[M510]Million Dollar Florida Homes

? No criticism allowed. All ideas, no matter how
crazy they may seem, should be encouraged and
recorded without comment or criticism from the
group. The general goal of brainstorming is to
collect as many ideas as possible, making
quantity much more important than quality at this
initial stage.
? No evaluation allowed. Brainstorming sessions
are not the time or place to evaluate the merits
of the ideas suggested. So don't suspend the
process to evaluate the projected results of any
single idea.
? Build on others' ideas. At their best,
brainstorming sessions are fast-paced and fun.
Participants should try to build each consecutive
idea on the previous ones. Who knows, it can
sometimes result in surprising twists and turns.

Though all brainstorming sessions should follow
these basic ground rules, there are numerous ways
to approach the idea-generation process. Here are
three proven methods to try:

? Pose a question. Suppose you had created a
product for small businesses and were looking for
a new marketing approach. The facilitator might
open the brainstorming session by posing a
question such as "What do small business owners
want?" Participants would then throw out ideas,
such as "to save time" or "to increase sales." Or
you might select a feature of your new product-
one-button operation, for example--and open with
a question such as "How does one-button operation
help small business owners?"

? Use word association. This method involves
brainstorming lists of words and then finding
linkage between key words on each list. For
example, imagine you want to create a new slogan
for a hair gel product. You could start with the
root word "gel" and use word association to come
up with a list of ideas, such as "flexible hold."
Then you could brainstorm another list beginning
with "flexible." In the end, you might have four
or five lists of ideas based on word association.
To build your slogan, you'd choose a word from
each of the lists and creatively link them
together.

? Identify a challenge. Even the most difficult
questions can be tackled by brainstorming,
provided you have the right group of people. When
I was called in by an auto parts manufacturer to
find ways to use the company's roll-forming
expertise to produce additional products, we
gathered together a large group of experienced
workers from throughout the plant for
brainstorming. As the facilitator, I began by
posing a simple challenge--list anything made
from rolled metal not presently manufactured by
the company. In short order, the group turned out
dozens of viable product ideas. Later, management
evaluated all the ideas to determine which
products offered the greatest potential.

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