For strategic thinking sessions at Baker University last month, we got an insane amount of work done – three ideation exercises and prioritization within a 50 minute class. Planning the session the weekend before, the prospect of making that much creativity happen in such a short amount of time caused me to think to myself, "That isn't even brainstorming at that point. That's brainzooming."
And a new term, blog, and company were born.
Going in to the session, I was skeptical about completing it all in time. In retrospect the key was having a person assigned to each group to not only help, but to get students' brains zooming.
Each person on the team filled that role for the students. Going beyond simply facilitating, Brainzooming means:
- Being an energy source – using enthusiasm to spark excitement within a group
- Providing approbation – reinforcing people for sharing ideas, creating a verbal reward that engenders more ideas
- Making connections – listening to what people suggest and tying things together the group might miss in the throes of ideating
- Drawing out non-participants suffering from self- or group censorship – going out of the way to solicit input from reluctant group participants
Brainzooming . . . it's what we do!
