Just thinking, or capturing the thinking

Working on tasks like problem solving, idea generation or planning and decision making means we can get into some pretty heavy thinking.

I wonder... are we doing too much thinking and not enough capturing of the thinking?

Have you had that situation where you've come up with an idea, some clever thoughts and then ... it's gone, disappeared as quickly as it arrived? Can't remember it?

It’s a waste to think great things and not net, trap or curate and gather them. Too often we dismiss our thoughts and ideas as not being valuable, but they’ve just been created as thoughts; they haven’t been further morphed into an action or an implementable thing.

Give yourself the credit that yes, you did come up with an idea, a possibility. Then capture it as soon as you can!

A library of ideas is something to draw from later on.

We can't always sit down and expect brilliant ideas to come to us on demand. Rather, we can capture them when they come throughout our daily habits and activities. This is the clever art of idea curation.

Q: Do you lose your ideas or do you catch them?

Ideas that spread...win

 

In the fight for attention in a world full of noise, how do you make your message interesting, engaging, actionable and viral?

Seth Godin asked 'how do you make something 'new'?" when he delivered a presentation on his tour in Australia last year. I visually captured his presentation ... and then my visual idea of his idea was shared. 

We have chances, opportunities and choices to connect with people and get our message across. How well are we really doing?

Think of the word 'remarkable' : what is it that makes what you're sharing, selling, saying remark-able, or worth making a remark about. 

Seth Godin encourages us to be impresarios: producers, creators, curators.
What's creative about your message, your thinking and the change you're leading?

PowerPoint slide decks are dull and boring; bullet points are bullish*t!

What's the cost of people not seeing (or sharing) your message? Or the cost of you not seeing another way to create and deliver it?

Seth says attention is precious.

Make the most of it when you get the opportunity to share your idea. 

Fire up the BBQ - it's ideas time

It's summer in Australia; there's sunshine, beaches, cool drinks and plenty of barbeques to be had. Before you put anything on the BBQ, turn it on, heat it up and prime it, ready for the tasty treats to be grilled and flamed... beyond recognition!

Priming the BBQ is like getting people ready for doing good work, producing tasty treats and creating great stuff. 

Too often we expect things from people when they're 'cold', as in "come up with some ideas on ..." or "tell me what you think about ...'

We've all got lots on our mind; give people time to get up to speed and be focused on what you're asking. 

You need to warm people up, prime them and create the environment so they'll deliver, and cook up some goodness. 

I think there are four stages or elements to priming people to come up with ideas or respond to your request:

1. environment - creating the right space so it's possible to think creatively and generatively;

2. mindset - framing why we're doing this ideas thing and how it will be used;

3. process - setting up the stages of the idea generation and gathering; what will happen now, next; and

4. acknowledge - reward and recognise early contributors, all participation and the success and progress being made. 

And then when it's done, finish it. Shut it done and stop.

Then move on to the next thing.

Fire them up, prime them and frame it so you will all get to taste the great stuff created. And you'll want to come back for seconds! 

Do you have any idea what you're doing?

Disruption, reinvention, rapid change and transformation. How do we know what to do? And is it ok if we don't know what we're doing?

Will Dayble presented a great session last week at the Future of Leadership in Brisbane, on Disruption.  
Here's the still and below is the moving picture of my digital visuals from Will's session. 



You can check out the rest of the visual content from the event's nine brilliant speakers in digital format. When the topic was about the future, paper and markers just wouldn't do!

How to explain your ideas…

Product design company Zurb was in Melbourne recently at a session on ideation. These creative people spend their every waking hour creating; they're constantly designing products, websites and online services. 

But it's not always a smooth path... uncovering your awesome ideas so you can get your thinking 'out there' to people in the shape of a product or service. 

My visual notes reflect some of the hottest tips on ideation:

• Use stories (more engaging than boring zzzzz features and benefits)
• Set a time limit or 'time box' so brainstorming time is constrained 
• Get user feedback to inspire and generate new thinking
• Use a Sharpie marker to sketch out your thinking
• Keep your sketches 'lo fi' and rough
• Go for quality ideas not quantity

Then once you've got some ideas down, group them together in chunks or clusters so they're easier for people to see, understand and digest. 

Go ahead and encourage some wild ideas with the team this week! It's the actual process of coming up with ideas, the 'ideation', that gives structure to creative thinking.

In the words of Albert Einstein: "If I can't picture it, I can't understand it'.