by John Brooker | Feb 7, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 38 Look to see how you can make things simpler. This can save time and money… “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein Do you find some solutions are a little more complicated that necessary? This week my son was ill and wanted to sleep with his Mum, so Dad slept in his bunk bed some five feet off the floor. Waking in the middle of the night I wanted some water, but was too lazy to climb down the steps. Lying back, I invented a rope and pulley system in my mind on which I could haul up the water sitting in its beaker on the table below the bed. The pulley would screw in to the ceiling and the beaker would sit in a small container to catch any slops as I hauled it up. Thankfully I dozed off to the imagery of little beakers of water gaily jaunting through the air in a very Heath Robinson fashion. The next morning my daughter came in to wake me. I asked her to pass me up the water and explained my idea. “Oh” she said “Andrew has already done that. But he just put a little bucket on the window latch and puts his cup in it.” Hah! I looked at his device and burst out laughing. Obviously I’m Einstein’s “simpler” in his quote. Heath Robinson made a good living for many years by creating caricature drawings of “complex inventions that achieved absurdly simple results” (quotation from BBC site). He believed that many...
by John Brooker | Jan 22, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 22 “Random connections” is a useful technique when stuck for ideas. “I have an idea!” “Twas he that ranged the words at random flung pierced the fair pearls and them together strung.” Bidpai Pilpay If called on to run a creative session RIGHT NOW could you deliver? Imagine you are waiting to meet with a colleague or client. Suddenly the door flies open and they appear. “Sam, (or whatever), we’re trying to come up with a name for our new service and thought you could give us some ideas”. You enter and four expectant faces (and a remote worker on the speaker ‘phone) look up. Do you: Panic? Start thinking of ideas for a name? Search your mind for a handy creative technique and facilitate an idea generation session? This scenario happened to me last week at a client’s office. I opted for choice “C”. Oh OK, I admit I went through option “A” for a split second because I normally prepare thoroughly before a creative session. I facilitated using “Random Connection” (click here and search on our site for details on the technique). This is a great technique to use when you have a blank sheet of paper, blank minds and little time. We used random words and random objects as a catalyst between the information in the group’s head and the issue in hand and produced about seventy ideas. Some facilitation tips are: Not all ideas are realistic so challenge the group to find a practical idea from these “springboards” (this is essential if you are to avoid cynicism from those who believe...
by John Brooker | Jan 20, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 20 How do you obtain the right balance of operation and innovation? “This coffee plunges in to the stomach…. the mind is aroused and ideas pour forth like the battalions of the Grand Army on the field of battle. Memories charge at full gallop… the Light Cavalry of comparisons deploys itself magnificently, the artillery of logic hurries in with their train of ammunition and flashes of wit pop up like sharp shooters.” Honore de Balzac, Author and Journalist “So was that decaffeinated coffee you had, Honore?” John Brooker Is your organisation balancing operation and innovation correctly? In my office I start up my brand new (expensive) computer. It has a noisy fan. Box it up and return it. Fan replaced, I fire it up. No sound and the memory reader doesn’t work. I wonder at the money they spend on advertising when they can’t get the basics right. In my car I drive in to a motorway service station to buy a coffee. The billboard adverts extol the virtues of their Italian coffee. “A decaff coffee to take away please.” “Sorry” says the lady behind the counter, “we haven’t got any lids.” “No lids?” I reply, bemused. “No, we’ve only got six cups left too.” I think she is proud of that. Pushed for time and not wanting hot coffee in my lap, I leave without coffee and muse on the logistical planning that leaves a coffee store without the basic needs to trade. After twenty articles, most of you will realise I am a raving fan of creative thinking and innovation....
by John Brooker | Jan 7, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
How might you use naive thinking to aid creativity and innovation? “I know. It’s called a flatulator!” Andrew Brooker aged 6 ½ years. Do you consider it necessary to be an expert to generate creative ideas? The family and I were going through Waterloo station, travelling on a moving walkway. Eleanor, my daughter, asked, “If the moving steps going up are called an escalator, what do you call these flat ones?” I mumbled something about “moving walkways” when Andrew, my son, shouted, “I know, they’re called flatulators!” With visions of wind assisted pedestrians in my head I roared with laughter. What a great idea! Andrew had no idea of the potential alternative meaning when suggesting the name “Flatulator”, but he made a good guess. Often, naive people like him can offer us good insights and new trains of thought when we are struggling to create an original idea. They know little or nothing about the subject so are not limited by the conventional thinking that exists and can provide radically different input. As a Creative Leader you can use this device of naive thinking in three ways: 1. Bring in someone with no knowledge of your topic, give them a basic understanding of the issue / situation and then ask them for other ways to look at your situation or ideas (perhaps alone but more likely in a group of more knowledgeable people) 2. You can use a variation on the “What If” technique alone or in a group. Essentially this means asking yourself and / or others to imagine what a five year old would think of a...
