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As adjectives and phrases (tangy, tingly, invigorating, summer, blend of fruit) accumulate on the poster boards, sample cups of herbal iced tea appear on trays. In the pursuit of wicked-good ideas, the Eureka! Mansion leaves no sense untouched. Up the back staircase at the mansion there's a storage room (called the "Stimulus Library") packed floor to ceiling with plastic bins of categorized baskets of stuff--hands-on stimuli for generating thoughts off the beaten track. The stackslike repository includes bins marked Ugly Products (for instance, brown-paper coffee filters), Ways to Close (Ziplock bags, buttons, magnets), and Weird Science (Edge shaving cream, Alka Seltzer, relighting birthday candles, candy necklaces).

In part two of the exercise, the various word ladders help launch product ideas and sometimes names, such as Tea Splashes, tiny bottles of fortified herbal essences that can be added drop by drop to various foods and beverages.

During the group reports, Siegel can't wait to hold up a just-sketched rendering of a distinctive package for a product he's eager to find a way to sell. "I really like this a lot," he says, explaining how the package works to overcome some marketing obstacles. The discussion leaps to names. From around the room, half a dozen suggestions ring out. Like a fashion photographer posing a model, Hall prompts, "Less descriptive, more heart and soul and feeling."

There's another burst of names. And more discussion of the would-be product, which Hall knows Celestial has been wrestling with for a long time. Even with the smell of a lunch buffet wafting from the back kitchen, minds remain focused, and the discussion is animated. A different creativity maven, fearful of derailing the advancing train of thought, might keep everyone on track a good while longer. Hall calls a break for lunch.

Another lesson he's learned: don't try to get the whole idea in one pass. Invention, he's found again and again, tends not to be linear. "People always talk about getting it right the first time," Hall explains. "That's great for manufacturing but lousy when it comes to inventing. These things require some iterations. Birth is a messy process." Often, a word, a phrase, or a concept born in one exercise will suddenly reappear again later, but then it will really soar with a slightly different spin. "In fact," stresses Hall, "it's by not trying to get the whole idea at first that you get more ideas."

12:04 P.M.
Lunch, and the ROI of a decent menu

The Dixieland band strikes up once again. Siegel, who's wearing a polo shirt, black jeans, and cowboy boots, changes into sneakers and heads to the back of the mansion to a small room with exercise equipment. Almost everybody else heads for the food, which is plentiful and hot (a piquant chicken dish, rice, a good tossed salad, plenty of gourmet brownies and cookies) and intentionally a notch or two above the typical cold meats and potato salad. A restaurant-style espresso machine awaits the java junkies. There's also wine ("Vintage bottles, not the just-in-time stuff") from the wine cellar. Hall uses good food and wine as rewards, tools for making everybody feel special.

"If corporations would double their food budget, they'd get more than double their return on investment," Hall says, and adds that he'll sometimes add an effervescent stimulus to a late-afternoon exercise, promising a bottle of champagne to the group that comes up with the best ideas. "In some corporations the people are competitive. If that's the spirit they've got, we'll work with that."

Some follow lunch with a stroll through the backyard's English-style formal garden, where creative sessions are sometimes held in the summer months. A few step up to the pinball machines. After about an hour, everyone drifts back to the living room.

1:14 P.M.
More exercises

Hall silences the living-room din with a whistle. It's back to the business of inventing--there are four more group exercises before half the Celestial folks need to head out to catch their plane back to Colorado.

"It takes four or five hours just to open up their minds," Hall stresses, going on to tell about one client who requested--and did not get--a change in the mansion MO. "They wanted to brainstorm for 35 minutes and then spend the rest of the time developing the ideas. Thirty-five minutes," says Hall, spitting out the words like spoiled milk. "You're talking $100-million products. Can't you spend at least eight hours on the open-ended stuff? We really push people here. What often happens is, late in the day when they think they've thought of everything they can, all of a sudden out pops another idea."

The afternoon speeds along with exercises now targeted toward specific areas, like ginseng or an intriguing "spa in a box" concept--products that would consist of a particular tea packaged with related items that extend or amplify the tea-drinking experience. What would the concept be called? What, besides tea bags, might go into the boxes? Each group gets a boom box, an audiotape of soothing nature sounds, a basket from the stimulus library brimming with sample "rest and relaxation" products, and a couple of different boxes of Celestial Seasonings teas.

A session on dessert products coincides with afternoon tea (guess whose?) and mounds of scones and chocolate-dipped strawberries. The ideas keep coming.

The late-afternoon arrival of the airport-bound taxi prompts Hall to reach for parting gifts. He passes out Eureka! Mansion T-shirts, bags of RSI's Brain Brew coffee, and copies of his books to the four departing Celestial employees. "We'll break till 6 o'clock," Hall announces to the remaining attendees.

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