Thursday, July 8, 2010

Dump It Out -- The Art of Creative Thinking

Have you had any fresh ideas lately for your business? Have you uncovered any new and exciting ways to sell more of the “stuff” you sell?

Here is one idea.

Lately I’ve conducted a couple of “Mind Dump” creative thinking sessions. They go like this: I’ll set aside an hour minimum, get in a spot where there are no distractions, including radio, TV, iPod, cell phone, and then sit for ideas. I work best with a computer keyboard under my fingertips, so I use that to capture my ideas. Some people work best with pen and paper. Use what works best for you. The main objective is to sit and see how many ideas you can generate.

I will usually list four or five starter questions to help direct my thinking, but I want to let my mind run wild for this time and there are no thoughts off limits. The objective is to capture as many ideas as possible. Other than the rule about eliminating distractions, there is only one other rule I would suggest. Do not criticize any of your ideas during this session. Just capture them.

I’ll begin with a few “thinking” questions such as:
--If I were my customer, what would I love most from my company?
--What added value can I give to my customer?
--How can I attract more customers?
--What else can I be doing, right now, by making a few slight adjustments?

By now I’m sure you get the picture. Just dump it out. Let the ideas flow, randomly and openly, and capture them with enough notes to establish the main ideas in your head.

I usually find that my best ideas don’t come at first, and that is why I have to dump them out and get the early ones down on my computer and out of my mind. As I review my list during this creative time I find that I start connecting the dots. I begin to put idea combinations together, and that is when it starts getting exciting.

That happened when I was attempting to come up with my tag line – “Offering hope, encouragement and inspiration one word at a time.” I had a dozen or more tag lines when in a flash this line came to mind, fully formed and ready to be claimed.

John Maxwell has a great little book out called How Successful People Think and in it he suggests even having a thinking chair, your favorite spot for generating ideas. Any time John sits in his “thinking chair” it seems his mind just shifts into a creativity and thinking mode. Try it. If it works for you, use it.

Now take action. Pick a date, pick your time, let those significant others in your life know what you are going to do so that they can support you and allow you the privacy you need, gather your idea capturing tools, create your thinking questions and let it happen.

If you manage a team of individuals, you might suggest that each person on your team spend one morning per month on this. Allow them time in the office, or allow them a “Work at Home” opportunity to get this done. You just might get some golden nuggets in ideas and fresh ways of looking at your business.

Think! Dump! Create!

No comments:

Post a Comment