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  • IFTF's Future Now draws on research and forecasting at the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto, CA think tank specializing in the future of technology, health, and organizational change. It began in September 2003.

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  • IFTF's Future Now is a group weblog, founded by Institute research director Alex Soojung-Kim Pang in September 2003. Its contributors include IFTF researchers interested in emerging technologies, the future of Asia, and the social and economic impacts on new technologies; IFTF corporate affiliates; academic partners; and members of the Innovation Lab, a Danish futures group with offices in Aarhus and Copenhagen. A complete list of contributors is available here.

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June 14, 2006

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Wall Street Journal on brainstorming:

» Is Brainstorming For Real? You Bet. from NussbaumOnDesign
Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a piece deriding brainstorming as stupid and suggesting that individuals alone can come up with more and better ideas than a group sitting in a room. It really bothered me to read it... [Read More]

» Is Brainstorming For Real? You Bet. from NussbaumOnDesign
Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a piece deriding brainstorming and suggesting that individuals alone can come up with more and better ideas than a group sitting in a room. It really bothered me to read it because I've... [Read More]

» Journal from Journal
You may request your copy by sending a Request for JTSP toHealth Physics (ISSN 0017 9078) is the Official Journal of the H... [Read More]

» More on brainstorming from Smart Meetings
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang from the Institute For The Future has posted an extended comment on Sandbergs Cubicle Culture article. Pang shows a fine appreciation of the degree of planning involved in any good (facilitation) event. He goes on to ide... [Read More]

» Brainstorming Group Think or Collective of Individuals - Business Growth from ModernMagellans
With my artist son Brett, I attended a user group meeting for Luxology Softwares Modo. Its a software program for 3D modeling and soon, animation. The moderator must have said that they believe in the power of 1000 minds, over... [Read More]

Comments

Mark Federman

You could do a lot worse than checking out McLuhan for Managers (for which your colleague Paul Saffo wrote the Foreword) for ideas on a completely different thinking framework for business problems. While I don't specifically cover brainstorming in the book (I developed the technique after the manuscript went to print), I talk about it here, (and longer ago, here) and, of course, I'm (almost) always available as a facilitator! :)

Ned Ruete

There was some postive for facililtators in WSJ, if you look hard enough. But what I was most struck with was the complete misunderstanding of:
- what "brainstorming" is and how it has to be part of a total package of idea generation, problems solving, and decision-making strategy
- that teams aren't something you have to (or can) make happen, but may want to let happen in very particular circumstances
- how much old command-and-control management gets it the way of effective work, and how failed collaborative efforts are not because collaboration doesn't work but because nothing works in the typical American management culture. "Export anything to a friendly country except American management" - W. Edwards Deming

Jon Jenkins

The International Association of Facilitators has several sources about brainstorming and more generally facilitation. The "The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation: Best Practices from the
Leading Organization in Facilitation" at
http://www.iafhgf.com/. You might also check the IAF Methods Database at http://www.iaf-methods.org.

linda ong

i'm glad to see i wasn't the only one who was incensed by this irresponsible artlcle. here's the letter to the editor i fired off - don't know if it was ever published - but for what it's worth, i tried to make it constructive:
To the Editor,

Re: “Cubicle Culture: Brainstorming Works Best if People Scramble for Ideas on Their Own,” June 13, 2006 by Jared Sandberg

You’ve just set corporate innovation back 100 years.

Maybe my experience as a creative brand consultant for media companies is an anomaly – or perhaps my clients are naturally more inventive – but I could not disagree more with your perspective.

Saying brainstorming doesn’t work is like telling people not to drive, because cars crash. Even my 10-year old son can tell you – you have to learn how to do it properly first.

You plainly have a bias against irresponsibly run, and ill-intentioned, brainstorms – as do I. But from your piece, the average reader will take away that sitting in a cubicle cave is more productive than teaching people a valuable skill – and/or hiring people who possess it.

And while you do in fact make some valuable points – that brainstorming is overused and scapegoated – you don’t pay enough attention to the cause: people think it's easy.

Brainstorming is rocket science.

Anyone who thinks innovation is easy is not worth the salary they’re paid. Just because anybody can get ten people to sit in a room, it doesn’t mean that anyone can get ten people to sit in a room and emerge with a killer idea.

Like NASA engineers, people enter a brainstorm with a vague idea of what they want to accomplish, but they don’t know exactly how to get there. Or if they'll get there. But two things are certain: that none of them can figure it out alone, and that they'll need to generate lots of ideas to produce one really good one.

That trial-and-error implies the (correct) expectation that people will fail more than they succeed, if innovation is the true end game. If managers don't want safe ideas, they can't punish teams when ideas fail. Which leads me to my next point:

Brainstorming is not for wimps.

At most companies, true brainstorming is impossible to run from the inside. You can ask people to check their egos at the door, but as long as the Boss is running the session, be prepared to fail. Fear (with a capital F) is the biggest enemy of brainstorms – the groupthink, embarrassment, pedestrian and “obvious conclusions” you cite are a direct result of picturing that next performance review. It’s “decision by committee” at its worst. And no matter how many disclaimer the Boss makes at the top of the session, at the end of the day, the Boss is the Boss.

Having an impartial facilitator – whether it’s an outside consultant or just a experienced communicator from another department – allows someone to play the hero, and look Fear in the face. Without a personal agenda or a job at stake, this person ensures objectivity, impartiality and even someone who’ll put the Boss in his/her place. It gives the team a common focus and even a common enemy – often challenging the group’s consensus decisions to pressure-test them, or to give them the courage to take it to the next level.

It takes two (or more) to brainstorm.

The article makes the point, “The best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down privately and bring them in.” I couldn’t agree more. But you fail to mention what happens next. Is it a popularity contest at that point?

The best brainstorms start with personal contributions at the top and leave with ideas that have everyone’s fingerprints on them. And yet they’re ideas that no single person could have come up with alone.

That doesn’t happen through osmosis. It takes a trained leader to guide a consensus decision. And in the world of innovation, consensus usually starts with conflict: You need to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough.

Invention often happens as the result of two unrelated (or opposing) ideas coming together. Unless you’re Einstein or Dali, it’s virtually impossible to think of revolutionary ideas on your own (and even Dali had his collaborators – the Surrealists were one big brainstorming case study).

Just as it took China 100 years to catch up after shutting itself out of the Industrial Revolution, people working solo are limited to their own ideas and perspective. Some of the best lessons in brainstorming come from the world of improv (that’s right, as in “What’s My Line?”).

The rules of improv are simple:
1. Establish trust through eye contact
2. Go with the flow
3. Don’t try to own the idea
To prove it, I recently enlisted an improv group to teach one of my clients – the marketing team of a top cable TV network – how to brainstorm better, and come up with more innovative solutions.

Which is the point of this note to you.

Instead of using scare tactics to steer companies away from a really valuable technique, let’s educate them. Let’s help them see that brainstorming is more than just people throwing ideas at each other, and that done properly, can produce real results.

Just as you wouldn’t let anyone sit behind the wheel without first learning how to drive and the rules of the road, we should encourage managers to “Brainstorm Responsibly.” And maybe that way, more people will avoid crashes and actually get to where they're going.

Sincerely,
Linda Ong

Thomas

I’m not with the prof or theotherthomasotter . How would you know or have access to know what may or may not have come from a brainstorming session ? The key thing lost in Sanberg’s column is context and the dynamics of a well designed collaborative brainstorm . One of the major benefits of a group is the variety of angles (from a variety of disiplines in many cases) and the purely objective responses to ideas generated by any one person. Most of the analysis and responses I’ve seen from the column and the reaction to it have been static and simplistic.

Tacker

The best brainstorms start with personal contributions at the top and leave with ideas that have everyone’s fingerprints on them. And yet they’re ideas that no single person could have come up with alone.

Alex

Ya. It s good article online newsletter for her coaching business which celebrated it's first year anniversary. The business people get chance through the business brainstorming. Who want more information visit the site business brainstorming

Rick Bryant

The other day I ran accross a amazingly neat brainstorming utility and free of charge I might add. It works based on the mental object of permutating assorted factors of your idea into a list and then the site produces novel combinations founded on the list, which in turn stimulates facets you would seldom think of. After finding it, I apply it a great deal, because it does work conceptually darn good. Free Brainstorming Software

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