Do you have an idea how to generate ideas?
I got a few.
Let's share those today.
Brainstorming is the classic way to regenerate ideas.
Well, how is that done?
Couple things I've learned about brainstorming that might be helpful.
First of all, find the time when you can do this.
It's not something that you just do on the spur of the moment or as you're doing other
things.
You want to create some time and some space around this.
So let's say that you want to generate ideas for a new product or a new service or a new
aspect of your business or your career or your relationship or whatever, okay.
Set aside some time to actually do it.
If you are in a position that requires on-going creation and generation of ideas then you
want to have this recurring time when you can generate ideas.
Now there are different lobes of your brain functioning.
I did a video with James Garrett where he described this really nicely, you can link
to that right up here and he talked about an executive functioning and that more creative
functioning of our brain so next step is we want to get into the creative mode of our
brain so things that will help us to do this are to create a setting that's conducive to
the creative part of our brain.
You don't want to be, for example, in the place where you usually do all of your executive
functioning.
Sitting at your desk for example, probably not the best place to do your brainstorming
and idea generation.
Why?
Because it uses a different part of your brain typically when you sit there so you might
want to go outside, you might want to sit by a stream, you might want to gather your
creative team together in a play room somewhere.
This gives the mind permission to start relaxing a little bit and opening up and coming up
with those different ideas that are just not available to you when you're executive mode
and you're getting things done.
Now another thing that's helpful on brainstorming is to have some kind of a capture method that
allows you to later, not now, later organize your ideas into categories or into a place
where you can start to evaluate the relative of those ideas.
This capture method depends on what is going to work really well for you but here's a few
examples, using post-it notes for example.
You know the little notes you add a little sticky on the back and you jot down one idea
and tear it off and stick it somewhere.
Another idea, tear it off and stick it somewhere so that you're not putting multiple ideas
on one note, just one idea per note, that allows you to organize them later because
they're all separated.
Index cards is another way that you can do this.
Now let's say that you don't want to take the time to write things down..
Well, you can do it electronically on your computer, you can record your voice saying
the ideas, that's going to take a little work later on to extract those and get them into
an editable format but basically you want to have some kind of a capture method so you
don't lose the ideas as they come and you can organize them later on.
One of the cardinal rules of brainstorming is that everything is fair game.
You do not reject any ideas on the surface, we are open to every and all that comes without
filtering what's going on in the idea generation.
You just simply accept and record and capture every idea.
This helps the members of your team so if you were working in a group, helps them to
feel like, oh, anything I come up with is valid idea and it is.
We may reject it later on after getting into the evaluation of it but that's not relevant
right now during the brainstorming mode.
Right now we want to keep the flow going so every idea is valid.
The next I want to share with you something that just recently came up for me as I was
reviewing..
This little guy from Michael Michalko.
I'm not even sure if I'm saying that right.
He is also the author of Thinker Toys which is a book that helps you to wrap your head
around this idea generation.
This Thinkpak that he designed is actually a cards set that helps you to open up new
possibilities.
So the different cards here tell you that you can do certain things with the ideas that
you've just generated.
So this one for example is all about adapt.
You see picture of a fish here and then a fish walks up on to the land.
This isn't a lesson on evolution, it's how can I adapt this idea that we came up with
in the brainstorming to serve the purpose that we're trying to do over here by adapting
it.
Take an example of one of the cards.
Here's another card..
This one is all about reversing something.
So in this image, you see a white background here, we've got a black background here, we've
got the squares and the triangles and the circle orientation here and it's flipped on
the other side so it's like taking whatever your idea is and reversing it or flipping
it or changing it around in a way that looks different.
Just helps to keep the juices flowing.
This one is about magnifying and that kind of goes without saying, we got a little thing
here and it becomes a bigger thing.
What would happen if we took this idea we came up with and we magnified it.
So as I was getting into the instructions for the Thinkpack card deck, Michael also
uses this acronym..
He calls it SCAMPER.
The SCAMPER method.
So let's go through that.
S stands for substitute something.
Look at all this idea, is there something that can substitute this for that that would
change it enough that would cause a different idea to immerge.
Here's the C in SCAMPER, stands for combine it with something else.
If we took this idea and combined it with that idea, what would happen?
Oh, we would have a whole new idea.
The A in SCAMPER stands for adapt something to it.
I showed you a card on that with a fish climbing out of the water, we're going to adapt to
a new environment.
How can we change this idea or adapt it to fit whatever the need is over here.
The M in SCAMPER stands for modify or magnify, modify or magnify it.
How can we change it a little bit?
Maybe make it a little bigger, maybe do a little modification, that brings up a whole
new idea.
The P in SCAMPER, put it to some other use.
Put it to some other use.
It's not what we're used to using it for, what could you use a paperclip for for example?
Well, you can use it to hold the papers together.
I didn't exercise with this once in a brainstorming group, I think it was about 200 in the end.
200 different uses for a paperclip.
Wow, it's not what it's used for but you can put it to some other use.
Let's go to the E in SCAMPER, stands for eliminate something.
What can we take out of this that would make it a different idea and then finally the R
in SCAMPER stands for reverse or rearrange it.
I showed you a card example for that one too.
So this tool I think is very helpful.
SCAMPER stands for all of the different things that you can do to modify or rearrange or
adapt an idea that becomes a whole new idea.
So when it comes to generating ideas, let's take the good ideas we already have and see
if we can generate even more from those.
You've probably got some other ideas about how to generate ideas, share them, let's talk.