Ideation – Flirting with thoughts

The great idea crunch is hitting you once again. Nothing is striking the right nerve. That’s what happens usually on when you run out of ideas that you have scribbled all along last week. What do you do?  You have visited some websites and surfed a little extra, but all you see is routine stuff …
How do you get fresh ideas every morning on you desk? The coffee isn’t working either.

Well, take the age old inspiration route! Here are a couple of tips that have been used since man started thinking of ideas. And the same goes in today too. You just need to disconnect from your current state of mind and look elsewhere!

Take  a break
Yes, to start with, take a little break from your usual source of inspiration. Thats the web, for many of us. Switch off the web for a little break. Go out, and get a little of mental cleansing. Let the fresh air flow through your hair and ruffle some thoughts. The brain gets working when the environment changes. We are too much on the web, looking for what others are doing.

Stop that for a while and walk in the wild. See, what the nature around has to tell you. Inspire yourself from  the basic elements.  This could be done by a simple walk on the terrace or along the jogger’s track in your neighborhood. Or if your schedule permits, take a weekend off and during that time, do not use the web for surfing, reading or researching.  Try it out. It works perfectly well for freshness of ideas.

Open your mind to new people

Meeting new people and opening up yourself to them helps your brain get activated. Talk to people from various backgrounds, different cultures and maybe different thoughts.  Our mind collects the thought strings from these conversations, and then mixes them with our own thoughts. Many a times, a killer combination comes up and the idea bulb gets lit up brilliantly.

Opening up your ideas and watching different people react to your ramblings often gets conversations that help you build on social ideas. This may happen anywhere, but usually, this too requires you to get up form your usual group of people, even if it is for a while.

Further on, I am getting a lithe more specific.

Think Simple, from a customers perspective

Our minds, working on ideas since years,  are now programmed to take on the hardest and toughest part first. When we are looking for a campaign idea, we try to hit the clients desires first and thats where a boring, non productive campaign starts.

Think beyond this, and think of the customers that your client is going to serve. Take a mental walk among them, and notice their reaction for the main product, service or similar products. Do a mental scribbling here and then hit the desk. You would be surprised how easy it gets. Once you have your finger in the nerve of end customers, the campaigns that you dish out would be instant hits.

GD’s are out! ( for a while)

To think fresh, and to brainstorm, avoid group discussion. Its usually a bad idea to make many heads think and brainstorm together.  All great ideas in the world start from a single mind. Then, once the idea is conceptualized, teams and groups come in.

So if you are looking for an idea, do not sit in groups to think of it. Just scatter and go elsewhere. And when you have some ideas, come back to the table and discuss them.

 Keep an idea-book.

That’s my old favorite. Try to carry a small notebook with you where you can scribble idea tips whenever you get them. Make sure you note them, no matter how silly or brilliant they look at that time. This helps you when you need ideas.

When you are looking for fresh ideas, go through your idea-book from the past. You may find something that you have not used in the past. Also, check your old ideas, implemented or not. This helps the mind to re-frame concepts and see a fresh perspective.

So… get yourself out of the rut, and get ideas! Get the idea?