Great to read the original post and the comments it generated from many experts in various fields. About the challenge of connecting and that is one of the major themes of this blog.
In my last post I wrote about why intelligence agencies were apparently unable to “connect the dots” on the Nigerian underwear bomber. The post elicited a variety of comments, some from distinguished experts (Don Peppers in customer data, Sam Felton in strategic and competitive intelligence, Sanjay Poonen in enterprise integration, and Jeff Jonas in information security). Some felt that “connecting the dots” should have been an easy problem, but most agreed with me that it’s difficult.
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26 January 2010 
Published on 26 January 2010 in Transportation
We’ve written about a few different efforts to help disadvantaged people in Africa by providing refurbished second-hand bikes from the developed world. Unlike such initiatives from Baisikeli and Bikes for Africa, however, Worldbike designs and distributes brand-new bicycles that are inexpensive and built specifically to withstand harsh rural conditions.
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As an operational manager I sometimes have to prepare for a meeting. End Janury a brainstorm session is scheduled. I appreciated the content of this and that is why i share it. Feel free to connect and act!
Welcome to the third in this brief series overviewing Brilliant Brainstorming.
Not everything that is good is new, the tried and tested proven over time so often pays dividends. That is true of the classic rules that you can use to navigate the course of a brainstorming session.
To keep a brainstorming meeting going where it needs to go you need one person and 5 basic rules. The person is you, the facilitator, who will steer the meeting.
It’s best if the facilitator is not the boss – bosses tend to have an inhibiting effect. So, if you are the boss, be a creative leader and give someone else an opportunity to develop their skills.
With all those ideas flowing freely it’s easy to end up solving the wrong problem. This can be especially true if you’re having fun and that is also a pre-requisite for the best brainstorming sessions. Not only are minds more flexible but fun keeps the energy levels high.
They may not be the solution themselves but your craziness may be the trigger for someone else in the team to have that “million dollar idea”
You must keep this for later; don’t mix the creative and analytical processes. A different kind of thinking is required and the team’s creativity will be stifled as you dive off down analytical rabbit holes. You will also miss the opportunity to generate new ideas. Negative criticism will switch off the team’s creative juices because it makes people prefer to keep quite rather than risk a put down by speaking out what might seem to them to be a silly idea.
The process of creative thinking pivots not on an individual’s ideas alone, but the ideas that are stimulated by external triggers. One way to stimulate your creativity is to respond to or extend the wacky ideas of others, perhaps seeing how it can become a practical version. There are techniques that you can use that are based on this principle.
The process of brainstorming needs one person’s ideas to stimulate the other team members. If you allow multiple conversations you will short change the other team members by limiting the number of people responding to the stimulation of an idea. The scribe, who is recording the ideas, will likely miss some too. On both counts, multiple conversations will limit the output and effectiveness of the session.
As the facilitator you will need to steer the session using these navigation aids.
The list could be longer but represents the classic core. What can you add to it that might help to keep brainstorming on track?
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Image by theonlyone via Flickr
Found at http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/where-innovation-creates-value/383620
| Where innovation creates value |
| Richard K Lee / January 26, 2010, 0:56 IST |
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At the heart of CRM stands relationship. I just wonder whether in this decade relationship (managed by the seller) will still dominate. But I wonder also whether a lot of assumed relationship will not migrate in encounters or pseudo-relationships. Great read to read, to make up your mind and start acting.
Found at http://www.duperrin.com/english/2010/01/25/what-crm-is-and-what-it-should-be
The good thing with acronyms is that they are easy to remember. Their weakness is that it’s easy to forget their meaning. Let’s consider CRM for instance, it means “Customer relationship management”. I repeat customer relationship management.
If we have a closer look, we are forced to admit that CRM has been lead astray to become, in the best case, a sales enablement tool and in the worse case a reporting tool to provide informations to sales managers without any benefits for the salespeople who have reluctance to update the data and often both this tedious task.
Don’t blame the tools. It’s the notion of customer relationship that’s been lead astray. Tools only followed the trend.
To be continued at http://www.duperrin.com/english/2010/01/25/what-crm-is-and-what-it-should-be
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