Page 221 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

212 STORMING THE BRAIN

Do: Find an interesting venue for the session. I like nature and kid-
oriented locations; country clubs, yacht clubs, theme parks, chil-
dren’s museums, and such.
Don’t: Book a room at the local chain hotel with the same carpeting
as the last 10 meetings, and don’t expect unusual thinking to
soar in the company conference room.
Do: Keep pushing for quantity (see Chapter 7, “100 MPH Think-
ing”). Quality will surface.
Don’t: Try to find the perfect idea. That’s very hard to do, and it
encourages too much judgment too soon.
Do: Distill the output periodically. When each group has 30, 40, 50
ideas, have them distill the field down to the cream and start
another round.
Don’t: Build up a huge mass of ideas that will be impossible to get
your mind around to condense later.

WHICH IS THE IDEA?

As hard as it can be to get to a mass of great ideas, whether in group
brainstorming or on your own, it can be even more difficult to whittle
down that mass to the single most definitive answer, or even to a man-
ageable shortlist.

7
HAMBURGER OR STEAK?

I’m often asked by clients and workshop attendees, “How do we know
when the creative process is finished?”
People look to me as the great creative master for such answers.
My smart-ass reply is, “It’s never done. You can always come up with
something better. And if you don’t, someone else will.” There, I have
the answer. I must be brilliant. No wonder they flock to me with their
plebeian questions.
Well, contrary to my Mom’s firmest beliefs, I’m not always brilliant.
Case in point (actually, it’s Monahan’s Proven Lack-of-Brilliance Case
#9,347): A number of years ago I was forced to sell a young pet 400-
pound bull for $.50 on the hoof (don’t ask). I lamented to a farmer
neighbor of mine, “If I had waited a bit longer I could have sold him
for $.75 per pound steak.”