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Throughout my agency career, and especially at Idea Couture, I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by some truly gifted idea generators. Lately, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about where our creative problem-solving abilities come from. I couldn’t help reflect on what exactly makes this hodgepodge of designers, strategists, hackers, architects and futurists I call co-workers so capable of dreaming up such imaginative ideas.

On Lateral Thinking

I understand why some people are so afraid of brainstorming. Coming up with ideas that no one else has thought of before is an intimidating task. But a large part of the intimidation comes from the belief that coming up with amazing ideas is a serendipitous experience.

It’s not by the way. But for some reason, no one ever tells you that.

Brainstorming is a process. Coming up with the ideas during a brainstorm is attributed to a creative method called lateral thinking, which is the polar opposite of the logic-driven vertical thinking that we use to get us through the day. Lateral thinking is about identifying ideas that are not immediately obvious – they can’t be reached by using step-by-step logic. Lateral thinking is about finding connections between previously unrelated ideas or concepts in order to break out of old patterns and stimulate new lines of thinking. It’s a network model on overdrive.

So what sparks imaginative lateral thinking? In my opinion, it’s unexpected stimuli (auditory, verbal, visual, it doesn’t matter). The lateral thinking secret is that if you don’t have new stimuli, you can’t make new connections. Sit around the IC office for an afternoon and you’ll start to realize why this group is so capable at this type of thinking – our interests are so divergent that we continuously generate new and diverse types of stimuli. From sociology to human factors, film noir to robots, graffiti to gaming, and academia to ambient computing, this is an eclectic crowd with a very, very wide set interests.

The Problem with Dandelions

A (brief) moment of honesty – I used to be a really bad at brainstorming. Even worse, I thought I was phenomenal at it. If all you ever knew were dandelions, you wouldn’t realize your were missing out orchids. And when you work in an organization without a disciplined approach to great ideation, you lose the context that allowed you to discern what an original, quality idea looks like.

I used to be into dandelions in a serious way.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but if your organization brainstorms infrequently, you are probably dandelion-lovers. If you only talk about your own business during these ideation sessions, you dig the yellow weeds. If the only people who attend your ideation sessions are senior managers – dandelions. And if you all reach consensus in the first twenty minutes of your brainstorms, you guessed it – dandelions.

Dandelions are what keep organizations from coming up with breakthrough ideas. And unfortunately, when you don’t know realize that you’re missing out, you’re unlikely to change. I recognize that a single post isn’t going to convince anyone that their organization’s brainstorming practices are flawed, but perhaps I can appeal to your sense of logic. Mastery is an elusive goal that requires practice and dedication. If you agree, then I think you’ll be willing to believe that there’s room for improvement in your brainstorming methods.

Get Stimulated

For experienced lateral thinkers, drawing on a lifetime of diverse experiences and interests to provide that stimuli that inspire creative ideas is natural. For those of us who aren’t quite as renaissance, a little help is always appreciated. It took some serious help from my good friend Matt Milan of Normative and a little orange box.

If lateral thinking is about connecting previously unrelated concepts, then the more concepts you can draw on the less expected the ideas. Teasing experiences out of our subconscious for use as stimuli is not always easy – especially when our peers, managers and clients are all (secretly) judging the quality of our ideas. Working with Matthew, I was taught that it’s okay to use external tools as stimuli in lieu drawing on past experiences to make connections.

And with this, an amazing thing happened – I relaxed, I experienced flow, and I saw orchids for the first time.

Where to Find Inspiration

I’ll re-iterate. Use external stimuli to brainstorm better. Even if you think you’re phenomenal at ideation, I guarantee that drawing from unexpected places will make you better. Don’t be shy or embarrassed about using external tools. Your team will forgive you quickly if you come up with a game-changing idea.

Here are three sources I regularly use when I need some brainstorming stimuli:

Use a randomized list of words. The little orange box I mentioned earlier is what I describe as my brainstorming crutch – a tool called ThinkCube. What is valuable about this tool is that it uses a curated set of words to spark connections (the dictionary is always another more laborious option). Terms like ‘Story’, technologies like ‘RFID’, and concepts like ‘Biomimicry’ injected at an appropriate time can spark completely new lines of thinking. During a previous ideation session, a card that said ‘Puzzle’ allowed my team to completely re-imagine how financial services products are sold.

Use images to spark your imagination. If you’re luck enough to have gotten your hands on our book No One Works Here, you’ll see some of the photographs that have inspired the Idea Couture team while problem solving. If you don’t have a copy, head over to Flickr, use a generic search term like ‘Unexpected‘ in slide show mode.

Crowdsource your stimulus needs. Wikipedia has consolidated the world’s knowledge into one location and introduced the killer lateral thinking tool – ‘Random Article‘. Visit Wikipedia with a problem and use whatever random content they provide as inspiration.

Lateral thinking is a skill that requires practice and inputs. Regardless of how good we think we are at it, there is always room for improvement. People who generate masses of truly original ideas are really just experts at accessing their historical experience. Using external tools featuring words, ideas and images can help level the playing field and help spark unknown connections.

We don’t all start out as ideation experts. If we’re willing to admit there is room for improvement, then we can begin to break out of old patterns of thinking and come up with the brilliant ideas that we are all capable of.  Explore new ways of making connections and shed your dandelion complex.