Posts Tagged ‘idea’

Six Great Ways to Ruin a Brainstorm

The brainstorm is the most popular group creativity exercise. It is quick, easy and it works. But many organizations have become frustrated with brainstorms and have stopped using them. They say brainstorms are old-fashioned and no longer effective. But the real reason for the frustrations is that the brainstorms are not facilitated properly. A well-run brainstorm is fun and energetic. It will generate plenty of good ideas. But a poor… » Continue

May 1 2008 | By Paul | Tagged: brainstorm, business, idea, meeting, thinking | 7 comments»

Playing Well with Others

Hell, said French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, is other people. For all our good intentions in life, there are people who just seem to get under our skin, who go out of their way to sabotage our efforts — often without even knowing it — or to whom we just can’t relate.

At the same time, we live in a world where our ability to get along… » Continue

April 18 2008 | By Dustin | Tagged: conflict resolution, idea, listening, relationship | 10 comments»

Unleash your Inner Genius

Let’s say you are wrestling with a tough issue - maybe at work, at home, with your children or in your social life. You have been stuck for a while and you can’t seem to make a breakthrough. You want to come up with some really creative ideas. What can you do? Here are ten great practical ways to boost your inventiveness and to crack the problem:

1. Ask why… » Continue

March 7 2008 | By Paul | Tagged: brainstorming, creativity, idea, ideation, lateral, problem, problem-solving, solution, thinking | 9 comments»

How Reserving a Domain Name Can Boost Creativity

What secrets lie within your creativity? For some, an early morning workout will produce the idea of the century while another person might find journaling to be most helpful. As they say, whatever works for you is obviously helpful. One idea which I have put into practice has been the reservation of domain names. This is a relatively low-cost practice which integrates your concept with the… » Continue

December 17 2007 | By Mike | Tagged: creativity, domain_name, idea, internet, motivation | 6 comments»

5 Ways to Profit from Good Ideas

Turning a good idea into a successful innovation requires the glass to be full. A half full glass simply isn’t enough. There are many things involved in bringing a product to market successfully or turning an idea into reality and each one of them needs to be right, or at least close enough. The innovator starts the process with a set of resources and draws upon them until the… » Continue

November 22 2007 | By Tatsuya | Tagged: business, idea, marketing | 8 comments»

Sticky Ideas Workshop (Part 3): Concrete

Remember Mikey, the kid from those Life cereal commercials in the ’70s? “Hey Mikey, he likes it!” In 1983, the actor who played Mikey was at a birthday party where he ate six bags of Pop Rocks, that fizzy candy, and also drank an entire six-pack of Pepsi. The pressure from the reaction of the two in his stomach caused his stomach to explode and he died! That’s… » Continue

August 20 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: Communication, concreteness, detail, idea, madetostick, teaching, writing | 6 comments»

Tools For Creating Ideas

I recently came across the CreatingMinds site and their Creative Toolbox, full of interesting ways to solve creative problems, come up with new ideas and implement your solutions.

Absence Thinking
An artist draws the spaces between things.
A market manager for a furniture wonders about product areas where customers have made no comment. She watches them using tables and notes that they leave the tables out when not using them. She invents… » Continue

August 16 2007 | By Craig | Tagged: idea | no comments»

Sticky Ideas Workshop (Part 2): Unexpected

He was dead the whole time! Darth Vader is Luke’s father! She’s his sister and his daughter!

The endings of movies like Sixth Sense, The Empire Strikes Back, and Chinatown — and the stories that lead up to them – stick with us for years and even decades because they trigger a deep psychological reflex: surprise. They come at us out of nowhere (seemingly – repeat viewings tend to reveal… » Continue

August 15 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: Communication, idea, madetostick, surprise, teaching, unexpected, writing | 6 comments»

Sticky Ideas Workshop (Part 1): Simple

“Just Do It.” Those words make up perhaps the stickiest marketing slogan of the past couple decades. In three words, only eight letters, Nike manages to say everything they want you to think, feel, believe about their brand. Three words to sum up the competitive edge Nike shoes and sports equipment promises, the can-do attitude that Americans so strongly believe, the strength, control, and optimism that Nike… » Continue

August 10 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: Communication, idea, madetostick, simplicity, teaching, writing | 3 comments»

Book Discussion: Chip and Dan Heath’s “Made to Stick”

Imagine: a teacher stands in front of a classroom filled with bored, listless students. As he repeatedly fills the board and erases it, fills the board and erases it, he drones out a list of names and dates, formulae and proofs, theories and evidence. His students drop one by one into a dazed stupor, drool puddling beneath their vacant faces, necks craning to catch quick glimpses of… » Continue

August 8 2007 | By Dustin | Tagged: Communication, idea, madetostick, teaching, writing | 18 comments»

How to stifle your creativity in 10 easy steps

Be afraid. Be very afraid. There’s nothing like fear to put a stop to any kind of creativity: fear of getting it wrong; fear of what other people may say; fear of embarrassment; fear of change. The more afraid that you are, the less creative you will be—and the less you will act on any creative thoughts that manage to break through the curtain of anxiety.
Remind yourself of all the

» Continue

April 2 2007 | By Adrian | Tagged: creativity, habit, idea, innovation | 11 comments»

How to Not Go Broke on Your Million Dollar Idea

Before you bet the bank on your next million dollar idea, you should do a reality check to see if the idea is worth it. People often fall in love with their ideas and as a result can experience tremendous pain if it turns out the idea is a bad one.

Developing ideas into commercial successes is generally difficult work since there are many steps involved and the odds… » Continue

March 14 2007 | By Guest | Tagged: execution, idea | 2 comments»

Idea killers: ways to stop ideas

Scott Berkun and his readers try to list out some idea killers, which are negative responses or statements without any thinking or analysis attach to it. Numbers of them are quite familiar to me:

Not in our budget
(Laughter)
That isn’t what people want
We’re already doing something else.
Do it in your spare time, if it is successful we maybe use it

Idea killers do not give much rooms for further brainstorming from the suggested… » Continue

November 17 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: creativity, idea | 1 comment»

7 Idea Dumping Tips

Now days I see the important of dropping things down. I have flow of ideas suddenly, and I need to ready myself so if it happens, I can drop down the ideas. And I like to be in that situation where I get ideas. LifeDev has the similar experience and provides 7 tips on when, where and how to effectively dump your ideas:

ALWAYS carry paper
Be descriptive when writing it down
Plan

» Continue

August 17 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: brainstorm, idea | 4 comments»

Book summary: A Technique for Producing Ideas

Kirby Ferguson has written a summary for the book A Technique for Producing Ideas. Generating good idea is a fine art, if you have mastered it you will be successful in many fields. The author of the book, James Young, describes five steps on a technique of combining old elements together: