Here's where I've landed on brainstorming. It's a storm. Like actual storms, they can be productive or destructive.
A brainstorm is a group of people in the same room in an open forum guided by limited rules in order to solve problems in creative ways. That’s my idea of a brainstorm when it comes to creative endeavor as it pertains to advertising. (You’ll notice that most everything I write in this space pertains to advertising.) Done well, they are extremely beneficial. And not just in terms of the raw idea generating power that comes from collective minds buzzing around in a pre-determined box established by the moderator. A good old fashioned brainstorm can do more for your agency culture than 5 forced fun team-building outings. (Yes. Even more than bowling.)
Bowling is still a popular team building sport for many advertising agencies. Spontaneous acts of bonding are not uncommon as shown here. But a good creative brainstorm can be even more powerful in this regard.
So here are the rules. They’re a lot like the rules you might find if you’ve ever gone to an improv class. (Another team building outing I recommend highly.) The most important rule is called, yes and. Simply put, if in the course of the brainstorm somebody says something you think is completely whacko or wrong or just not good, instead of giving that person a colossal eye roll and shooting large holes in their thinking, just say, “yes, and.” Then come up with some part of their idiotic nonsense that you can build something viable upon. The idea is that somebody someday will give YOUR idiotic nonsense the same courtesy. The fact is, brainstorms need idiotic nonsense to have any ideation power. They’re called brainstorms. Not brain calm and orderlies.
One or more magical things usually happen. Either you and your fellow stormers will walk away with a bunch of ideas ready to be processed back at the lab. Or you will all discover that the ask is flawed and that the question posed to the group needs work. But either way, more often than not, you will discover that the chase for creative solutions that you all engaged in together in real time has somehow brought you closer as a group. Because here we all are together, and here is a window into my mind. I don’t even notice that I’ve let you have a peek into how my mind works because we are all spontaneously offering up instant reactions. In the blink of an eye, a rough sketch of the possibilities fill the room, one by one. And we’re all in this together. There are no wrong answers. In fact, we need those wrong answers to get us closer to the right ones. In a way, brainstorms are a lot like yoga. It’s in the doing.