The Star Malaysia - Star2

Brainstorm­ing for best results

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ThE idea of brainstorm­ing is credited to an American advertisin­g executive called Alex F. Osborn who wrote a 1948 bestseller, Your Creative Power, that outlined a system for group brainstorm­ing.

he suggested that you get a group together, and do the following:

1) Outline the problem, for example, “We need to figure out a study for our advertisin­g course that looks at consumer behaviour.” 2) Call for ideas.

3) Give everyone time to think. 4) Everyone presents an idea: people take turns so that everyone gets to talk.

5) Every single idea is recorded (so you need a group secretary).

6) Everyone talks about the ideas presented and the secretary adds developmen­ts or additions.

To get things going, Osborn sets out these principles:

> Go for as many ideas as you can.

> Don’t look for quality in ideas, accept everything.

> Combine ideas to form new approaches.

Osborn thought that the ideal group size was a dozen, and that the leader should start by making sure that nobody judges anything said.

Also, the wilder and wackier the ideas are, the better because creativity often arises from things that appear out of field.

So you need a strong group leader who can get things moving and keep them moving. This should get you lots of good ideas.

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