Before a creative thinking workshop, a "front row" participant (you know, the "walking in the room already engaged in the content" type of participant) asked what school of thinking The Brainzooming Group belonged to with respect to our creative thinking approaches. She dropped a couple of potential names she suspected as possibilities. I may have already been in pre-presentation mode and didn't completely catch what she said, because only one name sounded familiar.
I shared with her that we borrow from anywhere when it comes to schools of thought for creative thinking, and that many are quite non-traditional. I mentioned she'd see one strategic thinking exercise just added back into the workshop based on Ghostbusters (Yes, THAT Ghostbusters)!
One advantage of looking broadly for creative thinking influences is we're never stuck waiting for some expert to publish a new book or article to expand our set of strategic thinking exercises. To the contrary, the Brainzooming repertoire changes and grows continuously through new techniques and influences.
The discussion prompted telling her the proper answer should be a Brainzooming blog post. In a similar vein, we've covered the A to Z of Strategic Thinking Exercises (which referenced some influences), and discussed in another where strategic thinking exercises in workshop originated.
This list of creative thinking influences, however, is different.
Reviewing the slides, stories, and blog posts from the creative thinking workshop deck yielded this list of fifty-nine influences. They aren't in any specific order, and it certainly isn't a comprehensive list of all our influences (especially since very few people I have worked with directly are on the list).
Nevertheless, this gives you a good representation of why it's tough to describe a specific school of thought you can connect to Brainzooming.
59 Creative Thinking Influences
- Chuck Dymer
- Edward de Bono
- Greg Reid
- Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
- Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
- Ted Williams - The Science of Hitting
- A.T. Kearney
- Gary Singer
- Interbrand
- Monty Python
- Sue Mosby
- 75 Cage Rattling Questions
- Linus Pauling
- Woodrow Wilson
- Ghostbusters
- The Wall Street Journal
- Business Week
- Fast Company
- Cake Boss
- What Not to Wear
- The Bible
- Cartoons
- Milind Lele, Ph.D.
- Presentation Zen
- Tom Peters
- Don Martin
- Hank Ketchum
- The Scream
- The Squirrels in Prairie Village, KS
- Steve Bruffett
- Enterprise IG
- David Bowen, Ph.D.
- Arizona State University Center for Services Leadership
- FedEx
- Seth Godin
- Joe Batista
- Tony Vannicola
- Peter's Laws
- Whoever invented the 4-box matrix
- Gordon MacKenzie
- Appreciate Inquiry
- David Cooperrider, Ph.D.
- Benjamin Zander
- Keith Prather
- Brett Daberko
- Philip Kotler, Ph.D.
- Robin Williams
- Improv Comedy
- Jim Collins
- Jay Conrad Levinson
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church
- Jan Harness
- Muhammad Ali
- R.E.M.
- Music Fake Books
- Seinfeld
- Gilligan's Island
- Whoever came up with the concept of Reverse Engineering
- The Family Feud
Shout outs to everyone and everything on this list. It's clear we need to write blog posts on a variety of these creative inspirations because Brainzooming wouldn't be what it is without you! – Mike Brown
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