Boost Your Brainstorming with These Creativity MindGames
Alex F. Osborn was the “O” in the famous advertising agency, BBD&O (15,000 employees today at 289 offices in 81 countries.)In the 1940s, unsatisfied with the lackluster ideas his creative staff were presenting for clients like GE and Dupont, he began experimenting with group idea-sparking sessions he called “organized ideation.” Others later dubbed it “brainstorming.”
Eight decades later, brainstorming is still a relied-upon method for generating new ideas in business, the arts, science, and more, and has been joined by a number of other group ideation methods like Mind Mapping and The Disney Method.
Here’s a Medium article that explains three of those alternatives.
For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll simply refer to all of these ideation methods as “brainstorming” — a process by which a group attempts to find solutions for a specific problem by considering all the ideas spontaneously made by its members. The rules include: no criticism of ideas, go for large quantities of ideas, build on each other’s ideas and encourage wild and exaggerated ideas.
Flexing Your Mind
Creative ideas are not confined to an exclusive group of talented people. We are all born with innate creative ability; you have only to observe a three-year-old at play to know that.
As a former senior VP and creative director of a busy marketing firm, I have organized many creative-thinking efforts. I often made a point to invite agency staff that wasn’t on the so-called creative team.
A surprising number of our best ideas were contributed by accounting folks, media buyers, and others who might be thought of as more given to logic, numbers, and other left-brain activity.
In many ways, creativity is a muscle with which we’re born. As with any muscle with which we’re born, it can be exercised, built, and made stronger.
Like exercising with a good training partner, the combination of competition and cooperative effort inherent in group brainstorming can inspire us to push our thinking harder and farther.
Before I wear this simile completely out, allow me one more: You’ll get more from your efforts, both at the gym and in an ideation session, if you spend a few minutes warming up first.
Here are two pre-brainstorming warm-ups that will help both large and small groups get pumping out ideas.
In keeping with my philosophy — you can’t bore people into learning — these warm-ups are really games. Games are an involving and usually low-loss learning method. They give you a chance to try out skills and there is not much downside if you mess up.
These MindGames are quick, easy, and fun to play.
Try them for yourself and see.
Opposites Attacked
Ever notice how different everything looks in a mirror, even you? In innovative thinking, the same principle holds true, looking at a problem from a reverse angle can often reveal surprising new insights and possibilities. In this MindGame, that’s just what you’ll be doing.
Have one person choose any common word. Then, the others try to spin out as many opposites of that word as possible. Aim for at least six. You’ll have to be both analytical and creative because sometimes there aren’t six obvious opposites and you’ll need to force some connections.
This is where the creativity starts to spark.
For example, you might quickly run out of obvious opposites for the word “bird.” So, you might think of “rock,” since a rock is heavy, sedentary and hard — the opposite of a light, soft creature with the ability to fly.
If the word is “help,” or another word that can be both a noun (the help) or a verb (to help,) you can think of opposites that go off in different directions.
If you’re using this warm-up alone, grab a dictionary or other book with lots of words and look at a page at random. Choose a word and start spinning out opposites.
Five to ten minutes of this exercise makes a good warm-up to get started. If the group could still use some loosening up, try a more involved game like Ad-Lib.
Ad-Lib
Based on my brainstorming career in marketing, I created this MindGame called Ad-Lib. To play this warm-up game, the group splits into smaller teams of participants. Each of these will act as a creative team for the advertising firm Ad-Lib.
Each team’s job is to read one of the descriptions presented for a new product below and follow the instructions and assignments. These products are actual patented inventions found through Google’s patent search database. They’re a little quirky so you’ll have a challenge making them look exciting to the general public.
Teams should take about eight or nine minutes to finish their assignments and then each team should present their ideas to the entire group in the most compelling way possible — as if trying to sell the ideas to the product’s inventors.
Product #1: Weed-cutting golf club
Actual U.S. Patent #6988954B1. A motor carried within the compartment is coupled to a power source, propelling a cutting mechanism in the club head.
Agency Assignments:
1. Entire team should brainstorm an evocative brand name for the product — three minutes.
2. Team then comes up with a memorable slogan for the newly named product — three minutes.
3. Team then writes a short jingle based on a popular tune — three minutes.
Product Two: Sail-Powered Bicycle
Actual U.S. Patent #6932368B1. A sail attachment which when connected to the bicycle harnesses wind to drive the bicycle forward.
Agency Assignments:
1. Entire team should brainstorm an evocative brand name for the product — three minutes.
2. Brainstorm the headline of the ad introducing this newly named product— three minutes.
3. Team then draws a new logo for the product — three minutes.
Patently Ridiculous
If you’d like more wacky patents to use with Ad-Lib, here are a nineteen more: https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-patents/nathandavidson
And here’s the Mother Lode — Google Patents — everything from Edison’s lightbulb to the next must-have technology: https://patents.google.com
Let It Go, Let It Flow
There is a major current of writing today about achieving a creative flow state, that almost mystical state where we are an open conduit to ideas that seem to effortlessly pour onto the page, screen, canvas, whatever.
There are dozens of articles about the topic here on Medium if you’d like to learn more.
What typically hinders free-flowing creativity is the intrusion of our critical mind. “Nah, that wouldn’t work.” “That would be too expensive.” “I haven’t got the talent to pull this off.”
Simple, fun games like these MindGames switch our brains to “playtime” mode, a time when the rational mind relaxes for a bit and quits being such a naysayer. (Chess, backgammon, bridge, and many online games are another thing entirely. They require a sophisticated mix of rationality and creativity.)
So, before you sit down to “flow,” give a MindGame or two a go. It could give your brain the creative boost it needs to get moving in the right direction.
