Not my Conference Room
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on innovation and idea gathering lately and I’ve found that most of my ideas come out the clearest after midnight.
After filling a sheet of paper next to my bed with a bunch of new ideas, I thought I would briefly talk on of them for everyone to think about and possibly react to.
I call it “Not my Conference Room”. The idea comes from internal company meetings; most importantly ones that require brainstorming or thinking creatively on a subject matter. When you’re in your own conference room you’re often distracted and creatively blocked by being in a normal place with familiar settings.
To avoid this type of atmosphere and foster true creativity you must get away. Going to a local bar, hotel, cafe, etc.. are all great ideas but require money and depending on the place - a lot of distractions. So I came up with the idea of someone else’s conference room.
You simply call up a local company and ask them if you can use their conference room for an hour. It would be wise to schedule this in advance and only take advantage of another companies conference room when you truly need creative brainstorming (like rethinking how to interact with your customers). Meeting often for quick half hour groupings would be both unproductive and annoying to the company you’re borrowing from.
You could develop a central system so people could see when things are available but I would recommend just starting. Dealing with all those details would result in nothing every happening. More importantly however is the interactivity with other local businesses. The whole thing could result in a new contract due to your thinking outside the box.
Cooper Says:
Don’t limit yourself to a conference room. I think very clearly in the lavatory. You could set up a marker board in each stall, give everyone a few markers, and “brainstorm” throughout the day. Then when you reenter different stalls, you’re taking up the previous person’s brainstorm. Schedule regular meetings discussing different points brought up in the lavatory-sessions. This way, when you finally have your formal meeting, you have alot of brainstorming already accomplished and you can move ahead to setting up goals and stuff…maybe.