Each Monday, I send our team a Making Waves email. The content is about personal growth, productivity, creativity, handling change — you name it, but it’s all in the name of being better every day. My very smart Content Strategy Director suggested I turn these into blog posts, so here it is: the first installment of the Making Waves series.
I’m really diving into the ideation/creation process. How do we come up with great ideas, approaches, and ways to communicate for our clients and ourselves?
I came across IDEO‘s creative deep dive process video (part 1 and part 2 and part 3 — about 15 minutes total; they’ll play in sequence if you let ’em). It’s an interesting glimpse into how they approach product design and internal processes with their team.
No, it’s not what we do (they basically re-invent existing products and processes), but it’s worth considering how you might use this reinvention approach to apply to what you do every day – to your internal processes, to your client projects and approach.
The key is knowing what problems you’re trying to solve. Once you define the problem, you start your innovation process.
Their mantra for innovation:
- One conversation at a time
- Stay focused on topic
- Encourage wild ideas
- Defer judgment
- Build on the ideas of others
I love this. I think we all struggle with focus and multiple conversations. Maybe there are things we can do that will allow each stage of work to be more focused and planned.
I also love the wild ideas; deferring judgment and building on ideas of others.
So our job, first and foremost, is to clearly define the problems we’re trying to solve. Move the clutter out of the way. What problems are we trying to solve?
If you’re up for it, here’s another really short video on brainstorming (as a pretty bad way to generate new ideas). It suggests that “brain-swarming” is a better idea (watch to learn).
Enjoy your week and remember to MAKE WAVES!