Typical corporate brainstorms usually start off with at least one hand tied behind them. Most of them I’m aware of start with an open forum of free interchange stimulated by a moderator who knows a lot abut stimulating un-rooted ideas, and little or nothing about the client sponsor’s business. Continue reading →

I joined a client at one of these brainstorm exercises in a Harvard Square facility run by “Ideation Facilitation Specialists”, and here’s how it worked.

Following the free wheeling brainstorming, everyone swarmed the original sheets, picked the 3 they judged to be the best out of 1100-some, went back to their places and filled out 3 new slips with the ones they selected. They all went up to the front again, and filled up a new paper sheet with well over 100 of the ideas hijacked from the original sheets. Continue reading →