kip/bot/blog

There are lots of articles, tools, books, exercises out there about how to generate ideas and all of them deal in one way or another with brainstorms. Over the years, we’ve all read about the various faultlines: how many people, how is it structured, what kind of people, rules of engagement, handling evaluation of ideas, facilitation, how much and what kind of prep prior, follow-through after, fresh eyes vs already immersed.

Inevitably, over the course of long dialogs about how, whether, and why brainstorm, someone points out that the final ideas almost never come out of brainstorms, leading to a conclusion of ‘why bother’, ‘rethink it (once again) from scratch’, or ‘keep doing them, but don’t put too much energy into them.’

I’ve always valued brainstorms for things other than (or in addition to) the actual ideas they bring. After a brainstorm, people, especially those who are leading the project or will stay with it for a while, leave with certain things:

Fans of Carl Sagan or viewers of the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation are familiar with the phrase “primordial soup.” It’s a rich collection of proteins, amino acids, and highly active and interactive materials out of which the material of life can emerge. It is not life, it is not the beginning of evolution. Rather, it’s the source material from which organic matter/lifestuff will emerge. All it needs is an infusion of energy, some random mutations, conditions which are hostile enough to challenge but supportive enough to engage and then life begins, mutates, and evolves.

Brainstorms should be viewed, and maybe conducted, in this way — they generate the basic molecules and proteins of the creative process but are not the creative output itself.