Brainstorming is dead.

The Boss: - OK everybody. Five minutes left of the meeting - time to BRAINSTORM about possible new concepts for customer X. Anyone?

A chill went through the room and some people sitting around the conference table starting sweating. The Boss stood in front of the whiteboard and pointed a red pen down at you and... NO, you could not find the words. And you certainly could not produce a new good idea. And oooooppppsss there the time was up and the meeting was over. Let us take this word BRAINSTORMING into consideration, because this word has had a fantastic impact on the creation of a new paradigm in working processes but it has also outgrown itself as the terrifying and banal technique it has become to many.

BRAINSTORMING is a creative technique that was first written down and described 1953 in the book " Applied Imagination" by Alex Osborn of the American advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn. It is a probably the most used group process of today. The process became known as BRAINSTORMING because the participants´brains were supposed to "storm" a problem. The basic concept is that a group leader records solutions to a problem offered by the rest of the group in a spontaneous fashion. And that is pretty much the whole method. At the time BRAINSTORMING was "released" as a method of creativity, it was a major breakthrough in the way it put focus on the importance of creative processes as a part of everyday work. Creativity was not just something that belonged to artists or the geniuses of science, but to the everyday man or woman in most professions. Today, that is even more true than it was then.

But, today BRAINSTORMING is still often mentioned as the same thing as creative methods in general. This is a disgrace to the creative spirit of minds today and other more creative methods that has been developed since the 1950´s. Both because of the pretty brutal way it is mostly used today in conference rooms worldwide, and because it is just one of many other methods and a small brick in the overall innovation process. Therefore it is time to put BRAINSTORMING in the trash can and really live the creative vision of the organization of today seriously!

N E W S

Idélaboratoriet is proud to have started working with the science park KRINOVA in Kristianstad. The Science Park Krinova wanted to ensure from the beginning that they were thinking about important innovative aspects that would be crucial to their success. Idélaboratoriet made an overall analysis concerning central parameters of innovation and made suggestions on how to continue working for the future. www.krinova.se

Idélaboratoriet was recently featured in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet Näringsliv in an article discussing creativity and innovation. You can find the article at: www.idelaboratoriet.com/media.asp

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