Creativity Technique: Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats

Edward de Bono is the creativity guru. If you can get past his arrogance, you'll discover he has some great things to offer. However, it takes a strong stomach to get past the opening line to his book, Six Thinking Hats:

The Six Thinking Hats method may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past twenty-three hundred years.

Essentially, Six Thinking Hats is a useful method for groups to coordinate and focus their thinking in one direction at a time. Useful, yes. Earth-shattering revelation, no.

In short--

White Hat: give Information or Facts.

Red Hat: give your Emotion or Feeling on the matter.

Yellow Hat: point out the positives. Think Optimism

Black Hat: point out the negatives. Think Pessimism.

Green Hat: Creativity! Brainstorm!

Blue Hat: guides the meeting. Chairperson.

Concept: The chairperson (Blue Hat) guides the meeting firmly. And participants focus their thinking strictly according to the Hat they should be (figuratively) wearing. Ie. The chairperson tells the participants: "Put on your White Hat. Give me all the information on our problem." He/She writes that down.

The most important aspect of this method is that it stops the negativism from creeping in. Everyone's seen it. Someone gives an idea. Good or bad. Immediately, someone will jump in to say why it's not good. The idea is killed without exploring its potential. Secondly, it seriously speeds up meetings. People don't comment on ideas until they are asked to wear the Yellow, Black, White or Red Hats.

According to de Bono, IBM saw meeting times reduce to 25% of previous. ABB cut their multinational project meetings from 30 days to 2.

Stay inspired!

Cheers,
Maurice
Voice One Oy
www.voiceone.fi

Creativity Technique: Opening Lines

So what does a 1972 Dodge Dart have to do with creativity? Well, besides the fact it takes a lot of creativity to keep the bloody thing on the road, I think it will demonstrate one of the basic aspects of creativity--essentially how to overcome blocks to creativity.

I bought my rust(!) red 1972 Dodge Dart from my hippie English professor in 1992. It was my first car so I thought it was great at the time. Among the legion of problems, the beast used to leak automatic transmission fluid requiring occasional top-ups. Now, if you've ever tried to drive a car low on transmission fluid, it tends to slip out of gear at low points. Soooo, creativity is much the same. You occasionally need something to lubricate the gears to get the wheels turning.

One little technique used by writers is the borrowed opening line. When you get writer's block (creative block), try using someone else's opening line. The American Book Review has compiled the 100 Best First lines. Here's a few examples:

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

Visit the website and give it a try:  http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp

Now, you might say, I'm not a writer. But, this technique is universal. If you are stuck in your business challenge, design project, marketing concept, how to get your kids to eat veggies, etc., go to a successful project and use it as your jumping off point. It will take you places you might not expect.
 
Stay inspired!

Cheers,
Maurice
www.voiceone.fi

Creativity Technique: Random Pictures

There are many avenues toward creating new ideas. One classic creativity technique, Random Pictures, relies on the human mind's innate desire to find connections, patterns, rythms, sequences between two or more disparate visuals, words, concepts, notes, movements, etc.

Random Pictures aims to do just that by juxtaposing different images next to each other or in sequence. Our brain will naturally try and find any patterns, connections, etc.

Flickr is a great place to find pictures for this. All you need to do is enter a word search for 'interesting', 'creative', 'idea', 'new', etc. and you'll find hundreds of thought-enducing pictures. The linked picture below is called the Creative Commons Creativity Poster. You can expand it into a full poster at Flickr.

We use Random Pictures in our Marketing English Plus and Creativity seminars. And I can tell you it does work especially with
Visual Learners and people with an art or design background.

Stay inspired!

Cheers,
Maurice
www.voiceone.fi