Generating ideas: Guest Blog Leapfrogging the Mind
2nd November 2010
Reuben Steains, Fundraising Innovations Manager at Amnesty International shares his thoughts on how to release your creative potential.
Many people don't consider themselves as creative. But as human beings we are inherently creative, within us all is a cosmic amount of creative potential. We just need a way of unbolting it. Read on to find out how.
The brain's default setting actively inhibits the ability to think creatively…"That's not very helpful", I hear you say.
The brain is hard-wired to use an automatic and subconscious classification system based on past experiences. That means that when we're presented with a problem or new information we often relate back to past experiences to understand what is before us. So we're experiencing the new through a lens of the old.
This system is highly effective and allows us to process vast amounts of information very quickly. But it also keeps us locked into current and past realities.
There is hope.
We need to leapfrog the mind's conditioned way of thinking by using stimulus that distract the brain from its current rules. Hundreds of methods have been devised to help people stimulate different thinking and there plenty of easy things you can do to help improve the quality and quantity of ideas generated:
Top tips to be more creative
1. Expose yourself!
More often than not, a new idea is a connection of more than one existing ideas/concepts. The more experiences/perspectives we have to tap into, the greater chance we have of making a connection. So expose yourself to new life experiences. Go to a dance class. Learn a language. Start a new hobby. Play a musical instrument. Go see some art/music/theatre.
2. Disrupt the convention
Train your mind to break old habit patterns so that thinking differently becomes normal. Brush your teeth with the other hand. Take a different route to work every day for a week. Hot desk. Read a different paper.
3. Play
The most creative people you'll ever meet are children. Learn from them.
4. Cross Pollination
Involve a broad and diverse range of people in your problem solving. Invite staff from different departments and external people to your idea sessions.
5. Stop telling yourself you're not creative
If you tell yourself not to come up with ideas, then you probably won't – no matter how hard you try.
6. Spend time with people outside your demographic
Kids are the best. Different generations have different perspectives.
7. Experiment randomly
Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.
8. Be brave
New ideas can often seem absurd. But if you feel there's something in it then stick with it. All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.
9. Signal
Invariably if we ask others what they think of a new idea we get criticism as a response. Let others know when you want them to build on your idea or to critically analyse it.
10. Get real
When you have a new idea, do like Blue Peter and make it real. Draw your idea or mock it up to help communicate it to others.
Reuben Steains explains how new fundraising ideas are generated at Amnesty International
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Comments
Hey Reuben - hope the session went well.
Your point no.6 (speak to kids) makes me think of a conversation I had with my daughter the day before yesterday (she's 6). She was reading a book about inventions. It struck me that that's kind of what we do, right ? I mean that's what the word 'invention' means - innovation.
So I told her. 'That's what I do at work that is - I invent things'. I thought that might make it easier for her to understand what is essentially quite difficult to explain (and not just to a 6 year old). But it then led to a difficult conversation. 'What do you invent' ? 'Can you tell me what you invented today ?'
The point is that this is a really good training. We should all be able to tell 6 year olds what we do - and for them to understand it. Especially when developing new product concepts - they have to make sense to 6 year olds.