In this podcast Kelvin Newman, who recently did a talk at the Search Boot-camp event in London, talks us through some useful exercise, approaches and ways of thinking when coming up with ideas. As Kelvin notes, the creative process is most often not acknowledged and he strongly believes that ÛÏif you want to have successful marketing, then you need to have good ideas.Û Though he clearly states that ideas donÛªt just happen, you need to think how you would go about it.2 As you listen to this podcast, Kelvin passionately aims to save you from bad brainstorming idea meetings and to reassure you that these meetings can be fun and interactive with the techniques that he has suggest.åÊ He also provides slideshow and guides to help constructing new fresh and fun ways of providing ideas.
Kelvin also defines the brainstorming process through 3 stages:
- Stage 1 ÛÒ Divergent stage ÛÒ Set the stage for developing ideas ÛÒ opening ideas up.
- Stage 2 ÛÒ Exploring stage ÛÒ Experiment with themes and exploring the suggested ideas.
- Stage 3 ÛÒ Convergent closing stage ÛÒ making decisions and narrowing the field so you know what to do next.
Cover all these stages in order to get success with ideas.
Kelvin suggests that the Û÷Gamestorming: A Playbook for innovators, Rule breakers and ChangemakersÛª is an ideal book, if you want to get your teeth into and want to learn new techniques in order to inspire new ideas.
A few techniques that Kelvin discusses are:
- Low Tech Social Network ÛÒ Getting everyone in the room involved and getting people to write their names on post it note and putting it on to a white board. By doing this, itÛªll demonstrate how people are connected and understand the sharing lines.
- The 7 PÛªs:
- Purpose ÛÒ
- People
- Process
- Product
- Preparation
- Practical concerns
- Pitfalls
- 5 Whys ÛÒ Addressing the issues and getting below the surface of the problem by asking 5 why questions
- The Elevator Pitch ÛÒ Time proven exercise in the product development. (Slide notes below.)
- Heuristic Ideation Technique ÛÒ 3 rules for developing ideas: 1) Remixing 2) key attributes 3)Matrix
- 635 Brain Writing technique ÛÒ ideal for content marketing when generating ideas and getting everyone involve.
- Post up ÛÒ Categorising and putting themes into ideas.
- The Nuff test ÛÒ Evaluating the idea:
- How new is it
- How useful is the idea
- How visible is the idea
Links
amazon.co.uk/Gamestorming-Playbook-Innovators-Rulebreakers-Changemaker/