Week 2&3 - 100 WAYS TO..

SOME PICTURES OF BRAINSTORMING GROUP WORK

LINK TO GROUPMATES: MINOLI, GWENDOLYN, AFIQAH

MY PERSONAL REFLECTION OF THE PROCESS OF BRAINSTORMING:

Brainstorming helps me to think faster and faster instead of instantly look at any reference and copy it. This was difficult at the first time but as it goes on, i personally good to go with it. I feel a bit slow like waiting a browser buffering an information but i realize that it become better and better subsequently. Nevertheless, i figure out that i still have a limit of thinking ideas. Sometimes it just like i really run out of idea and can't think out anything. So for me, it is better to stop brainstorming when you already really messed up your mind and tired to think about anything. And after a break, maybe like after a lunch, a walk, a shower, or a nap, you could freshen up your mind and start to brainstorming again. Beside that, thinking about 100 ways to do something is an interesting work. It makes me realize that there are plenty ways to just do a simple thing like squeezing a lemon, build a snowman, kill a cockroach, or anything. I think this is quite similar to thinking ways to make an innovation of machine, like some genius scientist making a cure, like a peson who are lost in a junggle and are forced thinking how to use the nature to survive. Overall, i conclude that brainstorming is a basic and a need for an art people, an artist and also a designer. It is common for everyone but it always appear as a crucial technique that anybody who engaged in art must get used to it.

OTHER TECHNIQUES:

1. Time Travel. How would you deal with this if you were in a different time period? 10 years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? How about in the future? 10 years later? 100 years later? 1,000 years later? 10,000 years later?
2. Teleportation: What if you were facing this problem in a different place? Different country? Different geographic region? Different universe? Different plane of existence? How would you handle it?
3. Attribute change. How would you think about this if you were a different gender? Age? Race? Intellect? Height? Weight? Nationality? Your Sanity? With each attribute change, you become exposed to a new spectrum of thinking you were subconsciously closed off from.
4. Rolestorming. What would you do if you were someone else? Your parent? Your teacher? Your manager? Your partner? Your best friend? Your enemy? Etc?
5. Iconic Figures. This is a spinoff of rolestorming. What if you were an iconic figure of the past? Buddha? Jesus? Krishna? Albert Einstein? Thomas Edison? Mother Theresa? Princess Diana? Winston Churchill? Adolf Hitler? How about the present? Barack Obama? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Steven Spielberg? Etc? How would you think about your situation?
6. Superpowers.This is another spinoff of rolestorming. What if you suddenly have superpowers? Superman? Spiderman? Wonderwoman? X-Men? The Hulk? One of the Fantastic Four? What would you do?
7. Gap Filling. Identify your current spot – Point A – and your end goal – Point B. What is the gap that exists between A and B? What are all the things you need to fill up this gap? List them down and find out what it takes to get them.
8. Group Ideation. Have a group brainstorming session! Get a group of people and start ideating together. More brains are better than one! Let the creative juices flow together!
9. Mind Map. Great tool to work out as many ideas as you can in hierarchical tree and cluster format. Start off with your goal in the center, branch out into the major sub-topics, continue to branch out into as many sub-sub-topics as needed. Source Forge is a great open-source mindmapping software that I use and highly recommend.
10. Medici Effect. Medici Effect refers to how ideas in seemingly unrelated topics/fields intersect. Put your goal alongside similar goals in different areas/contexts and identify parallel themes/solutions. For example, if your goal is to be an award winning artist, look at award winning musicians, educators, game developers, computer makers, businessmen, etc. Are there any commonalities that lie among all of them that you can apply to your situation? What worked for each of them that you can adopt?
11. SWOT Analysis. Do a SWOT of your situation – What are the Strengths? Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats? The analysis will open you up to ideas you may not be aware before.
12. Brain Writing.Get a group of people and have them write their ideas on their own sheet of paper. After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets to different people and build off what the others wrote on their paper. Continue until everyone has written on everyone else’s sheet.
13. Trigger Method. Brainstorm on as many ideas as possible. Then select the best ones and brainstorm on those ideas as ‘triggers’ for more ideas. Repeat until you find the best solution.
14. Variable Brainstorming. First, identify the variable in the end outcome you look to achieve. For example, if your goal is to achieve X visitors to your website, the variable is # of visitors. Second, list down all the possibilities for that variable. Different variations of visitors are gender/age/race/nationality/occupation/interests/etc. Think about the question with each different variable. For example, for Genre: How can you get more females to your website? How can you get more males to your website? For age: How can you get more teenagers to your website? How can you get more adults to your website? And so on.
15. Niche. This is the next level of variable brainstorming method. From the variations of the variable you have listed, mix and match them in different ways and brainstorm against those niches. For example, using the example in #14, how can you get more male teenagers to your website? (Gender & Age) How can you get more American female adults to your website? (Nationality, Gender & Age)
16. Challenger. List down all the assumptions in your situation and challenge them. For example, your goal is to brainstorm on a list of ideas for your romance novel which you want to get published. There are several assumptions you are operating in here. #1: Genre to write: Romance. Why must it be that romance? Can it be a different genre? Another assumption is for a novel. #2: Length of the story: Novel. Why must it be a novel? Can it be a short story? A series of books? #3: Medium: Book. Why must be it a book? Can it be an ebook? Mp3? Video? And so on.