Many times, a creaive session is hosted by a moderator provided through the client’s advertising agency. The group meets in a staid office conference room somewhere on the corporate campus. Typically some toys like Play-Doh or blocks are tossed out on the tables in a feeble attempt to create a playful environment. Then the
corporate participants march in-often in the middle of a workday for an hour or two session-dressed in their business suits, the men with neckties smartly tight around their collars, with corporate decorum and rank in full effect.

Unfortunately, most of the time, these sessions provide very little out-of-the-box thinking by the corporate participants. They produce run-of-the-mill ideas. The one or two outsiders like me usually out-produce the entire corporate team by a 10-to-1 margin. The question I am asked by my corporate clients in the follow-
up meeting from these sessions is always the same-if we have a bunch of very smart people in the room, why does the brainstorming exercise fail to produce great creative results?

The answer lies in the brainstorming methodology and the environment. To get breakthrough creative results, you have to break out of traditional paradigms. Great ideas aren’t usually found sitting around a corporate conference table at two o’clock in the afternoon.
in the afternoon.

STIMULUS RESPONSE

The alternative method of creativity, which I ascribe to and Doug purveys at his Eureka! Ranch new products think tank, uses the brain as it was intended-to absorb and process stimuli, then make new connections. This method is called Stimulus Response. In his book Jump Start Your Brain, Doug writes: With the Eureka! Stimulus Response method, your brain is used more like a processing computer and less like a reference library. Instead of withdrawing ideas from a finite collection of thoughts, your brain reacts off stimuli to create new associations, new Eurekal’s.

Stimuli act as a fertilizer for your brain; they set up the chain reaction of ideas, many with the potential for brilliance. Stimuli can be anything you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Stimuli is anything that spurs your brain to make new connections, new associations, and new-to-the-world ideas.

Validation studies by Dr. Arthur VanGundy of the University of Oklahoma, one of the nation’s leading authorities on the creative process, have found that the Stimulus Response method cranks out over 1,000 percent more new ideas than the Braindraining technique used by the average corporation.
Going further, the studies concluded that Stimulus Response generated 558 percent more “super-smart”
ideas with above-average marketplace potential. Said another way, it can make your brain five times more
effective at coming up with the “Big Idea.”

Secrets of the Game

The recipe for brainstorming success is simple: blend together people who know everything about your business with a healthy serving of creative folks who know absolutely nothing about what you do. Pour fun sauce all over and serve in a wild and loud environment with lots of stimuli, great music, and munchies!