encouraging applauses.

The awkward times,” he calls them. It’s what happens right after each piece ends: nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn’t noticed him playing don’t notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment. So Bell just saws out a small, nervous chord — the embarrassed musician’s equivalent of, “Er, okay, moving right along . . .” — and begins the next piece.

This of course in sharp contrast with his grand performance two days earlier. In the Boston Theatre, amongst the spotlights and centre stage every ‘fiddle’ was greeted with a warm wave of enthusiasm, clapping of hands and people rising from their soft seats for every finale.

The difference? Did the violinist just have an off-day? Did the acoustics of the subway didn’t translate his music well or was he playing for an audience less interested in classical pieces of music?

Of course none of the above was the deciding factor. His performance failed to ‘catch on’ because of one thing only: Context. It was the stage of the experiment that determined the perceived value of the virtuoso’s performance, and whether we choose to give it attention or not. Absorb the beauty and applaud, or ignore and rush past it.

How context builds value

Dan Ariely, Author of Predictably Irrational has scientifically explored how context impacts perceived value. In this book he explains how the same eight dollars is perceived as being worthy of a substantial investment (in time) to being worth nothing at all. When these 8 dollars are saved on a 18 dollar pen, we’re happy to drive that extra 20 minutes to the store to get it, but when we can save the same 8 dollars on a $448 suit, most of us won’t drive that extra mile.

He explains this behaviour by the way our mind works. It quite lazily follows a pattern and navigates by context. 8 dollars in the context of 18 is quite a substantial amount. 8 dollars in the context of 448 dollar isn’t, hence we are not stimulated to take action. An artist in a subway follows the path of the mediocre street performances and tells our mind to keep on walking. To prioritize getting somewhere above witnessing ‘America’s best violinist’ for free, or simply appreciating the beautiful music. (And vice versa, could a mediocre violinist also reap a standing ovation for his fiddling when performing at the Boston Theatre?).

Ariely argues context is to provide a stage. A platform to stage your idea instead of letting it float into nothingness. Nothingness doesn’t guide us, it makes decision making harder or leaves it wide open to the observers own interpretations. Context is a way to determine perspective and perception, and follow it through to the benefits of implementation.

So with every idea you need to ’sell’ for adoption or implementation consider its context. Context can be found in any of the following elements:

• The Story: Describe the sequential events preceding and following your idea
• The Framework: Describe the processes that are being affected by your idea
• The Individual: Describe the lives of the persons who are being influenced by your idea
• The Heart: Describe the emotions involved with your idea
• The Proximity: Where is your idea in relation to other, alternative ideas

The better you illustrate the context in these paths, the better you do at building your stage: A metro Subway at rush hour or the Boston Theatre at Saturday night.

Context, context, context

The video below starts out with a guy dancing somewhat extravagantly and alone. At the beginning he is a loner, a nutter even maybe, but as soon as someone joins him (0:30) in his extravagant dance they become an act. When a the third person joins the dance (0:53) it makes them a movement. The perception changes with the context, and the crowd that follows makes him a leader and main topic of a world wide viral video:

The person or his dance never changed, but in perception he goes from loner to leader.

So the the next time you have your brilliant insight, your Great Idea, remember it is the context that provides its value. It’s truly remarkable to see the time people spend on getting the idea versus the time to present it within the right context. How do you build your stage? Do you play at the Washington DC Subway station, or perform at the Boston Theatre?

In order to stimulate creative and constructive behavior that will get some real results, I often use a 10 to 15 minutes warming-up to break the ice and get the creative juices flowing. These creative warming-ups have several purposes:

First of all we do warm-ups to settle everyone into a mindset where they leave the realm of logical, linear thinking and can freely offer ideas that might seem unlogical. We have to learn that thinking unconventional thoughts is not only allowed in a brainstorm, it is actually encouraged. Warm-ups can do so by specifically rewarding unconventional thinking.

The second reason is to give everyone a chance to spot and correct early violations of the ‘10 commandments of Brainstorming’. Most essentially people who criticize the ideas of other people. The warm up also allows the facilitator to slip into the role of discussion leader (which is especially good if he or she is not usually the one in charge within the group of participants) and feel confidant about pointing out to people they should be constructive and postpone feedback and criticism untill after the brainstorm.

Third and last reason we use the warming ups is to learn to build on each-others ideas. We have a tendency to think others ‘own’ the idea the offered in a brainstorm and it would be ‘cheap’ or ‘uncreative’ to build on those ideas, while in fact, this is the very nature of a brainstorm.

On to the Icebreaking!

The following 12 techniques are akin to play, and may seem a little childish at times. But it’s part of the warm-up function to get over that restricting self-censoring feeling that tell you you shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the creative process of problem solving.

1. Bring a random object into the brainstorm and ask for alternative products that could be made with it if it was bigger/smaller.
2. Lateral Puzzles such as: A man walks into a bar, and asks for a glass of water. The bartender pulls a gun on him at which the man replies with ‘thank you’ and walks outside. The participants can ask questions that can only be answered with yes or no, until the situation can be explained logically: The man had the hick-ups. (look here for a nearly endless archive of Lateral Puzzles)
3. Word association game. Name a word, the person sitting next to you says the first word he or she associates with the word. Repeat untill the ‘word’ comes back to you. List the first and the last word associated and try to think of a logical scenario connecting the two.
4. Randomization: Every participant has to write down an activity and an object, then passes the activity to the right, and the object to the left. Then have each participants explain how their new combination would still make sense.
5. Roleplay: In-act a scenario related to the topic of the brainstorm – appoint different roles for each participant and take them through the scenario.
6. Electro Powered Something. Take an every day object and ask how it could be improved using batteries. (i.e. a book, a bottle, a cup).
7. Round table story: Start off with a small story introduction, then aks the participants to continue the story, one sentence at a time.
8. Ask the participants ‘What if our company/brand is an object, what kind of object would it be and why?’
9. A word game of opposites. Name a word, then all participants have to think of opposites until at least 3 opposites have been listed, before moving on to the next word.
10. Try solving a huge topic (such as world hunger) using a random object within the room.
11. Play Pictionary. One person uses the whiteboard to start drawing something abstract such as a movie, a play, a song or a brand.
12. Pick a small number of famous people, and an equal amount of different colors, then ask the participants to match a color to a person.

Of course there’s lots of variations possible – in general there’s 3 rules for a good warm-up excersize:

• Keep the warm-up unrelated to the main brainstorm. Part of the goal of the warm up is to teach the participants every idea has equal value. With the warm=up being to involved in the main brainstorm, there is a chance people feel reluctant to express themselves.
• There should be no right or wrong ideas. For instance solving puzzles should not be about the result but about the process of solving them. Different thinking should be encouraged, and ‘one solution challenges’ tend to force simular thinking.
• Use randomization and play. Dice, a deck of cards, random objects or rotating ideas such as warm-up number 4 challenge the participants to think outside of traditional, predictable patterns, and force them to think creatively. This will be of great help when you want to facilitate lateral leaps in the real brainstorm.

And most important of all – don’t forget you’re allowed to enjoy this part. Large Innovation firms have recognised the relation between play and creative productivity, and my experiences have been no different. So have fun and happy brainstorming!

Eventually there will be ideas that are neither original nor relevant (relevant meaning the idea is an effective solution to the problem), relevant and original, or just one of either. In general this divides the pile of ideas into good, bad and Great Ideas.

The Bad

You might have heard of the expression “there are no bad ideas” – just as the ‘there are no dumb questions’ cliche. This notion however, is not so much about the quality of the idea being offered itself, but more about postponing judgment during the phase of divergence (generation lots of ideas) in a brainstorm session for example. When evaluating ideas the ‘no bad idea’ rule no longer applies, and is in fact a necessary part of convergence, in working towards a set of solutions we think are valuable, effective solutions to the problem at hand. The mistake is however, to see bad ideas as ‘worthless’ or ‘failures’.

When evaluating ideas, I see a bad idea as an idea with obvious, relevant flaws in providing a solution at hand.

As said, this does not mean the idea is therefor worthless, and should not be investigated. As proven by the famous story of Edison, who needed 999 ‘bad ideas’ to get to his one great idea. If her had discarded these ideas instantly as failures, he’d never have gotten to the one light bulb that did work. Or in his own words: I didn’t fail 999 times, I just found 999 ways that didn’t work.

Bad Ideas can be a great source of inspiration especially because they are so ‘off- base’. They missed the target, are unlogical or took a ‘wrong turn’ in addressing or interpreting the problem. But these ‘wrong turns’ can easily inspire good ideas by going into the opposite direction, or help re-evaluate the problem itself.

The good and the Great Idea

But most of your ideas will be actually be ‘good ideas’. Ideas that at first glance connect with the problem in a meaningful way (thus have relevance). But relevance is not all that is needed for a Great Idea. ‘Good’ is what you get when you deliver what was expected. Good won’t get you talked about, good won’t get you noticed, and creates a satisfied customer, not an enthusiastic customer.

In the evaluation phase there’s a new opportunity for ideas to connect. The flaws of bad ideas expose opportunities for new good ideas. Good ideas can be found complimentary to each other, and by combining good ideas from different fields, one creates originality. A combination of both relevance and originality creates the creative solutions that go beyond expectations: The Great Ideas.

The perfect idea

There is just one more ‘label’ in the idea evaluation phase of ideation that deserves some special attention. This is the perfect idea. A label of ‘perfection’ is rarely a good thing in ideation. Perfection specifically implies the idea can not be improved.

But perfection is rarely, if not never, objective. ‘Your perfect’ does not have to be ‘my’ perfect. And by ‘my’ I mean your client, your boss, your end-user, your audience.  Is perfect the highest amount of profit your idea generates at all cost, or the highest amount of people that like your design, the amount of exposure it generates, a combination of factors?

Perfect is a state of mind. It’s an attitude towards alternative views that doesn’t belong in the ideation process of the Creative Thinker. Even the mere hint of a ‘perfect solution’ can seriously harm your creative thinking – when ideation turns into a linear search for the ‘holy grail’, ruthlessly excluding opposing views that are a necessary component of any truly Great Idea.

So when evaluating ideas – treat the ‘bad ideas’ with special care, explore their trains of thought and define their shortcomings. Be wary of accepting good ideas too quickly. Good might seem satisfactory, but satisfactory is a long way from that feeling every creative wants to inspire. Let the concepts of your good ideas connect, and see where Great Ideas start to form – going beyond expectation, and having a healthy mix of relevance and originality. Last, be wary of ‘perfect ideas’ – the kind of idea that makes you blind or deaf to other ideas and different opinions. Any idea can be improved, any idea is open to interpretation – don’t close your eyes and ears for valuable feedback and be open to re-evaluation of your ideas.

But people aren’t perfect, and therefore perfect hypothetical scenario’s aren’t perfect. Most of the time, ideas don’t start flowing freely through this creative space. Brainstorm magic doesn’t automatically happen, and even the best sources of inspiration can find fierce opposition making it difficult to create those Great Ideas.

The problem is most of these creative spaces don’t start out empty. People don’t come to a brainstorm session without presumptions or pre-made solutions they’ve already made up their minds about. You don’t start without presumptions about a problem and its solution.

These assumptions and ideas are the elephants. The elephants can be identified by 4 factors:

1. They’re big and heavy crowding up the room, blocking the flow of ideas
2. They trample any new ideas that do slip past
3. They remember everything, clinging to the ways of yesterday
4. They’re not easy to get rid of

Getting rid of the elephants

When addressing a problem, it’s important to get rid of the elephants first. These heavy weight ideas that linger in the back of your mind, or your brainstorm attendees will become the lens through which one will see the ideas of others: Compatible or not compatible, instead of being able to look at ideas objectively, and see them as individual sources of inspiration.

The elephants won’t leave easy however, in fact, it’s safe to say they will never completely leave at all. We all look at things a certain way, and have assumptions about things, which is in fact our contribution, not a handicap in ideation. But in order to avoid the elephants wandering around and trampling new ideas, just line them up nicely and park them outside for a moment.

In practice, I find one of the most successful ways to get rid of the elephants is to just ask for these heavy weight ideas up front. Present the problem, then ask yourself or the participants what you/they think is the ‘big issue’ – the one thing that needs to get solved in order to create an effective solution. These ‘big issues’ represent perception. Then ask for their solution to the ‘big issue’ – these are the elephants based on individual assumptions.

List the elephant(s) and acknowledge them as valid suggestions. This will stop the elephants trying to trample new ideas that endanger them, because they’ve already been acknowledged. Furthermore, identifying the assumptions at this early stage could be a way to fuel the brainstorm or ideation process later on. The assumptions often represent fundamentals that follow ‘the way it’s always been done’, and therefore would be ‘foolish to question’. But part of a brainstorm is to question the way things have been done. It’s essential in order to create room for new ideas.

In summary:

1. Realize your ideation process is always hampered by your own or others assumptions
2. Assumptions kill or hinder new, creative ideas
3. Locate these assumptions
4. Use the assumptions to ask questions about the way things have been done

A creative suggestion is found in ancient Greece, where they believed separate entities such as the Muses or Genius’ are responsible for our ability to be creative. Invisible to the eye, but always helping out by whispering new and original thoughts into the ears of their protégé’s. This romantic interpretation of creativity is presented beautifully in this presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert.

But inspiring as the notion of mythical creatures helping us with our ideas might be, the goal of Crinid is to make creativity more tangible, so we can learn and grow in our ability to create Great Ideas. And as creativity is such an important factor of a Great Idea, we should take a look at some of the alternative and more tangible theories on creativity.

We start our exploration inside the machine that I think is still responsible for our own ideas – the human mind.

The human mind

At its most basic level, our brain is responsible for processing impulses from outside (input), evaluate the observations, then create a reaction (a thought or physical action – the output). Our brain is very effective at processing the input and is able to make these decisions in split seconds. This is because rather than looking at each occurrence of an event as an individual event, we have the ability to recognize this event, and respond in a way we did to the previous occurrences of a comparable event by following a set of global rules rather than instructions for the individual occurrence of the event.

In other words, our brain recognizes patterns. For example. when we see a car speeding towards us, we quickly make a prediction of what is likely to happen if the situation remains unaltered. We do this by lining up things we’ve been taught, such as the theory of collision (fast moving object meets another object). Then our brain recognizes the undesirable but probably outcome of the unaltered event, so it tells our limbs to change the situation by moving out of the way. A solution we think is most likely to work based on those same patterns.

A pattern following a set of rules

A pattern can be defined as a set of rules that can be used repeatedly. The pattern above this text has the following rules:
1. Every red square should be followed by a green triangle.
2. Every green triangle should be followed by a blue star
3. Every blue star should be followed by a red square

Other patterns our brain uses very frequently are language, grammar, mathematics, instinct and probably even our well-being (happiness) is largely based on patterns. Our ability to process information to predict a probable outcome and create output (ideas and actions) all based on a set of rules somewhere in our brain (a pattern).

The reason we use these patterns is because they are time-efficient. When I would ask you to tell me the color of the 300th symbol in the pattern above, you wouldn’t need to draw out 300 symbols in order to find out. You use the pattern, and will quickly be able to tell me that it’s likely to be a blue star (because 300 is just 100 repeats of the pattern, and at the end of every pattern there is a blue star.)
The alternative to patterns, is having to learn every single word combination possible in order for form a sentence. Or every number conceivable in order to use it. No one ever taught you 19.915 follows 19.914, but when asked you know this using a pattern called counting.

As we get older, our brain gets more efficient in using these patterns. As humans we even start to prefer one pattern over another. These are the patterns that shape our personality after a loop of feeling safe with a certain pattern because you’ve used it before, and using a pattern because you feel safe with it. Some patterns are widely adopted and become known as ‘common sense’. Patterns shapes us into who we are and what we do in certain situations. This is the self-regulating system of our brain.

The above is a rough sketch of how the mind works: processing information and shaping our observations into ideas and actions by predictions through patterns. But there’s a real paradox here when we look at how this self regulating system affects our ability to be creative.

Creativity and the Lateral Leap

As we’ve seen, the sole purpose of patterns is to predict highly probable outcomes. These predictions determine our actions accordingly. If a probable prediction is likely to have a negative effect on us, our brain starts to correct this process. If the probable prediction is likely to be positive, we work towards obtaining it. The result of ‘processing by pattern’ is per definition a predictable outcome. But the problem in the context of creativity with this is: predictable is exactly the opposite of creative.

Creativity is about new, original ideas and thoughts that somehow have relevance to a problem, but this is not obvious. Obvious solutions are never creative solutions. Or as Sir Ken Robinson put it:

One of the enemies of creativity and innovation, especially in relation to our own development, is common sense. ~Sir Ken Robinson, author of ‘The element, How finding your passion changes everything’

This is why creativity seems so intangible. Why we have trouble defining and repeating the success of creative ideas. It doesn’t obey the rules of our pattern oriented thinking. The process of creativity requires a radically different approach than our regular, common sense thinking.

Most of the above has been researched and analyzed by far greater specialists on the mind than me. One of which is Edward de Bono, one of the modern guru’s on creativity and ideation. He saw the pattern-based, self regulating system of the mind and wondered how we could use this to start making sense of creativity. Where does it hide if not in the patterns of our mind. In his best-selling book ‘Lateral Thinking’ de Bono introduces his thinking framework, called Lateral Thinking, that introduces the first steps into understanding the process of creative idea generation.

Out of this book the following is my take on altering our way of usual idea generation in order to break our patterns: The Lateral Leap.
The Lateral Leap is the process of consciously working on creative solutions, by effectively being aware of patterns, avoiding the use of our regular, pattern oriented thinking and re-arranging information differently to create truly new, relevant and original ideas.

The Lateral Leap in 3 steps

The following three steps illustrate a path of creating Lateral Leaps by trying to break and re-structure existing patterns, and with that provide an opportunity to create new, creative ideas.

1. Recognize and identify assumptions

The first and most essential thing to realize when dealing with a problem is the assumptions you have about the situation. Lateral Leaping is not so much about whether these assumptions are right or wrong, but more with our tendency to treat these assumptions as objective truths. Things that cannot, or should not be changed. Before we can make the Lateral Leap, we must first rid ourselves of such assumptions.

Assumptions are usually non-existing rules that handicap our ability to generate new ideas, and help us slide along pre-existing patterns in our mind. So the first step towards the Lateral Leap is exposing these assumptions and turning them into questions.

To illustrate these patterns I always do one test that requires the students/participants to draw as many objects possible in a short amount of time, and give them a few examples. After the time has passed, I ask how many of the participants used the given examples. Usually 9 out of 10 didn’t, even though those where 4 ‘free’ ones, and I never stated you could not use them. It was presumed – handicapping their ability to get the most objects done within the given amount of time.

2. Explore alternatives

Once we’ve dealt with our assumptions we are ready to start generating ideas. Traditional ideation is mostly concerned about finding that one Great Idea, and move on from there. The generation of ideas in Lateral Leaping is not as much about creating individual solutions, but more about generating a number of different approaches, insights and ideas with as much variation as possible.

Just as in regular Ideation through brainstorming for instance, it’s important to postpone judgment. Don’t evaluate the alternative solutions, in this phase of Lateral Leaping we’re only concerned with finding as many different ‘angles’ as possible. It’s perfectly possible (in fact, very probable) these individual solutions/alternatives are the result of pattern-oriented thinking, but the collective of ideas is the foundation of our Lateral Leap into creative ideas.

To generate these ‘solutions from different angles’ we need to look beyond the obvious. Lateral Leaping relies on exploring for the sake of exploring, and not necessarily for the sake of finding. Some paths may lead nowhere, some paths may offer flawed or partial solutions. In this phase all findings are relevant however.

To go beyond the obvious, we need to first consider the obvious, then think of alternatives. The problem of building a bridge might at first seem a building problem dealing with architecture, landscaping and safety. Going beyond the obvious is exploring the fields of biology, astronomy or 20th century expressionists and look for solutions to the same problem.

In this phase, quantity and variation are preferred over quality.

3. Create connections between different fields

The convergent phase of the Lateral Leap is the leap itself. Jumping from one field into an apparently unrelated field. Start to connect the generated alternatives and look as their individual parts, rather than to see them as complete solutions. This way we start breaking down the existing patterns that might have created the pool of solutuins, and start rearranging the individual information into new, original solutions.

One of the most effective ways to visualize these Lateral Leaps between fields is to use a mindmap. A mindmap naturally connects and illustrates pattern oriented thinking, constantly drawing relations between pieces of information. But a mindmap tends to go in different directions, indicating clear separations in their context even though they all relate back to the problem at the center.

By seeking connections between two fields that seem the furthest away from eachother (left lower corner to upper right corner) you force yourself to explore new fields for relevant solutions, that go beyond our usual, predictable, pattern based solutions.

The 6 principles of Great Ideas show the key qualities of ideas made to survive. Ideas that get adopted and cared for by your consumers, clients and/or key decision makers.

Simple

Simplicity is finding the core of your idea. The ‘what does it do and what’s in it for me’ of an idea. Design thinking is particularly effective in this part because designers know they made a great design when there’s nothing left to add, or remove from it. This is the required ‘simplicity’ of a great idea.

Unexpected

When people expect your idea, or ‘see it coming’ it loses its ability to stick. It should make sense the moment they hear it, but not before. There should be an element of surprise, mystery or teasing to grab the attention and interest. This is the biggest chunk of the creativity factor’ of an idea.

Concrete

Being concrete is about being understood and remembered. Being vague will lead to confusion, resilience and eventually the idea won’t make much sense without you there to explain it. A great way to make people understand is to make them experience it – prototyping or visualizing are the obvious tools to be more concrete about your idea.

Credible

Helping people believe, and take away suspicion is essential to the adoption of an idea. When you are an authority in your field you will be believed, when you are not – make sure you generate credibility by good research, facts, other authorities and anti-authorities. Building trust is essential, otherwise your Great Idea could just become one of those ‘too good to be true’ ideas.

Emotional

In order to find support for your Great Idea, you need to make people care. Find out what they care about, play on the irrational needs of people such as status, recognition, a need to connect, share or experience emotions.

Stories

Stories summarize all of the above in an effective pitch. Stories are case studies and often exciting events that allows the listener to become part of the experience (and more importantly: the benefits) of your idea. A story is the fastest route into someone’s memory, and the easiest way to convey a lot of extra detail without having spell them out.

Ideas that Stick

In short, first you need to find a way to communicate the ‘what does it do’ (1. simplicity), secondly is the level of creativeness – has it been done before, is it obvious, is it relevant (2. Unexpected)? Thirdly you need to make people understand, and remember your idea by making them experience the idea through prototyping or visualization for instance (3. Concrete).

Next up us the credibility. You need to be trusted as much as the quality of the idea (4. Credible). Then you need to connect to the things they care about – the ‘why should I care?’ (5. Emotional) and last is the pitch, gather the previous factors in a consistent and authentic story that will sell your idea (6. Story).

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Stories

If you want to know more about the 6 Principles of great ideas, I highly recommend reading the book ‘Made to Stick – why some ideas survive and others die’ by Chip & Dan Heath, or follow their blog.

Sometimes this is a smooth process. If one of the ideas is already a combination of ideas from various people on your team it usually doesn’t take long to get everyone enthusiastic about it. It becomes more difficult when individuals won’t accept an alternative to their own solution. This can become a real problem when the reasons why the idea doesn’t get accepted remain unclear.

The following video is bound to look familiar to most of you working in the creative industry. Though situated in the creative team VS client relation, it just as easily applies to a creative team working on a project and deciding which idea to develop:

The video above illustrates various hidden obstacles towards accepting an idea perfectly. The presumptions of a person and their ideas get in the way of getting an idea accepted, or even getting the revisions to get the idea accepted:

• The older ‘man with the money’ questions the experience of the young presenters. Their enthusiasm is seen as childish and unrealistic (over-optimistic).
• The art director is seen as somewhat pretentious and unpractical, only pushing his own artistic ideas instead of those of the company.
• The reviewing committee is seen as hopelessly conservative, fearful or more concerned with their personal agenda.

Rational arguments and irrational assumptions

In the situation above the idea is no longer reviewed on rational arguments. The acceptance of the offered marketing concepts depends almost entirely on the unspoken presumptions about the individuals in the team, and the consequences that would have for the quality of their ideas.

This becomes a problem when no one expresses their real concerns, and instead both parties try to please each other and make up fallacies. Or at the very least produce arguments that are not at the heart of their issue with the ideas offered. The result is both parties have no chance of getting closer to each other, and the next series of concepts is likely to be rejected for the same hidden reasons.

To avoid these situations whenever your team has trouble getting behind a single idea, it’s essential to remove the irrational part from the discussion by exposing these hidden obstacles towards accepting an idea.

The Negative Braindump

When to use the Negative Braindump: Use this technique when it’s unclear why an idea doesn’t get accepted by the team. Without full understanding by the participants the concept will lack consistency and clarity in its execution.

Participants, Duration & Preparation: The number of participants can be any number of team members. The brainstorm itself is fast, no more than 3 minutes per idea. In preparation the brief objectives have to be clear, and each idea has to be presented briefly.

The method

1. The idea becomes the topic of your brainstorm. If there is more than one idea being considered, make separate brainstorms for each idea.
2. All participants are asked to write down a list 25 reasons why this idea could fail to meet the briefing objective within 3 minutes.
3. Gather up the lists and review them with the team.

How it works

By asking for such a high number of reasons, and such a limited amount of time, the participants will start writing down the first ideas that come to mind. Even if he starts to write down the fallacies, with the high amount of demanded reasons the participant will feel compelled to start writing down the hidden grievances as time passes.

Furthermore, when asking the participants to write down the arguments we remove the element of spoken conversation. And with that the risk of having your opinions rejected right away, nuanced by words, working relations or peer pressure. This makes this brainstorm an open invitation to really express your thoughts.

Last, the lists with possible issues create a clear and un-nuanced view interpretation of the brief by the participant. This is an opportunity to see if there are misunderstandings in the original brief that didn’t get expressed before.

In summary, the Negative Brainstorm attempts to expose hidden objections to a problem, turn them into rational arguments and evaluate them openly. Remember that just because the objections can be hidden, it doesn’t make them any less valid than the expressed opinions.

One of the pillars of the insights and methods Crinid will present is ‘the anatomy of the idea’. Its my take on the concept of ‘an idea’. What makes a ‘good’ idea and how can we be more in control of creating these great ideas? How can we make the process of ideation more tangible, train it and generally become better creative thinkers?

I captured an introduction to the concept of ‘the idea’ in a short presentation called the ‘Anatomy of the idea’. This presentation looks into each individual part of an idea, and tries to capture the process of inspiration: Our creative ability to perceive and generate ideas based on sensory ‘input’. Though the presentation has been up in our about page for a while now, I wanted to repost it here to mark the ‘300 views within 24 hours on slideshare.com‘ and being a ‘featured presentation‘ on their homepage.

Oh, and should you feel inspired by this presentation, feel free to use the concept for your own presentations or share the entire thing on your website

The goal of this article is to explore & explain the actual how and why of ‘the brainstorm’. How does it work and why is it such an effective method? For the conditions and rules of conducting a brainstorm see one of the previous articles: ‘The 10 commandments of brainstorming’.

Waves of inspiration

The goal of every brainstorm is to generate creative, new solutions to a problem. Ideally you have gathered a team of 4 to 10 people to participate in the brainstorm. You’ve appointed a reporter, a leader and the participants and are ready to go.

But where do you start, wand what exactly constitutes as a good brainstorm?How do you generate those truly remarkable ideas?

A common mistake is to dive right into the brainstorm. Everyone says what they think of first until all ideas are dried up, then call it a day. The brainstorms conducted this way are not likely to generate any truly original and constructive ideas.

It’s essential to know ideas come to you in waves. Especially within a brainstorm where the real advantage is the ability to get inspired by each other’s ideas. Mix up concepts and contexts and take ideas to new levels. Everyone generates ideas, and everyone can mix and match or add their own interpretations to those ideas to create new concepts. Below is a visual representation of these waves, and incremental creativeness of its 3 participants during a brainstorm session.

The warm-up

In the warming up you do a ‘mini-brainstorm’ to get ready for ‘the real deal’. A simple question like ‘give me ideas to use a paperclip on a deserted island’ will help spark the process if idea generation and give the participants enough time to get used to sharing their ideas.

It’s also an opportunity to spot participants that give feedback on the ideas of others, and remind them this is not a discussion but about quantity.

After the warming up, present the topic of the brainstorm as clear as possible, and start the timer.

Wave 1: The Braindump

The first ‘wave’ of idea generation within the brainstorm is ‘the braindump’. All participants speak their mind freely, usually offering ideas from within their own experiences based on similar challenges as that of the topic of the brainstorm. These are often obvious ideas but essential to the progress of the brainstorm.

After a while usually the frequency of ideas offered starts to slow down. The participants have put their ideas out there. This marks the end of the first wave. Give the reporter time to catch up with the notes, and list the ideas so far.

Wave 2: Divergent Thinking

When the ideas get read back to the participants, this will serve as inspiration for the second wave. This is where the real process of divergent thinking starts. Opening up to the ideas of others, and making variations and combinations with their own. Creating mixed concepts and a new level of originality.

Ideas in the second wave are the result of a combination of experiences instead of a single context. In this phase most ideas focus on concepts, the links between ideas.

Wave 3: Creative Ideation

The final phase is the true Creative Ideation: The new creative ideas and concepts generated in the second wave become inspiration for actual solutions. Even though there should be no process of conscious filtering, the more inspiring ideas will naturally generate more new branches of ideas – resulting in relevant and original answers to the problem.

In summary:

• 1st wave: List of individual ideas
• 2nd wave: The connections between 1st wave ideas generate new concepts
• 3rd wave: The 2nd wave ideas and concepts get converted into original, new solutions

What’s next?

After a while even the third phase will lose its momentum – either resulting in less relevant, off-topic ideas, repetition or no more new ideas. Several brainstorming techniques can be employed to stretch out these waves and generate more accurate ideas. But at some point, you run out of potentially valuable ideas and are just wasting time.

When this happens, it is time to evaluate, pick out the really good ideas and push the project ahead.

Creating a real, solid solution from the large pile of ideas generated by the brainstorm is called ‘convergent thinking’. You evaluate each idea not just on its level of creativity, but also apply other factors such as budget, time, previous experiences with the client et cetera.

There are several pitfalls when it comes to this process of idea evaluation so I decided to dedicate an entire article to convergent thinking (to be published later this month). If you don’t want to miss it – why not sign up to our updates per email or RSS?