Jumpstart Your Brain

An effective brainstorm is about generating a lot of ideas without judgment. But how, exactly, do you go about the act of brainstorming? Here are three ways you can jumpstart your brain and get your (or your team's) creative juices flowing:

• Riffing. If you're not familiar with the term, "riffing" in jazz means taking a catchy melodic idea from a tune and improvising off of it. This can be a great way to brainstorm! Find a single source of inspiration--a quote, a picture on Flickr, a color palette, whatever feels related to the creative project that you're brainstorming on--and riff on it until you feel like you've exhausted the possibilitites. When brainstorming for an advertising concept, I worked with a creative director who liked to sit with a giant stack of magazines and pull ads, articles or headlines that she liked, and then riff off them. Don't get caught up in the idea that you're not doing "original" work when you take this approach--often riffing helps you break out of a creative rut and leads you to delightfully fresh creative pastures.

• Flooding. This happens in three stages. Step 1: Flood your brain with information on and inspiration about your project. Read, view or listen to anything and everything you can get your hands on that's related to your creative objective. Don't worry about taking notes or retaining anything--just relax and let the information soak in. Step 2: Take a break. Walk away. Do something else, something completely unrelated. This gives your subconscious time to mull that information over. Let that part of your brain do the work while you step out for a latte or a stroll in the park. How long should the break last? Long enough that you feel refreshed when you return to the project, but not so long that you begin to feel distanced from it (like the "job lag" you experience when you return to work after a long vacation and stare at the unfinished projects you left behind as if you'd never seen them before). Step 3: Lift the dam gates and let the creative ideas start flooding out. All that information your subconscious has processed will be unleashed, and you might be surprised at the depth and insight your brainstorming now takes on your subject.

• Decompartmentalizing. Normally, when we prepare for a project, we box ourselves in with "related content"--information that directly applies to our creative purpose. One of the most interesting--and effective--ways to brainstorm is finding inspiration in unrelated, or even random, sources of inspiration. This can take a number of forms. For instance, with the mag-riffing creative director, it may mean looking at a car magazine when brainstorming an ad for dental tools. Maybe it's listening to the first line of a song on your iPod and figuring out how to apply it to your subject. Or opening a book to page 25, reading the fifth sentence and using a word from it to start your poem. Ultimately, our creative projects are usually meant to have meaning, but our sources of inspiration for those projects don't necessarily need to be related. Decompartmentalizing our thinking helps unbox our creativity and approach brainstorming in new ways.

Have a tried-and-true method of brainstorming? Share it with us!

Quality Brainstorming--It's All About Quantity

A knock-your-socks-off brainstorming session requires three things: candy, caffeine and courage.

Brainstorming is an incredibly vulnerable creative activity. It's also a big undertaking--generating as many ideas as possible within a given time frame is quite the task. Whether we've convened in a group in front of a white board or sit alone staring at a blank screen, the very act of brainstorming requires us to blurt out every idea that leaps out of our gray matter. That seems easy enough in theory. The hard part is refusing to pass judgment on those ideas.

Ironically, quality brainstorming is, first and foremost, about quantity. It's hard not to judge the ideas as they come to you. If you're working in a group, the pressure to filter out the "bad" ideas can be immense (especially depending on who's in the room with you). Even alone, you'll be tempted to edit out the "corny," "silly" or "stupid" ideas to preserve your sense of self. But judging your (or others') creativity at this delicate juncture damages the creative flow and bring ideas (good and not-so-good) to a halt.

In a perfect world (i.e., if we weren't human), we would honor each and every idea as valid. But I've been in brainstorms where I've uttered a headline and the room goes silent while an account executive dutifully records the idea without looking me in the eye. Let's be frank--it's hard to honor the crap. But brainstorming's like panning for gold--you collect everything in the pan first, then you shake it out to find the good stuff. The great thing with brainstorming is that often the crap leads to great ideas (unlike panning for gold where dirt is just dirt).

Remember the big truth of brainstorming: your ideas aren't necessarily a full reflection of your creativity. In many cases, it might be a truer reflection of your grace under fire, your wicked sense of humor or your uncanny ability for free-association. So withhold your judgment at all costs until it's called for. Think of it like pulling socks out of your dryer: at first, you're just identifying what's a sock and what's not. Later, you'll figure out which ones go together, which ones don't have a mate, and which ones are ready for the rag bag.

If you find yourself facilitating a group brainstorm, cultivate an open environment, keep things fairly fast-paced, and encourage people to riff off each other's ideas. You'd be surprised what kind of alchemy occurs when a stone of an idea is transformed into gold with a terrific team dynamic.

Regardless, a quality brainstorm session relies on quantity first. Only after you have a pan full of ideas can you shake out the nuggets.