The Key to Larger Creativity? A Easy Brainstorming Approach (Opinion)

How do I assist college students brainstorm successfully?

After they get caught, you may inform them in regards to the inventive cliff phantasm. Right here’s one thing I wrote in regards to the matter for Character Lab as a Tip of the Week:

“I do not know what to do with 1,000 tennis balls!”

My pupil Nick was pissed off with the project. I’d requested the scholars to think about they had been working on the U.S. Open tennis event. After the event ended, a supervisor supplied them the evenly used tennis balls hit through the occasion by stars like Serena Williams and Roger Federer. Their job was to promote the balls for a revenue.

“I had a few good concepts at first,” Nick stated. “I may promote them as canine toys or to hospitals that might put them on the underside of walker frames to maintain them from slipping.” Then he struggled to think about extra choices and determined that was the most effective he may do.

Most individuals consider that good concepts come rapidly or by no means—nevertheless it seems that’s not the case. Researchers name this the inventive cliff phantasm, the sense that we’re unlikely to land on good concepts in the event that they don’t tumble out the minute we begin pondering.

The reality, although, is that the most effective concepts usually come later. Your first concepts are likely to replicate widespread knowledge, and pondering like everybody else isn’t a recipe for creativity. The answer is to persist, though persevering feels onerous. If you happen to proceed working, extra attention-grabbing and authentic concepts will emerge.

I defined this to the category, and we spent one other 10 minutes pondering collectively. Nick realized that he may promote the balls utilizing two completely different methods: promoting a small portion for some huge cash as signed souvenirs to tennis fanatics and the remaining at a reduction to tennis colleges serving underprivileged youngsters.

Don’t assume your first concepts are all the time your greatest ones.

Do maintain brainstorming after you assume you’re out of recent concepts. Clarify to the younger individuals in your life that it’s value spending 10-Quarter-hour longer on a job, as a result of the most effective concepts are seemingly simply across the nook.