An interview with Kevin Duncan (Podcast)
In this episode, Arek Dvornechuck interviews Kevin Duncan and we talk about creative brainstorming techniques.
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Check out his book called, “The Ideas Book: 60 Ways to Generate Ideas More Effectively.”
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Table of Contents
1. How to brainstorm ideas
Arek Dvornechuck:
What’s up branding expert! Arek here at Ebaqdesign, particularly and welcome to On Branding Podcast, the only podcast where I interview branding experts to give you actionable tips on everything, branding and beyond. And in this episode, I interview Kevin Duncan, and we talk about effective brainstorming techniques. And Kevin is from the UK. And he’s a business advisor, marketing expert, and the author of several successful business books. And Kevin previously worked in the communications and advertising sector for over 25 years. So in agencies, he has worked with over 400 clients deployed 600 million pounds of funds to own more than 200 brands. So he has overseen over 1000 projects and won 35 awards for creativity and effectiveness. So, Kevin is an expert when it comes to generating ideas visually. And he shares his tips in the book, the ideas book, and this is the book we are going to talk about today. Because I mentioned Kevin is an expert when it comes to brainstorming. And that’s why I really wanted to have him on our podcast today to talk about effective brainstorming techniques. Hello, Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on our podcast.
Kevin Duncan:
You’re welcome. Nice to be here.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Thank you. So let’s imagine a scenario in which we need to solve some kind of a branding challenge. Like for example, there is a team of creatives on the agency side, or there is a team on the business side, let’s say like a startup. And we just want to run a brainstorming session to come up with some creative ideas. So whether it be a new name for a brand, or a product, or some ideas for a logo and visual identity, or we need an idea for a new advertising campaign, or we just need to reposition our brand and communicate better. So make some strategic decisions. So anyhow, we just need to solve some kind of a branding challenge. And we need to be effective at coming up with, you know, create great ideas. So in your book, you present a lot of essential exercises and tools to help us make our brainstorming session more effective, right, so so that we can stimulate more or better ideas. So okay, so we’re going to talk about those specific tools and techniques. But before that, I just wanted to set the rules for how to brainstorm So can you talk to us about some of the best practices when it comes to generating ideas? What kind of mistakes do we make and how we should prepare for that session? What are some of the best approaches?
2. Best brainstorming techniques
Kevin Duncan:
Sure, yeah. Thank you for your introduction. So I think, as a backdrop to all of this, the whole business of idea generation, there’s a lot of people will tell you that they’re not creative. Now, that’s very unlikely to happen. In your line of work, branding people presumably think they’re creative, all designers do as well. But a lot of people don’t think they’re creative. So the overall message of the book is that anybody can be creative if they investigate some techniques and work through them. And they might surprise themselves. And in fact, in a lot of our training, they very frequently do. But to answer your question directly. First of all, it’s all about preparation. There are far too many brainstorms that happen every day all around the world, and people just dive into them with no thought. And really, they just rushed to a soft area and say, guys, let’s have your best ideas, no such thing as a bad idea. And of course, there is such a thing as a bad idea. And if you do it that randomly, it really doesn’t work very well. And what a surprise, the teams there end up with large numbers of things on the wall, but many of them is likely impractical. So in the book idea, so I spend the first chapter explaining how you should prepare, I won’t bore you with all the details, but the types of things that one looks at is exactly what are we trying to achieve here? What are the constraints? Are we running this idea of session? in the right place? Have we got the right people? Are we doing it at the right time? Is it the right time length? Because amazingly, you can run very productive brainstorms in just five minutes. And of course, there are all sorts of rules of engagement. Because we all know, we’ve sat in brainstorms, where people’s behavior has not been suitable. A classic ideal point would be something like an idea killer, someone who just sits there with their arms folded and says, Well, that’s not gonna work, is it? That’s not gonna work, is it? And of course, these types of people aren’t helpful at all, to generating great ideas.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. So, just to sum up for our listeners, you mentioned that you know, preparation is really, really important. And it’s all about, you know, about the things like, where are we gonna hold that meeting? How much time it’s about the schedule, you know, we need to set time for each exercise, right, we need to have some agenda. We do have the right stimulus, do some homework so that everyone knows that, you know, is familiar with the brief and our goals and objectives, and some background information, and things like that. Also, in your book, I took some notes, you mentioned that you know. The brief should be restricted to one sentence, preferably just one short sentence. There shouldn’t be the optimal number of people in a room is four to eight people. The environment and the location are really important, right? So we need to be relaxed, preferably with high ceilings, blue rooms, natural light, fresh air. And we should start the initial idea generation with some short sessions. And he also advised that the session shouldn’t be actually longer than 30 minutes because the energy and attention, the productivity the window as time elapses, right? Um, oh, yeah, go ahead.
Kevin Duncan:
Exactly. So you’ve covered many things. You’ve done very diligent research. By the way, I must say, you’ve read this thing in detail. So I’m very flattered by that. Let me attend to one or two of those points because they might interest your listeners here. So interestingly enough, the word brainstorm and the rough technique that most people believe it involves was invented by a guy called Alex Osborn. And that was way back in the 50s. And he is the earl in the well-known communications ad network called BBDO. So he was Mr. O, and he invented it as a technique to impress prospects to his agency so that he could conduct these meetings in an apparently free-flowing way. And make it apparent that all his employees were fantastically creative. And we're able to spark ideas at speed in a meeting spontaneously. So that’s where the idea of brainstorm came from. It’s quite interesting if you fast forward to the modern-day with regard to who and how ideas are best generated. And in a way, it’s a little bit sad to report. But if you brief four people individually, and they go away separately, and generate ideas, they are shown to generate better quality ideas than four people sitting in a room doing it together. So that’s a little bit depressing. But it is actually true that if you’re going to convene people, a smaller number, as you say, between four and eight is the optimum type of number. Anything over that number? And you find hangers-on and people who aren’t really interested in being there. Yeah, another point you mentioned was the environments. And there are some fascinating things you mentioned, it is amazing. Everyone knows really, that it’s hard to have a good idea if you’re sitting in a darkened room, like a basement. Natural light definitely helps. And high ceilings help. And yes, painting the room blue helps. And the psychology behind it, they believe is that it makes people feel that they are unfettered, and in the open air surrounded by either water or sky. And it leads to better, broader thinking if you like.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Yes. Right. Okay, so since we have some since we know some of the do’s and don’ts, also some of the best practices of how to run brainstorming sessions. Or how to not run a brainstorming session. So let’s talk about now the juicy stuff, you know, the actual exercises and tools. So in your book, you say, quote, true creativity needs to be disciplined, highly directed, capable of withstanding deep scrutiny. So we want to increase creativity by learning some of those techniques right. So can you speak to that? How should we approach generating work? What are some of the best tools to start with, to you know, at the beginning of our brainstorming session?
Kevin Duncan:
Certainly, yeah. And the first thing to say is that pretty much all the evidence now shows that it is almost impossible for somebody to have a eureka moment where they just magically pluck a brilliant idea seemingly out of nowhere. It doesn’t work like that. And even if you look at fantastic authors and things like that, they actually work really hard to generate these apparently brilliant ideas. So it is all about discipline and approach and you’ve got to start somewhere. So I say in the book, the beginning of Section two, that one really good starter technique is called three good, three bad. And what you do is you get everyone in the room to write down the three best things about the product, or the brand, or the brief, or whatever the thing is that you’re dealing with. And the three worst. And the idea is you do this in silence, because if they start talking, then people tend to just copy the most important person in the room, and that doesn’t get you anywhere. So you do it silently. And what this does is you then put this stuff on the wall. And obviously, if things are really good, and you’ve got lots to go on, then you focus on that, that’s fine. But if you’ve got lots of bad stuff that outweighs the good, that isn’t a disaster, because some of the best communications briefs and brand difficulties come about by solving really tricky issues. And so the bad thing that everybody agrees needs attending to becomes the epicenter of the brief that you’re then going to deal with. And the significance of tech like technique like this is that far too many brand solutions. And advertising campaigns, for example, are too fanciful, they ignore the difficulties that the brand has got, and instead gloss over and do a campaign on something that’s rather more lightweight and not really attending to the issue?
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. Okay, so you mentioned the three, a three good three bad as some of the, you know, some of the best tools for an initial brainstorming session, right?
Kevin Duncan:
Yeah.
Arek Dvornechuck:
I have taken some notes. And I just want it for our listeners just to go over like, some of those tools. And maybe you can talk a bit about like, give us an overview of those. So, for the set, for example, think inside the box. So this is a tool to you know, define the constraints first, to avoid wasting time or inappropriate ideas like going some directions, like let’s, let’s imagine we are coming up with a brand name or, or we are coming up with a campaign idea. And a lot of people say like, you need to think outside the box, right. But this to actually focus on helps us focus on constraints so that we are, you know, avoid wasting time on some ideas that are not viable anyway, right?
Kevin Duncan:
That’s exactly right. And you get a lot of people complaining about this suggestion, usually, because it’s very trendy for people to say, ah, we need to think outside the box on this one. And actually, a lot of people don’t know where the phrase comes from, but quick history. This is a very popular puzzle from Victorian times. And there are nine dots on a page. And your challenge is to join them together with four strokes of the pen without taking your pen off the paper. And I suppose I’ve got to sort of tell you the answer in order to make sense of the expression. But the fact of the matter is that the human brain sees those nine dots as a box. And if the brain sees it as a box, then you cannot solve the problem, you have to draw lines outside the box in order to complete the challenge. And that’s where the expression came from. So if we fast forward to now, this has now become a glib path phrase for people having all sorts of mad and crazy ideas. Now, that’s easy enough, if you work in something like branding, but not for example, or if you work in engineering or architecture. And so most engineers do their best work just at the fringes of what is possible, but it must be practically possible. Otherwise, it’s not a decent idea.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. Some of the other tools, for example, and there’s a lot of them it’s a whole bunch of them. So I recommend all of you guys check out the book, but I just wanted to quickly talk about a couple of them. So for example, let’s see what we have here. What’s hot? Can you talk to us about that? So yeah, we can use trends, events or affairs, right or celebrities to attach our brand to those to those things, those hot things.
Kevin Duncan:
Exactly, what’s hot is essentially something that is frequently used by PR agencies. And it’s not supposed to be a trick or a fudge. But basically, if you haven’t got a vast amount to say about your brand, then what you can do is think laterally and try to attach the brand to some current trend or event or thing that is helpful and suitable. I should stress by the way that it doesn’t work if you force fit it because consumers are very able to spot what they regard as an inappropriate lack of fit between a brand that tries to associate itself with an inappropriate event or task or thing that’s going on. But broadly speaking, yeah, what’s hot is quite a nice way of doing it. Do you want me to pluck out a couple of other things?
Arek Dvornechuck:
Yeah, sure. Sure go ahead.
Kevin Duncan:
Yeah. So eyes of experts is a lovely technique where you simply choose an expert or a personality with known characteristics. And then you ask the group, how would this person launch or promote this brand? And it leads to some really interesting answers; it gives you new perspectives. Another one is called, “category stealing”. And that is where we based on the principle that almost everybody everywhere else has done some really clever thinking, but not necessarily in your field. You pretend that you’re working in a different category. And you essentially say, right, how would an automotive manufacturer promote my brand? How would a bank do it? How would a telecom provide it? And you find interesting strategies that come across from other categories that you may be able to deploy in yours?
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. Also, our think of very interesting is this talk about exaggeration and deprivation, like we over-exaggerate the benefits of a product, we take it to the extremes, or we envisage like a war without it.
Kevin Duncan:
Yeah, it’s tremendous fun. This one, this is in the kind of slightly more advanced set of ideas. There was a fantastic ad for a company called Dunlop in the UK over many years ago, 20,30 years ago. And essentially what they wanted to do was dramatize all the things that Dunlop made other than what they were mainly famous for, which was tennis rackets. And during the course of the ad, everything that Dunlop made strangely disappeared, every about every second or two. Until at the end, everything had gone essentially including the tennis players clothes, so they were left naked at the end. And it demonstrated a range point. So that’s an example of deprivation. In other words, what would the world be like if my product didn’t exist, and then use that to dramatize what its benefit and contribution are?
Arek Dvornechuck:
Right? Also, I just wanted to mention this one that I’m concealing. So in your book, he said that the best ideas arrive when the mind is distracted, or allowed to relax. And this is actually true. And I’ve got from, you know, I’ve experienced this myself, probably every one of us does, at some point, you know, like, we, we are thinking, we are trying to focus on a problem and come up with a solution, whether it is like, let’s say, we’re working on a logo, just something as simple as that, or our new name for our brand. And we’re very try hard to do that. But actually, the way our mind works is, you know, we don’t sometimes we just, we just need to let it, let it work into something else. And be busy, like, for example, we take a shower, or we do some activities, and then suddenly, you know, we come up with this great idea. So can you talk to that a bit?
Kevin Duncan:
Of course, yes. This is a process which I call training your depth mind. And your depth mind is essentially just a phrase for what most people to call their subconscious. Now, the more experienced you get, and the more you relaxed, and the more confident you are. What you realize is that, first of all, when you’ve got an issue that you’re dealing with, you should brief your depth mind. In other words, make sure that you’ve thoroughly understood what the issue is. But then do not sit at a desk with a blank sheet of paper fretting over that for days on end, because the more you force it, the less it’s likely to come. So what happens is the analogy if you like, if you can imagine a submarine setting off towards its destination. Now it’s below the waterline, so you can’t see that it’s going somewhere, but it is going somewhere. And eventually, it does surface. And you’re absolutely right. It tends to surface when you’re not concentrating specifically on that task. And one of the things which quite fascinating. A lot of people say oh, I had an up really had a solution and an idea came up when I was having a jog or walking the dog or something. And it is biologically true and proven now that if you move, you are more likely to think more productively just because on pure physiology, more blood, and therefore oxygen goes to your brain to stimulate your thoughts.
Arek Dvornechuck:
Now, we are going to take a quick break here, but we’ll be right back. Listen, my mission is to help people design iconic brands. So whether you’re a business leader who wants to be more intentional with branding and all of its aspects, or you are a creative who wants to attract powerful clients and surely be able to help them with branding, then you need to start with a discovery session and then develop a strategy that will inform all your creative work. And everything you need to learn how to do that you can find in my online courses, at ebaqdesign.com/shop, where I shared with you my worksheets, case studies, video tutorials, and all other additional resources to help you feel safe and strong about your process. So now let’s get back to our conversation with Kevin Duncan. This is really interesting. And I want to wrap this up by talking about conceptual blending because I think it’s really relevant to our discipline. So, basically, what we do is we take one concept, and then blend it with another and you give this example like deodorant plus a boil point pen. And that led to all deodorant, right? So blending two different concepts to try to create some new concepts.
Kevin Duncan:
That’s exactly right. And they often call this recombination. And it’s something that comes a lot from the world of biology as well, where two separate things are sort of mixed together to create a new solution. And that story about deodorant is actually is rather charming. And the nice thing is, it’s true. So essentially, when most deodorants were aerosol, and it became apparent that CFCs, were destroying the ozone layer. The design challenge was how can we invent a new delivery system for deodorant. And the designer who was working on that was actually, here’s an example where someone was actually sitting at their desk. But what they’re looking for is a delivery mechanism that can get what is apparently a liquid onto the skin in a way that isn’t messy and impossible. And they just saw on their desk, a buy arrow. And they thought well hang on. That is a delivery mechanism, which manages to get a liquid onto a surface in a way that is acceptable. So all they did really was changed the scale of it. So you can imagine a roll-on deodorant delivery mechanism as essentially being an enormous ballpoint pen. And that’s how it came out.
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