This year at SXSW, I’m talking about an ongoing experiment I’ve been doing here at R/GA for the past year. It’s not an experiment about software or hardware, nor does it involve social networks or mobile apps, it’s an experiment with the brainstorming process. Specifically, I wanted to see if there was a way we could improve blank canvas brainstorming to take into account the unique nature of digital products and services.
In my years of brainstorming with teams, I found myself frustrated by blank canvas brainstorming and its emphasis on ideas first and execution second. This linear progression creates a feedback loop of questions like “Is X possible?” and “Can X be done?” when the best digital ideas I’ve encountered turn that notion on its head and use existing technologies in new and interesting ways. I’ve participated in hackathons where game changing concepts were brought to life in 36 hours by using existing technologies, yet many of our internal teams still start their brainstorming from the same blank slate.
After talking to some of our most successful teams here at R/GA, reading research from the emerging field of creativity studies and talking to respected peers outside the company, we’ve started trying a new kind of brainstorming exercise, dubbed TechFirst Brainstorming. These exercises are rooted in a specific technology, embrace that technology’s constraints, describe an extremely narrow scenario, but then leave one aspect completely open ended for creative exploration. People work alone in silence for 5-7 minutes then share their answers with the larger brainstorming group. Together they talk about similarities and differences in their individual ideas and see if any new ideas emerge from the conversation. The whole session is timeboxed to one hour.
Here’s an example of what one TechFirst brief might look like:
Fill in the blanks about this internet-enabled vehicle:
My truck’s name is ____________________, and the first picture it took on Instagram was ________________________.
We’re asking people to think about internet-enabled vehicles, but through a very specific structure that limits their grammar and makes them only think about one technology, in this case Instagram. At the same time, the format gives people enough freedom to be as creative as they want. For instance, here are just some answers people came back with.
| My truck’s name is | and the first Instagram picture it took was |
|---|---|
| Doris | A rabbit about to go under the front wheels |
| Watson | inside my car as I pulled out from the lot |
| Distraction | just before I got pulled over |
| Fred | awful |
| iTruck | someone giving me the bird |
| Cruck | a hot El Camino |
| Betsy | a palette of box wine from Costco |
Just from this list, a team can deep dive into all sorts of stories and ideas around different things an internet-enabled vehicle might be able to do and situations it might find itself in. And since their thinking was limited to posting pictures to Instagram, there’s little discussion of how feasible the idea is since the teams have embraced the constraints of the scenario and are just being creative within those boundaries.
This is just one example of what you can do with TechFirst brainstorming, but if you’d like to hear more about it, I’ll be presenting more examples, results, and learnings at SXSW this year. Come check out “Brainstorming Technology First” on Saturday, March 9th at 12:30.
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2013/events/event_IAP1052
UPDATE – here are the slides from the session.
