Facilitate Proceedings » Creative Thinking

Brainstorming or brainsteering? Or a happy middle ground?

Danuta McCall — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:49:26 +0000

You’re asked to participate in a chaotic exercise billed as a brainstorming session. The moderator instructs you to “think outside the box”, tells you that the activity is penalty free (“no idea is a bad idea”) and then waits expectantly. But without design or instruction, some participants sit there apathetically, others contribute sporadically, and a few loudly dominate the session with their pet ideas.

In 7 Steps to Better Brainstorming, the authors propose a modified brainstorming technique they call “brainsteering”. But does it lead creative thinkers down too narrow a path?

This is the Brain on iPads

Danuta McCall — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:52:21 +0000

In last Saturday’s New York Times, an article entitled Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price paints a startling picture. The main character is your typical 30-something small business owner, who falls asleep every night with a laptop or iPhone on his chest, and goes online as soon as he wakes up. Seems his family has noticed that he gets downright “crotchety until he gets his fix”.

Walking the Talk: Innovating Conference Design to Build Community

Julia Young — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:39:42 +0000

I recently returned from the Exploring Innovation Conference in Community Development 2009 Conference in St Louis (www.exploringinnovation.org) sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. I was engaged by the conference organizers to help design a conference that demonstrates creativity and best practices and this community building event exceeded my expectations.

The design was shaped by a couple of key objectives:

To create an ongoing dialogue where input from conference participants shapes the conference content
To facilitate learning for conference participants through a variety of methods that accommodate diverse learning styles
To serve as a catalyst for future dialogues around topics of significant importance to community development

These objectives required a design that promotes creative thinking, interaction and community building in a large group conference setting. I’ve written a case study describing the methods and collaborative tools we used. I invite you to read the in-depth report on the conference design and download facilitation method sheets.

Does Facilitation Have a Role in the High School Classroom?

Julia Young — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:35:58 +0000

Exploring facilitation techniques at a high school was fun and engaging but then one teacher asked – What is the relevance of this to me and the way I can help my students learn? This challenged us to think about how a facilitation would shift the way we teach.

Thinking Outside the Box When Business is Slow

Julia Young — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:33:58 +0000

I recently joined an international group of facilitators wrapping up a project that involved the development of new innovations labs or i-Labs in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Poland and Romania. As we celebrated the successful completion of these wonderfully creative high-end meeting facilities (read more about i-Labs) the conversation turned to “What next?”. In an era of budget cuts, travel bans and elimination of non-essential activities, each of the participants lamented, how can we attract businesses to a high-end meeting facility?

The conversation started with discussion of cutting costs, reducing fees and eliminating services. However, I challenged the group to practice their own medicine, think out-of-the-box and look at the problem differently.

Exploring Innovation – A Conference on Community Development

Julia Young — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:40:04 +0000

Changing economic conditions are presenting unique challenges to those in the community development field. The 2009 Exploring Innovation conference will focus on resiliency, sustainability and innovations that will help your organization or community survive—and, more importantly, thrive—during these unprecedented times.