By Heather Rast, Interactive Experience Manager
The Geonetric creative services team has started having internal abstract brainstorming sessions, centered around a random Web issue, to charge up the ‘ol creative batteries and shift gears to challenge folks to think outside of their everyday task lists. Wow, that’s a couple of automotive metaphors I didn’t intentionally make.
But the gist is applicable. No matter how well-knit a team is, or cleverly constructed cross-functional its genetic makeup, it’s a truism that we tend to use our own agendas, assignment lists, and frames of mind/exposure points to assess work-related issues and to get things accomplished.
We work on what’s within our sphere of influence and leave the rest for er, um, “Them”. Intuitively we know that there’s a Web site in need of updating. But it is owned by someone else (we’re not really sure who) and heck, you can manage to limp along okay once you get the hang of the quirks and shortcomings. Or maybe even avoid using them altogether (maybe by building your own solution and pirating around to a few coworker cohorts?).
Taking a nod from Apple, our new approach to this staid environment is to set aside a couple hours each month, and pull the creative left-brainers into a room. By greasing the skids with nutritional supplements (read: chips, chocolate, and candy) and design mediums (read: Play-Doh, Legos, yo-yos, and slinkys), we get people to mentally step outside of their “things I have to do today” mindframe and ask them to ideate - without premise, restrictions, practical expectations, or concern for bottom line - around ideal, meaningful, relevant, value-add solutions.
Suddenly, they’re the ones concepting a fabulous new company Web site or re-engineering an Intranet (maybe even mashing it up with a wiki and external client communication tool). It’s like Saturday morning cartoons, empty cardboard refrigerator boxes, and lightening bugs all rolled into one. Or TiVo’d Idol, a Wii, and iPhone, depending on your generation and economics. But I digress.
So when our time is up and we regrettably replace that wonderful brightly colored soft Doh to its iconic container, we collect our notes and provide all kinds of wonderful insight and suggestions to “Them,” the owners. Hey, we just come up with the big ideas. Someone else can figure out how to Make It So.
April 8, 2008 at 3:49 pm
The problem with said brainstorming sessions is once they are over the ones who came up with the ideas are left wondering if anything they came up with will ever make it to “reality”. Some may think that inviting some of the folks responsible for the site or Intranet to the meeting will just kill the creative juices, but it might not hurt to have someone there to provide a reality check just in case those left-brainers go way off the deep end as they tend to do at times. I also think it is good to reward individuals for their ideas or at the very least make sure they know why the idea died soon after it was born. No better way to kill a future brainstorming session then to show past ones proved to be ineffective or ignored.
April 8, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Mind Mapping - Interesting concept on brainstorming by process. Seems paradoxal at best until you dig a little deeper via Wikipedia’s contribution or the 2 million results on “mind mapping” through Google. Wikipedia suggests that a mind map is a diagram used to represent word or ideas linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It’s used to generate, structure, and classify ideas…a trail of visually creative ideas leading to the next possibility, the next, and on and on - a cognitive yet creative map with no formal restrictions.
I’ve seen this done just through drawings but have recently found mind mapping products on the market including an open source java mind mapping application. Enter all ideas and generate a picture – amazing!
Point is…brainstorming should be fun and engaging and everyone should walk away with feeling as though something is accomplished. That visual representation is not only a product of ideas but can be continually referred to or resurrected to generate more ideas and other ideas, and so on! If the products are too restrictive and drawing pictures aren’t the flavor of the day…make sure you take a picture of the Slinky, the Yo-yo, and the Play-Doh!
Happy Brainstorming!
April 11, 2008 at 7:18 am
As always, Sabe, you bring a unique perspective to things. At this point, the process is in its infancy so I hope that we, as a group, become engaged enough to help the process evolve. Cross-pollination of ideas can be a great result of the dialogue, as can be the level of interplay/interaction among team members who, by nature of their “daily” work, might not otherwise be very involved with others or their projects.
We have’t yet segued over to try the mind mapping apps but I’m intrigued by the possibilities.
As for Freud, well, I disagree. The whole premise for the sessions was established up front so that all attendees have a clear understanding of what to expect, and what’s expected of them. We’re not out to save the world here. It’s all about the exercise - challenging people to abandon conformities and restrictions, and just explore a problem as though they could make it so (”it” being more useful, beautiful, more informative, etc.). I think we’re okay with the prospect that nothing actionable may come of it.
But we are collating the great inputs into documentation so that when, if, the company prioritizes certain projects or decides to tackle a new idea, we have a jumping off point.