The Importance of Crap Ideas

When it comes to brainstorming I cant stress enough the importance of generating crap ideas. 

I often say to participants in my brainstorms “Give me five crap ideas now!” The request for crap ideas is not only unexpected and humorous but it is extremely liberating. 

The interesting thing is that the ideas they then give me are actually quite good. 

You see as adults we have become scared of our creativity, scared of being judged, scared of saying something stupid. This is not something kids have a problem with at all but somewhere along the line things change and we lose our creative confidence. 

Research has proven that only 1 in every 100 ideas is a great one which means the other 99 ideas are not so good. Therefore, in a brainstorm it is imperative to go for quantity of ideas over quality. This is nearly impossible when people are filtering their own ideas - You come up with an idea but then that little voice in your head says “that’s a crap idea, I’d better not say that one aloud” and so you filter your idea before it even leaves your mouth. 

The other important reason to elicit crap ideas is that they often turn into genius ideas. An idea can sound so ridiculous and so off-brief but with a bit of finessing it can become a game changer. If you don't want to always rehash the same old ideas then you need to become comfortable with the seemingly crap or ridiculous ideas. Going for perfection and trying to nail the gold idea in a brainstorm just doesn't work. Ideas need to time to breathe, they come out rough and often a little clumsy.  Remember, anything truly innovative always sounds strange when its first thought of. I hope you like my example of a crap idea...I'm not sure this one made the cut.

Here are 5 tips on eliciting crap ideas in your brainstorms

1. Remind participants that we are going for quantity of ideas not quality
2. Never put pressure on people to come up with the gold idea in the brainstorm. Create a safe environment where people wont feel judged 
3. Actually request that people give you crap ideas
4. Explain that seemingly crap ideas often turn into genius ideas. The power of brainstorms is that we feed off each others ideas. A crap idea can spark a brilliant idea in someone else…i see this happen a lot
5. Remind participants to be ok with the crap ideas as the core team will reconvene after the brainstorm - all ideas will go through a filter and only creative and effective ideas will be considered at that stage.

Stay creative and go for crap ideas!

Cheers, 

Nicole.

The Top Five Reasons Why Brainstorms Flop

People often think brainstorming is a complete waste of time and often it is. However, it can also be a highly productive and fun experience where the room is buzzing and great ideas are almost bouncing off the walls. Here are the five key reasons why brainstorms flop and what to do…

1. The Facilitator Is Just Scribing - If the facilitator is just scribing, they are crazily trying to capture all the ideas on the white board and what’s happening behind their back is that one or two extroverted people are shouting out all their ideas and dominating the session. My trick to getting around this is to simply say “Who haven't I heard from”. In that moment the extroverts pipe down and amazingly the introverts always start speaking up with lots of great ideas. Make sure you ask someone else to be the scribe while you facilitate (control) the brainstorm

2. The Challenge Isn't Defined - People often get lazy and kick off the brainstorm by reading through a three page brief. After reading through the whole brief they then settle on the business objective to be the brainstorm challenge. Firstly, when you find the time to get your whole team together in a room for an hour, that is a luxury so don't waste it by reading through a brief that could have been emailed in advance. Secondly, the business objective is usually something like “how to raise awareness” or “How to sell more units”. Going into a brainstorm with such an uninspiring dull, business like challenge will not spark creativity! Find a way in and craft a challenge statement ahead of time that is fun, juicy and makes participants excited about the brainstorm. An example from a recent vitamin brand I worked on - Rather than the brainstorm challenge being, "how to get people to take brand X vitamin every morning" a more exciting brainstorm challenge is  “How to become as important as a morning coffee”

3. The Challenge Is Too Broad -  If the challenge is too broad you will get ideas that cover too much ground and the brainstorm will jump from idea to idea with no structure. You will finish the brainstorm with half baked thoughts rather than some fully fleshed out big ideas. Make sure you break your challenge up into mini challenges and tackle each challenge separately

4. Ideas Are Shut Down Prematurely - Think about it, nothing truly innovative ever sounded normal when it was first thought of. Take the iPhone for example - imagine the first time someone said we are going to create a mobile phone with 1 button rather than the normal 13 buttons. How about the ATM - lets put boxes on the street and fill them up with thousands of dollars of cash so that people don't have to walk into the bank. Seemingly ridiculous ideas can often be brilliant ideas if you let them breathe. Learn to defer judgement of crazy ideas as they often turn into something great

5. No Divergent Techniques Are Used - It can be hard to get people in a room and expect them to come up with brilliant ideas. Often the first 15 minutes are good and then the ideas can run dry. Divergent thinking techniques are great for sending the brain down unfamiliar pathways helping us come up with highly creative ideas. An example of a technique that I love is Brands We Envy - have participants choose a brand that is outside the industry of your challenge. (Nike, Red Bull, The Body Shop) They must come up with ideas for the challenge based on the way that other brand would solve it. Recently we came up with a new innovation for a supermarket checkout based on something an insurance company does.

Please keep these five things in mind next time you facilitate a brainstorm and good luck! Contact me if you would like to discuss Innovation, Creativity and Ideas training for your workplace. If you would like to attend an open course for Idea Generation Masterclass or our Advanced Facilitator Training, please email with your expression of interest. If you liked this newsletter, please share it with your friends and colleagues.

Stay Creative,

Nicole

Leave your desk and do something productive: The rise of passion projects, creativity and increased work output.

For years words such as ‘desk’ and ‘office’ have conjured up ideas of work and productivity. In such a setting we relentlessly try to tell ourselves that each sentence typed or memo taken is making us a more accomplished person. Given all this, it’s easy to see how this setting easily becomes mundane.

The solution? Leave it. 

We’re not saying you should storm out of the building, waving your fists in the air. No, instead we’re suggesting you should just work breaks into your daily routine, as studies have suggested the creativity and enthusiasm gained from periods of not working will have a positive effect on your work life. It’s not just flashy lab scientists recognising this either - Patagonia, a surf-wear company, orders staff to leave the office and go surfing whenever the surfs up. They do this because they realise the best ideas don’t happen when you’re sitting at your desk - They happen when you’re experiencing something new or out in nature.

Across all industries we are beginning to see more and more of this behaviour: Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein and Partners paints rocks to look like fruit, whilst brand director James Townsend produces classical music in his spare time. Why? Because the idea that furthering your ambitions comes from pursuing the same repetitive tasks day after day is simply not relevant to modern society. In fact some of the greatest technologies and cultural staples were side projects – social media giant ‘Twitter’ started as just a quirky idea. The power of time out, coupled with the genius of a side project may produce work that inspires and moves yourself and others.

So think about how you could use this Christmas break wisely. Take an idea that’s been in your head and get it down on paper. Start a side project or get out into nature and experience new things - then use that inspiration to generate fresh ideas to kick start 2014 when you return to the office in January. 

Literal Thinking...

Impose a limitation to spark creativity

Artist Phil Hansen "embraced the shake". He embraced a physically limiting shake in his hand to go on and create some magnificent work. Embracing our limitations can enhance new thinking and spark ideas. Alternatively, imposing a limitation or constraint on a familiar challenge can force us to take a new path and come to a new solution we would never have thought of.
Phil Hansen on Ted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anujFqvCJsk

Embracing Creative Failure

So many people, so many organizations, spend their days trying to play it safe only to discover that playing it safe has become the riskiest move of all...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshlinkner/2013/03/13/embracing-creative-failure/

Go For a Surf! How Patagonia Gets its Best Ideas...

Imagine working for an organisation that tells you to leave the office to go for a surf! That's how Patagonia gets its best ideas...http://www.fastcompany.com/3003901/3-ideas-cultivating-creativity-work

33 Ways to Stay Creative!

To Build Innovative Teams...Create Tension and Diversity

Here is a great article on why mass agreement is detrimental when building teams for innovation. We need tension between people and In our experience, the occasional argument can actually be a good thing...
Want a team to be creative? Make it diverse
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/want_a_team_to_be_creative_mak.html

IMAGINATION by Jason Silva

An extremely passionate and inspiring film on imagination "We're rendering our visions, our dreams on the instantiated, euclidean meatspace!"Jason Silva, IMAGINATION http://vimeo.com/34902950