During 1989, the Brain Exchange offered brainstorming salons once a month, sometimes with themes, such as defusing domestic dilemmas, humour, career transition, healing and women only. The Brain Exchange 'staff' consisted of Lee Glickstein and Joy-Lily, who sent out details of meetings to a mailing list of about 600 people. $5 was charged at the door (which paid expenses), with meetings in private homes and attendance ranging from five to 25 people.
'A local radio station,' wrote Lee, 'has been inviting us to brainstorm ideas on the air with listeners every other month. Most callers want us to solve their problems, and fewer have ideas for the earlier callers, which is what we want from them. But we inspire some people with our attitude about 'considering the possibilities'.'
- Introduce it to friends as a game;
- Advertise in newspapers, local business publications;
- Speak with Chamber of Commerce and other business organisations;
- Stick with a regular meeting schedule no matter how small you start and you will attract the right people;
- Invite journalists; it's a good story for them;
- Call a meeting to discuss a particular local problem;
- Make it a big event by flying in famous brainstormers to lead a meeting;
- Throw a potluck where everyone brings their favourite food and favourite problem;
- Have a meeting on the subject of how to meet romantic partners;
- Brainstorm on a radio call-in show.
Joy-Lily describes how to brainstorm, with slightly different guidelines from the ones normally used by the Institute for Social Inventions:
Try it with your friends, family or co-workers. Here are our guidelines.
(1) Keep ideas brief, don't tell stories;
(2) Give only one idea per turn;
(3) Speak in the imperative ('do this, try that', instead of 'have you considered...?');
(4) Make it safe by not criticising or 'yes butting' anybody's idea (including your own before you speak);
(5) Make your thinking as funny or as silly as possible;
(6) Piggyback (build) on previous ideas freely;
(7) When it's your question, write down all ideas without evaluating them, and don't speak during the brainstorm.
(Ed. Many perfectly successful brainstorming groups do not follow guidelines 2, 3 or 7.)
We notice that some people habitually critique ideas thrown their way. Whether with frowns or 'I've tried that already's, these pre-judgers cast a stifling gloom over the room. But anyone who acccepts all suggestions as gifts (you wouldn't say 'I have one of those already, yuck') has already solved the bulk of the problem.
Afterwards, Lee follows up the brainstorming with an evaluation process in which the following four questions are asked, with ideas offered, brainstorm-style:
(1) What's good about this idea?
(2) What's wrong with this idea?
(3) How can these problems be overcome?
(4) What new ideas are suggested by this evaluation process?
The Institute for Social Inventions hosts occasional brainstormings, but has ambitions to start a similar regular Brainstorming Salon in London, as an active alternative to going to the cinema, and with themes advertised in What's On, City Limits and Time Out.
Joy-Lily, The Brain Exchange, 4215 Army Street, San Francisco, CA 94131, USA (tel 415 826 8248).