Clive Miller |
Part one was published way back in 1998.
Click
here to read it.
Creative types are often pictured in marketing think
tanks, and in brainstorming meetings, as people with unconventional
taste in clothes and jewellery. Being slightly odd helps with
creativity, or at least it can seem that way to people on the outside.
In fact we are all creative. It may surprise you to learn that a large
proportion of the sentences you speak each day, are completely unique.
Belief has a lot to do with one’s creativity. Placebo's, pills that
contain no drugs, have been shown to help cure medical conditions just
because the patient has been led to believe in the treatment. Past
experience of finding solutions to problems sets our unconscious
expectation of competence. If we believe we can, we do. Sounds too
simple doesn't it. If you associate problems with failure you are
sabotaging your ability to come up with creative answers. You have
probably heard the phrase; 'problems are opportunities'. Its truth is
not much help when you can't find a way to resolve something. Here are
three more of about a dozen practical methods I use to generate ideas.
4. Brainstorm in a Group
Even working with one other person can
rapidly accelerate the process. I have found that five to eight is the
optimal range for numbers of people. First write your problem or
challenge at the top of a piece of a flip chart. Have one of your
number write down everyone’s ideas. Pick someone who can write
quickly, so that they don’t interrupt the process in trying to keep
up. Remember to lay down the ground rule and enforce it rigorously –
no criticism of any ideas. All suggestions are acceptable. If you have
three or more people try for 100 ideas. For some strange unfathomable
reason, the best idea is usually about the seventieth.
5. Create a Mind Map or Learning Map
Start with a blank sheet of paper. Draw an
image that represents your topic or challenge in the centre. If you
can’t think of a good picture, write it and put a circle around it.
Identify the main possibilities and draw branches for each theme.
Write identifying phrases of descriptions along the branches. Use sub
branches to identify subordinate or related ideas. Draw pictures to
represent your thoughts. This way you stimulate your visual thinking,
which helps you to come up with more ideas. It doesn’t matter if
your pictures have artistic merit. They don’t have to make sense to
anyone but you. Use different colours to further stimulate your visual
creativity. As you develop your mind map it will prompt you to think
of more new ideas. Repeating the exercise, just to tidy up your map,
will lead you to think of still more ideas.
6. Select a Word at Random from a
Dictionary
Think, ‘how does this word apply to my
topic or challenge’. Ask yourself, ‘what solutions does this word
lead to?’ Edward De Bono, the famous scientist who has spent a
lifetime studying how people think, invented this method and used it
to help Sony design innovative televisions. Using his dictionary
association method, he selected a word at random and practised his
lateral thinking discipline using the word as a starting point. The
word he had randomly selected was ‘cheese’. Soon he came to
thinking about cheese with holes in it and from their he got the idea
for picture in picture. Sony subsequently differentiated their
televisions by including the ability to watch other channels in
windows.
Article by Clive Miller
Questions and comments to clive@salessense.co.uk
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Published
in the September 2001 SalesSense Inside View Newsletter.
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