- Every brainstorm session follows a similar timeline.
Ideas are flowing well at the start of the session,
but as time progresses,
the activity begins to settle
and the energy begins to subside.
It starts to get quiet in the room
as the participants pull out their phones
to check email or Facebook,
or start thumbing through the creative brief again,
searching for any kind of inspiration they can use
to spark another idea.
The less people interact,
the more uncomfortable it gets.
This is the stare blankly at each other phase
of every brainstorm session.
The good news is
is that it plays out this way every time,
which means you can prepare for it
by bringing it a few game changers with you.
The reason there's that lull in the activity
is that the participants have been thinking
in a linear fashion,
building upon the ideas that have been offered
like constructing a skyscraper.
When they've reached the top of that structure,
you have two choices,
end the session with only that building
or go back to the street and build something else.
If you choose the ladder,
you're going to have to change the problem slightly
to give them something new to solve
or frame the problem in a different light.
For example, in a social content brainstorm
for a construction tool manufacturer,
the stormers have been focusing on scenario ideas
that would be filmed and shared,
like entertaining ways to use the product
or real life construction hacks that could be recorded.
This was the line of thinking the client was anticipating,
but after about an hour,
the session was beginning to stall.
We had good ideas,
but they were all in that same train of thought.
So I altered the problem
to give them something new to solve.
Instead of thinking of scenarios,
what if the problem was to create an event of some kind.
This led to thinking of the idea of social content
as physical, not just digital.
They spent the next 30 minutes
throwing around wildly entertaining ideas for pop-up events
that could be filmed and shared
just like the original ideas.
To keep the ideation active,
offer a different perspective of the problem,
change the medium you're working in
or add a new wrinkle to the problem.
By altering the problem,
even in the slightest way,
you're giving your stormers something new to solve
and something else to build upon.
It'll keep the energy high and the ideas flowing.