4 Pocket-Sized Tools to Help You Generate Killer Ideas Any Time, Anywhere

March 6 by | 22 comments | Productivity | Tags: , , , , ,

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The ability to generate creative, profitable, problem-solving ideas is growing in importance, especially with the global economy stuck in the doldrums. But how can you be creative on demand? Here are four pocket-sized card decks that you can take anywhere – to your next team meeting or to a quiet park where you can brainstorm free from distractions – to help you generate your next breakthrough idea:


knowbrainer-200pxKnowBrainer: If you are looking for a creativity tool that is powerful, portable, and low tech, then you ought to check out the KnowBrainer. This tool does an excellent job of leveraging the mind’s capabilities of association to a major advantage. Developer Gerald Haman has spent years amassing and assessing key words and questions that are the most effective at generating ideas, and he has incorporated them (along with evocative images and quotes) into this colorful, fun-to-use flip card deck. It contains sections that are designed to help you to:

  • Clearly define your challenge and investigate your needs,
  • Create ideas,
  • Evaluate them using a number of criteria, and
  • Put them into action

The KnowBrainer is built around Haman’s four-phase Accelerated Innovation process. It incorporates keywords, questions and concepts from the world’s leading new product design firms, Six Sigma quality tools, new books on marketing and the latest research on innovation process tools, is now in its third version. When you first see it, you may be tempted to dismiss the KnowBrainer as a simple card deck, but don’t let its low-tech “interface” fool you. This is one powerful and easy to use idea-generation tool!

freethegenieFree the Genie: Free the Genie is a new deck of 55 creative thinking cards that you can think of as your “personal genie” — a powerful brainstorming assistant that is available to you anytime, anywhere to help you unstick your thinking. This ideation tool is the brainchild of Mitch Ditkoff, founder of the Idea Champions innovation consulting firm. Free the Genie is designed to provide a spark or catalyst to help its users to find their great ideas. Each card contains a principle of breakthrough thinking (examples include “take some risks,” “suspend logic,” and “leverage your strengths”) and some questions or challenges related to each principle.

innovativewhackpack-200pxInnovative Whack Pack: The Innovative Whack Pack takes the principles from Roger von Oech’s book Expect the Unexpected or You Won’t Find It, which explores some of the provocative epigrams of Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher who the author calls the world’s first creativity teacher. He uses these enigmatic sayings as springboards to fuel your imagination and help you to break out of old, limiting ways of thinking. This card deck contains 60 cards. Each one contains a thought-provoking insight about innovation from Heraclitus on one side, along with a whimsical illustration designed to help “whack” your thinking out of its well-worn grooves. The other side of the card contains a creativity strategy inspired by the insight or principle. At the end of these provoking vignettes, von Oech poses several questions to stimulate your creative thinking. This tool and its predecessor, the Creative Whack Pack, are among the best-selling creativity tools ever invented.

card_deck-200pxInner Vision Deck: The Inner Vision Deck is a card deck of 69 keywords and phrases that can be used for creative problem solving. Designed by Rory O’Connor, a creativity and creative problem-solving trainer, this new brainstorming tool arose out of his need to teach his clients a “gentle” (non-intimidating) approach to developing ideas and solutions.

Why invest in brainstorming tools like these? They serve as catalysts, jump-starting your brain’s creative juices. Some brainstorming tools ask you questions, while others rely on a variety of proven associative or lateral thinking techniques. The bottom line is that these diminutive tools get results, and because of their compact size, you can use them just about anywhere. What’s more, their learning curve is quite low; in other words, you can begin generating profitable ideas with them almost immediately.

Chuck Frey is the author of The Mind Mapping Software Blog, the leading source of news, trends, tips and best practices about this productivity-enhancing technology. He is also the founder of InnovationTools, the largest, most extensive website focused on business innovation, creativity and brainstorming.

  • val

    Too expensive! They need to use their tools to think of how they can make them cheaper

  • Amy

    It’s cheaper on Amazon (and dear author, if you hooked up your picture to your amazon associate sellers account, you would have made 6-10% on any sales you generated!)

  • http://wiredwithpurpose.blogspot.com Andrew

    Of course, we could use the creativity that we have been designed with an think of an innovative way to make more money so we can buy these tools! These tools are worth looking into. Thanks for the information.

  • http://paperassistant.idearia.com Brad Tanner

    I’ve found that the one tool that helps me generate killer ideas any time, anywhere is my ubiquitous capture tool–my Paper Assistant.

    Check it out here.

    Brad

  • http://www.hourahine.net mhourahine

    Any iphone versions of these you know about?

  • http://www.marketingmasters.ca Ken Burgin

    I’m sorry to hear that some people may need “tools” in order to have an idea.
    I understand the needs of some to have to rely on devices to hear, walk or chew, but let’s face it, we were all born with a brain.
    Unfortunately, early life experiences, or parental guidance, often shows us how to live in a beige world where conformity is the rule.
    Take a look at those early childhood scribbles your mother has saved somewhere and see if perhaps your brain may have been far more ‘creative’ before you were “educated.”
    Ideas spring from the combination of your life’s experiences and interests, combined with a seemingly unrelated new item or stimulus. If you need a tool, just use a dictionary or a newspaper. Focus your mind on the subject you are trying to find an idea for, close your eyes, open to a page and jab your finger onto it. What does that word that you are pointing to suggest idea-wise? There, wasn’t that easy?
    Who needs expensive tools? Hand me my crutch.

  • http://www.innovationtools.com Chuck Frey

    I use tools like these as highly focused creative catalysts. For example, the KnowBrainer’s contents are based on Gerald Haman’s extensive research into the types of words and questions that tend to generate the greatest quantity and quality of ideas. In terms of the cost of these tools, all you need is one good idea to get a return on investment (ROI = “return on ideas?!”) that is in excess of what it cost you to buy the creativity tool. I think they’re worthwhile investments!

    I also use my environment as a creative catalyst. Random stimuli are a rich source of ideas.

  • http://www.badlanguage.net Matthew Stibbe

    Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies are fun, thought-provoking and creative. You can buy them from his website: http://www.enoshop.co.uk/. Based on that original concept, I came up with Oblique Marketing Strategies which is on my blog for free: http://www.badlanguage.net/oblique-marketing-strategies and also on Phil Harrington’s blog in an interactive form: http://om.philsown.org/.

  • http://phemeypon.wordpress.com Phemey

    Instead of spending extra money to buy expensive tools and spending extra time to learn to use these new tools, I think it is better for us to go back to the basic. The basic includes daydreaming, visualization and imagination to generate creative ideas.

  • http://nxqd3051990.blogspot.com nXqd

    It’s not worth . I just need a notebook.

  • http://www.yesbutstill.com Yes, But Still…

    These all look like fun!

    Has anyone here used them?

  • http://www.innovationROI.com Stone Payton

    Hmmm . . . I get the sense from reading a few of these comments that some of your readers have never watched an organization waste thousands of dollars and man hours trying to generate and harvest ptactical, commercially viable ideas without the benefit of employing tools like these. By my math, an organization could acquire all 4 tools you mentioned for a couple hundred bucks. The ROI on that is a no-brainer — would be realized before the first coffee break in most companies. Thanks Chuck for keeping us informed and up to date on proven resources for getting the real work of innovation done.

  • http://the-story-of-why.blogspot.com gladys

    While I love the notion of having something to jog my thought processes when the well is dry (ugh…my apologies for the egregious metaphor-mixing), I have to say that I experience a gut-level revulsion when I see the words “creative ideas” and, for example, “Six Sigma” mentioned in the same paragraph–actually, even when they’re mentioned in the same ZIP CODE. I realize my latter-day-hippie, child-of-the-90′s strait-laced authenticity complex is showing, but when a so-called creativity tool claims to incorporate stringent concepts rooted in the business world (or, for that matter, in any other sharply-defined area that’s evolved enough to have its own buzzwords), I have to wonder if it’s not concealing some sort of agenda–in other words, if it’s not a tool to teach people to think creatively within certain narrowly-defined boundaries, with rigidly-demarcated areas of doubt and uncertainty and all the rest. To me, a truly creative idea–no matter its source or its eventual objective–comes in a simple form, and certainly with no jargon attached. The jargon comes later, when the structure is being added to bring the idea to life–to design a creativity tool whose underpinnings have already BEEN jargonized…well, it makes me question the utility of that particular tool, at least for my own purposes. (But then too, I’m a cynic, and it’s entirely possible that I’m wrongly dismissing something that could lead me in some incredible and unforeseen directon.)

  • http://www.merahputih.org aulia kausar

    how result if I use all tools?
    can u explain to me?
    that good thing or bad thing?
    thanks

    Aulia Kausar

  • http://www.bloggeridea.com Tatjana

    If you spend more then 10 minutes on twitter , you can get pretty much great ideas.
    Ideas always need tools… Anyone use it? Which one ?

  • http://www.stephanmiller.com Stephan Miller

    Great list of tools. I am always looking for more ways to come up with ideas.

  • http://www.get-sorted.net/ Catherine Cantieri, Sorted

    I think Stone Payton’s got a good read on it. Creative *individuals* probably don’t need tools such as these to jump-start their creativity; as others have mentioned, sketching, reading random Tweets or walking in the park might well do the job for an individual person. However, the creativity of a team is often much less than the sum of its parts. So, for a group — especially one that might not consist solely of creatives — these tools could do a good job of spurring ideas. I’m glad to know about them.

  • http://robertobaca.com rb3m

    I just use a pack of cards. Regular, garden variety cards. Mix them, deal them to form a 3 x 3 square and see what story they tell.

    Another good way is to get a Tarot pack and deal it as a Tree of Life, since that’s suppose to represent a path and the cards characters and events, stories can come quickly. Or you can use the iChing, it’s a good method.

    Of course, I don’t think there is any magic or spiritual connection behind these items, just the ability of randomness to break patterns and allow our mind to roam freely.

  • http://www.theskywaspink.com Alex

    Piece of paper and pen works well for me.

  • Lindee Keller

    I can see the advantages of a set of creative strategies and tools, but why spend money on it when you can make your own for free? Eno’s Oblique Strategies are easy enough to find and creatingminds.org has invention strategies, too. Grab a pen, some notecards, your laptop and have at it.

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