Brain Storming

I do not know of any magic formulas by which brain-storming can become a creative and worthwhile endeavor. I engage in what I consider a great deal of brain-storming, almost entirely in private. It requires a degree of focal concentration that also entails some degree of isolation and privacy, as well as a degree of problem focus on specific issues. I find a sketch pad or notebook helpful, and even just doodling new ideas as they pop up.

It is important in a brainstorming effort to be not only focused, but consistently so, and to afford the isolation from distraction and the daily things that will tend to undercut and interfere with one's concentration on the problem set. It is important as well to be able to put the project or problem set into some kind of constructive representational form that will allow manipulation of components and ideas, and a demonstration of alternative or variable relations possible between the elements. Once the problem has been somewhat concretized as something that is material and can be manipulated, it becomes objectified in terms of its elements and identity as something "out there" and not just locked inside one's own head.

Semantic mapping is important to brainstorming. Basically semantic mapping takes the main idea or definition for the problem, and builds off of this in terms of its elicited componential relations that exemplify, relate to or construct the idea. One of the best forms of brainstorming software is Inspiration. The charts and diagrams developed by Inspiration allow one to illustrate and build a set of graphic representations of one's ideas and thought processes.

Brainstorming a problem or a project design should not be seen as occurring in a single session or episode, but potentially over multiple sessions and over multiple contexts, and possibly involving several different states and activities, including, as well, sleep and dream-time. Many a creative insight and epiphany of a solution has come to me in my sleep or in the wee hours of the morning after careful consideration of the issues the night before.