Combine traditional brainstorming with creative
thinking techniques and you will get advanced brainstorming
What is creativity?
Creativity is the bringing into being of something which did not exist before,
either as a product, a process or a thought.
You would be demonstrating creativity if you:
Invent something which has never existed before
Invent something which exists elsewhere but you are not aware of
Invent a new process for doing something
Reapply an existing process or product into a new or different market
Develop a new way of looking at something (bringing a new idea into
existence)
Change the way someone else looks at something
In fact, we are all creative every day because we are constantly changing the
ideas which we hold about the world about us. Creativity does not have to be
about developing something new to the world, it is more to do with developing
something new to ourselves. When we change ourselves, the world changes with
us, both in the way that the world is affected by our changed actions and
in the changed way that we experience the world.
Creativity can be used to make products, processes and services better and it
can be used to create them in the first place. It is expected that increasing
your creativity will help you, your organization and your customers become happier
through improvements in your quality and quantity of output.
What is creative thinking?
Creative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new
idea. It is the merging of ideas which have not been merged before. Brainstorming
is one form of creative thinking: it works by merging someone else's ideas
with your own to create a new one. You are using the ideas of others as a
stimulus for your own.
This creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate.
Without using special techniques creative thinking does still occur, but usually
in the accidental way; like a chance happening making you think about
something in a different way and you then discovering a beneficial change.
Other changes happen slowly through pure use of intelligence and logical progression.
Using this accidental or logical progression process, it often takes a long
time for products to develop and improve. In an accelerating and competitive
world this is obviously disadvantageous.
Using special techniques, deliberate creative thinking can be used
to develop new ideas. These techniques force the mergance of a wide range
of ideas to spark off new thoughts and processes. Brainstorming is one of
these special techniques, but traditionally it starts with unoriginal ideas.
Developments of products occur much more rapidly using these deliberate
techniques than by accident. Many people known for being creative use
these techniques, but are not aware they are doing so because they have not
been formally trained in them. If you use these deliberate techniques during
advanced brainstorming sessions then you too will be more creative.
With practice, ongoing creative thinking (the continuous investigation,
questioning and analysis that develops through education, training and self-awareness)
occurs all the time. Ongoing creativity maximizes both accidental and deliberate
creative thinking. Ongoing creativity takes time and deliberate practice to
become skillful at, but it's surprising how quickly it becomes an attitude,
not a technique.
The first step to take is to learn the creative thinking techniques so that
you can deliberately use them to come up with new ideas. You will then be
at an immediate advantage over those who don't know how to use them. You should
then practise the techniques to increase your skill at ongoing creative thinking.
(After a while you may even find it unnecessary to use specific techniques
because you may be having too many ideas anyway.)
Now let's find out how creative thinking techniques work ... (or just download
our specialist software Brainstorming
Toolbox to make these techniques instant and interactive (free 30 day
trial))
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