The Brainzooming Group

Next time you get a new assignment, project, or question to answer, ask yourself: Who knows more about this than I do? Consider all the possible answers you can think of to the question:

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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The past few weeks, I’ve been schlepping around fabric stores since Cyndi wants to recover several pieces of furniture. This is unfamiliar territory for me, which usually means an opportunity to hunt for different takes on Brainzooming-related ideas.

One can imagine the most asked question in a fabric store is, “How much material is it going to take to reupholster __________?” With many ways to fill in the blank, store staff must spend a lot of time answering the question, especially since customers could likely struggle to accurately describe (from memory) items they’re looking to recover.

That’s where this photo shows such an innovative services marketing idea: a poster depicting 60 pieces of furniture with the approximate square yardage needed to recover them.

So what stumbling blocks to efficient customer-employee interaction exist in your business? What simple ideas might be lurking to address these issues as effectively as this poster does?
Spend a few minutes thinking about it and see what you can do to improve how you cover the situations you face. - Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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“Forecasters who extrapolate from today inevitably get tomorrow wrong…(but) by pitting multiple scenarios of the future against one another and leaving many different doors open, you can prepare yourself for a future that is inherently unpredictable. Brainstorming pays off. And the more possibilities you can entertain, the less likely you are to be blindsided.” - Peter Coy and Neil Gross, Business Week, August 30, 1999

I use this quote often in presentations because it has so dramatically shaped my thinking. It’s at the heart of the philosophies, disciplines, and tools I’ve sought to learn, compile, and develop in the past 10 years.

And when nothing is getting more certain, there’s even greater value in bringing smart, multi-disciplined people together to expand your view of the future, work through possibilities, and act on them.

Ideally, you’re finding that’s what Brainzooming is all about. - Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Secondary research was the primary approach at Kansas City Infobank for completing projects. We informally defined secondary research as “finding what you’re looking for among answers to questions that had already been asked and answered by others.”

Secondary research was ideal for me since it was similar to school (which I always enjoyed) and required a strategic, problem-solving approach that’s been valuable not only in business, but in many other situations. There are several keys to secondary research effectiveness including strong skills in anticipation, visualization, detecting clues, and making sound assumptions. Here are some principles Bill McDonald taught for doing it that I still use all the time:

1. Start by anticipating what your ultimate answer will be. Approximate the answer and its form: If it’s a prediction, what’s it likely to be? If it’s a recap of something, how extensive will it be? Approximating what you’re looking for helps you know when you’ve found the answer and aids directly in step 2.
   
2. Anticipate what components that could make up the answer will look like and where they might be found. Rarely do you find the exact answer; instead, you need to piece it together as you would a puzzle. Start by thinking through what the “puzzle pieces” look like: quotes, number, expert names, trend information, news, etc., then map out where the pieces will likely be located.
3. Armed with hypotheses on the answer and its pieces, begin quickly searching and scanning information sources. Having imagined the information upfront allows you to get through a search more quickly, i.e. if you need numbers to develop a forecast, it’s easy to look at articles online and see right away if numbers are included. The key is grabbing as much information as appears relevant early on and leaving heavy analysis for later.
4. When you’ve captured these first sources, review them for more clues on where other information may reside. Are there sources or experts mentioned you haven’t explored but need to? Where are they located and how can you get to them?
5. While scanning sources, start piecing the answer together. Ideally, you should be able to begin constructing the answer in parts, even if it doesn’t look like the final form. Doing this effectively means making sound assumptions to start filling in the answer. This is where your initial hypotheses come in handy as a springboard for constructing the answer and providing a check on how the pieces are fitting together.

There’s certainly more to be written about secondary research techniques, but these five tips will help you be more successful whenever you have to find out an answer online or in printed material. – Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I’ve done several posts on strategic mentors who’ve fundamentally shaped my thinking and approach. In an early one, I mentioned multiple posts could be filled with lessons learned from Bill McDonald when I worked for him at Kansas City Infobank. The next few days will feature several great lessons I’m sure you’ll benefit from as much as I have.

Get on the Phone and Ask Your Question

Bill had an amazing ability to phone total strangers, chat with them, and prompt them to share incredible information through asking questions. Listening to these calls made a strong impression on me about the value of directly asking great questions of knowledgeable people. I’ve never matched Bill’s skills, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the gift he has for conversation and questioning.

Today, however, since it’s so easy to email someone a question – type a few lines, hit send, and wait for a reply – fewer people seem to phone directly when they need information or something resolved.

But just because you sent an email doesn’t mean you really asked a question. That implies the recipient actually read the question, and is in a position to adequately respond without ongoing dialogue.

Despite the apparent ease of email, it’s often a much better alternative to pick up the phone and call. If you can talk live, you’ll at least know they received the question, find out if your question prompts questions for them, clarify any confusion, and engage in a dialogue that could provide a much richer understanding.

So put down the Blackberry or push away from the keyboard and call with your question! - Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Don’t underestimate the tremendous motivational force of challenging someone to produce facts to try and prove you wrong. Most people like to be right and will expend at least some effort to support their point.

If you can get someone to do this, you’ll benefit in multiple ways:

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Someone told me about his new company where they do entrance interviews. In contrast to an exit interview, the objective is to get a download of potentially innovative ideas when someone starts a job, before there’s time to develop a point of view biased by the company’s culture.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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