Crazy Ideas

 

Robert Mamis's article on Innotech's brainstorming ("The Gang that Doesn't Think Straight," October 1985) didn't mention that the technique has been around for years. It was first developed in advertising and has also been researched by academics and advocated in creativity books.

Research has sometimes separated the generation, evaluation, and selection of ideas. This helps make clear why an uncritical acceptance of "crazy" ideas will lead to generation of more ideas, from which the best can be selected. Focusing just on generation keeps you from being slowed down by opinions and by decisions on how to evaluate the ideas.