by John Brooker | Jul 30, 2015 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
An eBook that shows you how to create ideas in ten to sixty minutes I am busy writing eBooks for my web site and thinking of a topic for a blog at the same time. So I thought “why not combine the two?” It will make a nice change for me and hopefully for you too. So this week, I will summarise the eBook and you can then link to it if you wish to. The eBook combines two older blogs in to one book, with illustrations. I like to think it is user friendly and good to download to your phone, pad or computer. Download it here: ebook Creative Ideas in 10 Minutes final. Summmary of eBook Creative Ideas in Ten Minutes In this eBook you will find how blackberry picking is a great analogy for idea generation. From low hanging fruits, to hidden gems, tangles in the brambles to maggots on steroids, it can all be related. Add to this six tools for idea generation. You can use one in ten minutes or all six in sixty. They include DREAMERS; 5W & H; Get Fired; Where in the World; Yes! And…; Random Connection and a bonus tool. If you need to run or are planning to run an idea generation session and don’t have a lot of time, this article will provide you with some thoughts on how to do it. Download it here. To Close I would love to receive your feedback on the eBook. Please let me know if you like it and how I can improve it! John Brooker I Yes! And. Think Innovatively. To receive regular articles, register at...
by John Brooker | Jul 21, 2015 | Collaborate, Facilitate meetings, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus, Tools
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” Confucius Use Reflecting Teams to find better insights and solutions for an issue or opportunity Imagine you have an issue and want to obtain input from others to broaden your perspective and gain ideas. If you do this in a typical meeting it can often result in frustration as some people throw in ideas prematurely, others dominate the conversation and the talk spirals in endless circles. If that is your experience, you might find it useful to use the Reflecting Teams tool I describe in this article. I have experienced Reflecting Teams many times in UK chapter meetings of the Association for the Quality Development of Solution Focused Consulting and Training (see the web site here, http://www.asfct.org/) and have found it to be an excellent tool, both for the person with the issue or opportunity and the team. How it works There are a number of variants on the tool I describe here, however, this is the one I have experienced most. Appoint a moderator Choose someone who will run the process and moderate the team so that everybody can contribute equally. This is an important role. Form the team Assemble the team so that all can see and hear the client clearly. This can be around a table or might be a half circle of chairs facing the client. There is no ideal number but it needs at least three people and, for reasons of time, probably no more than 12....
by John Brooker | Feb 18, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Overcome Challenges
“Finding ideas is like picking blackberries” John Brooker Do you want your idea generation to be more fruitful? This week, I went to pick blackberries with the children. I realise some of you assume this means I took them to a computer store to enrich their lives with the pleasure of an e-mail overdose, (makes a change from an E number overdose). In reality we picked the last of the summer’s fruit. As we picked (and my son ate), I mused on what a great analogy blackberry picking is for idea generation. You arrive at your site and some big juicy berries hover there, groaning “Eat me, eat me,” (my son politely obliges). Three pickers ensure rapid removal of these “low hanging fruits.” As you pick one you notice it is part of a ripe bunch and you delightedly strip them. You bound around several brambles, picking away. Then it gets tougher. You gently lift prickly leaves to discover one nestling there. You duck down and look up, finding more secreted away; you peer over the top of foliage and find a tantalising bramble just out of reach, so trample down a few nearer brambles and reach them triumphantly, only to find a maggot on steroids eye-balling you with menace. Next you walk round the tangled mass of vegetation to look from different angles and spy more which have appeared as if by magic. Gradually you find the numbers dwindling but there is always one more you can see, so you “reeeeaaaach” for it. You tease it off its stalk but it slips from your fingertips as a large bramble...
by John Brooker | Aug 9, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus, Tools
Need a creative tool to explore issues? During our holiday last July we spent three days horse riding. After two days I had seen enough of horses and my back ached terribly. I was a “groucho” not a gaucho. I decided that I would sit out the third day, but my son loved riding and really wanted to go. So I said I would go with him. Bad decision. On the way back, the leaders galloped, my back seized up and I was in agony. To cut a long story short, after four months of osteopathy and pills I was better, but still had a chronic pain across the middle of my back. One night in December I went to sleep and had a dream. In the dream I saw a woman appear and slowly walk towards me. She reached out her hand and gently touched a finger to my spine on the centre of the pain; there was a loud click and the pain disappeared. I woke up and the pain had gone. I got up and was pain free for the first time in months. How did that happen? If it were just my spine clicking back in to place, why did I see the woman walking towards me and touching my back before it clicked? The power of the subconscious?. So Recalling that dream recently (please see the closing story) I thought it might be an opportunity to discuss an interesting technique I have tried occasionally, known as Image Manipulation. In this tool you explore an issue with a client without you knowing what the issue...
by John Brooker | May 4, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
The Creative Gorilla #114 Use a range of idea generation approaches to avoid stale thinking… “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” Linus Pauling, American Scientist What approaches do you have for idea generation? Reflecting on televised political leadership debates, the thought struck me, “What if the management teams of companies were elected?” No, not the Board; for most private companies the shareholders elect them. I mean staff voting for the management team. Imagine the CEO having to debate with rivals for his job in front of the staff… This idea sneaked in to my head as I lay in bed and is an example of idea generation that we might call “Individual Spontaneity.” It relies on our existing knowledge and making “connections” between pieces of knowledge in our brain, sometimes prompted by an external stimulus. The advantage is that it is free and the ideas can be brilliant; Eureka moments! The issues include that it is ad hoc and unreliable. The same can be said for “Group Spontaneity”, where ideas arise when you are chatting with friends or colleagues. For an organisation to rely on Spontaneity for new ideas is a little haphazard, even if your organisation encourages people to socialise and talk about work. Therefore, it will require some kind of structured approach to produce ideas more consistently. I consider there are three structured approaches to generate ideas, which I term: Structured Unprovoked Structured Provoked Structured Unlearning Let’s review them. As usual I would appreciate your feedback to broaden my perspective. Structured unprovoked Common in the workplace, someone gets a...
