SECTION II: HOW TO

COLLABORATE in BRAINSTORMING

Q. What is Brainstorming? 

A.  Succinctly... 

 Also be sure to browse:

The FICTION BRAINSTORMING Toolkit

Alex F. Osborn the Non Justificationist   

Does anyone know if Alex F. Osborn the Advertising Executive who developed the procedures of Brainstorming, was aware of the work of Sir Karl Popper? Because Brainstorming translates easily into Popperian terms. 

After all, Popper not only embraces Sturgeon's Law (descriptively stating that 95% of everything [and not just Pulp Science Fiction] is shit), but goes further, prescriptively contending that the diamonds will never be there to be found, save amid the freely effluent dung pile. 

And Alex F. Osborn's Brainstorming Methodology of a'posteriori deferred judgment/evaluation, putting into practice Popper's defense of free expression of unfounded conjecture, likewise stressing quantity in order to achieve quality, is now experimentally vindicated. Or is it?

Creativity in any application, in measured steps or "intuitive" leaps, unpredictably dazzlingly brilliant, even peak experience or "merely" clever, is that common and natural cognitive function which, by the Heuristics of Cybernetics particularly, is recognized to be, in part, an investigation, largely a function of flexibility, meaning the ability and willingness to reflect upon and modify ones own gestalt/frameworks and criteria (for example, as in TRIZ, to cross disciplines, inventively), by which known elements are rearranged into new forms, recognizing similarities and differences, making connections and questioning convention; even though, paradoxically, genius often depends upon not only the greater range afforded, but no less crucially, the further constraint of extensive background knowledge, whereas madness, fanaticism, dogmatism and stupidity, by contrast, are comparatively lacking in the restrictions even of reality checking.

Brainstorming actually only follows the the pattern or stages of creativity as mapped out by Poincare, and summarized concisely in

With the addition of Reality Testing of at the end, of ideas now regarded more specifically as conjectures, hypotheses, and what results is the Popperian Hypothetico Deductive process, which is Dialectic. And then there is problem solving, synthesizing both applications. And all of this is what Alex F. Osborn seeks to actually put into practice in "thinking up" or Brainstorming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

0. Optional preliminaries: 

Minimal ground rules are covered under conduct and moderation.

Optionally, warm up with an easy, perhaps fun question for a short, practice brainstorming session. It can be anything and doesn't have to be related to whatever matter at hand. 

Brainstorming may also be more productive preceded by an analysis of some sort, discussion allowing exchange of interpretations and definition of problems, root causes, the barriers to change, the specifics of the present situation, a vision of the ideal situation, the different aspects or segments whatever problem, and even an inventory of the resources available to help solve such a problem.

Indeed, Brainstorming may often benefit from preliminary and even ongoing research.

Radicalism, the attempt to start from a clean slate, is a distortion which will undermine the creativity of Brainstorming. Rather, Alex F. Osborn, much like Sir Karl Popper, follows the Dialectic of Socrates in challenging assumptions as they arise. 

Indeed, far from avoiding all assumptions, on the contrary, it may even be crucial to begin with such discourse as to make certain that the participants each understand and are satisfied with the central question before opening the floor to ideas.  

• To prevent or reduce the Six Surefire Ways to Kill a Brainstorm, Trojan Horse of mediocrity!

 

"... only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things." 

- Anton Chekhov 

The Non Justificationist Methodology of Brainstorming begins with the simple maxim of deferred criticism during the initial creative process of idea generation and collection. Because, as Popper points out, Critical Preference and Reality Testing come a'posteriori. 

In practice, behaviorally, this means, be curious first, critical next. To explore possibilities before filtering.

However, this has been outrageously distorted by some into sheer Anti-Critical Bias, the standpoint that criticism is bad, intrinsically hurtful and dangerous. 

But Popper explicitly holds argument/debate/polemic and controversy to be most important and productive. And Alex F. Osborn, no fool, likewise brings Critical Preference and Reality Testing into play, all in due course. 

Indeed, the one paradigm in which criticism truly has proven most inhibitive to creativity is known as Verificationsm, the doctrine that Science is the accumulation of verified knowledge. And history is replete with similar cultural doctrines as applied to the arts, as well. Thus creative speculation is actively discouraged, flittered a'priori, before hand and from the very start. 

But Non Justificationism, by contrast, holds that Science begins from unfounded conjecture which is to be encouraged, then subjected to critical preference and reality testing. In that order! In other words, that brainstorming is the first stage of the Hypothetico Deductive Method which is Dialectic, in which criticism and objectivity at all come a'posteriori, afterwards, frank, honest but sans recrimination. After all, we learn by making mistakes, creatively, and then detecting them. And that is the way we grow from practice of the arts, as well. Including creative writing, where, likewise, editing afterwards, as one goes, is crucial, but censoring oneself in advance is deadly.

But where as Critical Preference consists of such criteria as logical internal consistency (that a likely hypothesis ought not to contradict itself) and elegance (meaning that the simpler explanation that accounts for all the observations is likeliest to be true defined as correspondent to objective reality), successful Brainstorming employs it's own particular preference, the interesting over the uninteresting, dull or boring, where 'interesting' is defined as offering, at the time, more creative points of departure, and 'uninteresting' pertains to ideas that just don't seem to go anywhere, failing to spark creative points of departure, so that folks loose interest in them, and move on. (But not because of squeamish self censorship or covert peer pressure.)

1a: Any source for points of departure

After sufficient experience in imitation, individual preference emerges to begin shaping distinct style, creatively. Explore whatever spontaneous inspirations, one's own prior work or other existing sources entirely, and especially the creative reapplication and improvisation of one known elegant solution towards an entirely different problem. 

Discuss the question or issue for the brainstorming session before hand. 

Then, feel free either to jump right in, or else to take time as desired to think about and "sleep on it" in order to stimulate the process of "incubation". 

Discuss any relevant information concerning the theme or central question, which will provide additional fuel for the  imagination. 

• Open Space

And always remember that honesty is the best policy!

2: Visioning- Sharpen the focus

"Think like a man of action, but act like a man of thought"

Visioning is ongoing and concurrent with Exploration looking for Ideas. Because, to begin with, Exploration is shaped by Visioning no less than definitive Visioning must be Exploratory of whatever boundaries, and beyond. Even problem solving, in and of itself, may limit the Socratic discourse of the questions rather than the answers and undermine the quest for personal meaning and new horizons. For, in the words of George Bernanos, "there is no worse lie than a problem poorly stated."

Although, if so be, then an answer in search of a question or a solution seeking a problem, must come as close second. Seek, therefore, the Best Problem Definition.

Consider these questions using these checklists.

What do we want?
What do we have?
How may we best utilize what we have to achieve what we want?
And what outcomes will occur as a result?

No matter the unforeseen, makes irresponsible excuse for the well foreseeable.

• Community Vision Creation

• There are three crucial categories of questions.

Clearly define the problem and/or opportunity and put forth the motivating goal or ideal outcome, as applicable, not limited by perception of possibility or feasibility and compile lists of statements thereof into Affinity Diagrams according to the Kawakita Jiro method. List All Possible Alternatives and All Factors Involved.

Consider: What is the problem and/or opportunity? Why is it indeed a problem and/or opportunity? For whom is it a problem and/or opportunity? When did it first become a problem and/or opportunity? What are the roots of the problem and/or opportunity?

It is particularly important to clearly identify and put forth motivating goals in order to distinguish problems from solutions and assumptions to begin with.

For example, how to get a message to appear on screen, might not be a well defined problem, but only one solution in the first place. A better stated problem might be, how to be informed when something happens. A blinking light would be another possibility, and a phone call, perhaps automated, might be better still.

But there is worse:

Instead of defining problems outward for some external desirable result or putting forth any motivating goal, for example, in the quality of writing output for the reader i.e., highest drama, or whatever other product or service for whatever consumer or recipient, enhancement of profit margin or even whatever social good, institutional thinking may become Psychotically introverted away from empathy for real people inhabiting the real world, instead focusing upon some possibly arbitrary and obscure internal personal or collective/corporate aim, such as integrating two different legacy filing systems or reviewing guidelines for matriculation or canonization. -Not brainstorming at all, but sheer bureaucracy.

Neither seek self-definition nor count proverbial angels dancing upon the head of a pin. Beware Malagenda!

Instead, cultivate healthy and inventive extroverted self expression of thought and emotion from the sublime to the ridiculous, not constraining and Conservative obsessional self definition, individual or communal such as reconciling 'Star Trek' with 'Star Wars' nor striking any happy medium between "the woman in red" and "the girl next door" (typical bad advice from cornball Country Music).

Instead, the comparative efficacy of the two fictional technologies might, for example, follow the dramatic needs of a good story about culture clash over uses of computing, and reconcile with real science, if anything. Otherwise, it's just fanboy nitpicking.

And speaking of culture clash, lifestyle for personal happiness is seldom really ever a question of pseudo-morally compromising between superficially contrived archetypes. Indeed, just such myopic affirmation of identity can be no less suffocating to creativity than the worst bureaucracy.

A far more creative and entertaining brainstorming Exploration might be over how and why it might or could be that blonds have more fun, or, for that matter, just how to determine, indeed, what sort of love life to lead, would indeed be most pleasing or displeasing to God.

But the responsible Visioning of a better defined problem or opportunity might be in identifying all one's desires and any hazards just as one would in order to maximize any other gains while also minimizing needless risks, losses or expenses, both for oneself and others, in matters of the heart, danger to the soul, or any other context at all.

As, for example, the maximization of freedom and opportunity while minimizing vulnerability to judgmental persecution and dysfunctionality in general. In open eyed identification of whatever real problems and dynamics, grasping principles analytically instead of, for example, simply accepting for granted and pursuing any fruitless cultural fairytales of accommodation with whatever misguided rationalizing values of moralistic victim blaming.

The problem of social acceptance may indeed be in part be defined as seeming neither too prim not too vulgar, as, after all, either extreme routinely faces persecution. But such may be revealed as too simplistic and superficial a problem statement. In truth, not so unlike Cinderella after all, the unpopular girl branded a slut may even turn out to be a virgin, while the popular and influential somehow enjoy far greater latitude in number of sexual partners. Perhaps the real issue is neither of style nor morality, but cliquish power relations. But then, what is the true nature of power in society?

Thus becomes manifest how the core of deepest Visioning is Practical Philosophy, abstract principles actually formulating and guiding concrete planning and action. The staunchest rigor of Visioning is treated next, then to be followed by the particular systematic process. 

Pursuant to rigorous Situation Analysis including Sensitivity Analysis:

2a:Cultivate the eustress of engagement in creative tension

which is a Crucial Component of Creativity

by criticism, by the Valuable Intellectual Traits and in all 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought, by the uncompromisingly honest and realistic assessment of the gap between situation analysis of things as they are and the Visioning of whatever Ideal Result.

twelve differences

 

Two common and deadly paralytic and heteronymous de-motivators are vagueness in the face of the unknown. And the obvious remedies are the clarification of whatever goals put forth and then simply learning from the successful instead of always metaphorically reinventing the proverbial wheel. But often vagueness is such that it will not even be immediately clear how to sharpen the focus, nor is whatever learning curve in surmounting the unknown always readily apparent either. In such common event, autonomy requires actually to make the vague and unknown your friend!

 

For indeed it is eustress, challenge and thereby tolerance of the awareness of disparity between reality and desire, that may characterize creativity in the individual or the social environment. -Rather than either simply giving up or else continuing, but only in whatever no less ineffectual and fruitlessly paralytic state of self-satisfied denial and anxiety.

 

The so called ideal condition, in Triz creative tension, is more properly the optimum. Hence the benevolently cunning Russian slight of hand, to replace the unendurable tension between the fallible human condition and ideal perfection (by any other name), instead with the challenging and stimulating eustress between engineering trade-offs. -thus replacing the striving with unrealistic perfection in utopist ideology, instead with problem solving to achieve any intrinsically feasable optimum, and replacing blind faith staying the course instead with feasibility study, as impossible and crushing endless open ended godlike responsibility to any goal putting forth of ultimate perfection is redefined, instead, as whatever optimistically motivating but concrete best case scenario. And because trial and error are implicit, and because discrete tasks must be undertaken before grand master plans, even rational democratic progress may yet creep into the realm of acceptance.

 

At whatever level of accomplishment, from the neophyte to the master, the eustress of Emotional decision making remains crucial because it must always be a measure of dissatisfaction that motivates and guides ongoing further progress. And this amounts to a tolerance in order to actually harness insecurity constructively as a real life motivation to creativity.

 

Because knowing and gauging the difference between any desired motivating goal put forth, and the current reality, engenders dissatisfaction, an apatite, healthy tension seeking productive resolution, no less than one would in TRIZ, seeking innovation to overcome engineering or other trade-offs, if at all possible.

 

For such is the positive power of negative thinking! 

"People who are convinced that a vision or result is important, who can see clearly that they must change their life in order to reach that result, and who commit themselves to that result nonetheless, do indeed feel compelled. They have assimilated the vision not just consciously, but unconsciously, at a level where it changes more of their behavior. They have a sense of deliberate patience--with themselves and the world--and more attentiveness to what is going on around them. All of this produces a sustained sense of energy and enthusiasm, which (often after a delay) produces some tangible results, which can then make the energy and enthusiasm stronger."

 

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

 

 

Many people often tend to interact superficially for the comfort of denial, to avoid deeper and more troubling issues, focusing upon the trivial they neglect the meaningful, a veritable living death of running ever harder just to keep up with standing still.

But is conflict really avoided this way? By dwelling upon petty issues, rather than drama, only petty bickering  arises instead of true controversy, because the crucial impetus to growth and progress has effectively been hobbled. Thus, in fiction no less than in reality, we may do best to welcome conflict so long as it may be important or meaningful. A good process aims to resolve the decisive (and divisive) issues and clear them out of the way. Sometimes putting forth and pressing important concrete motivating goals provides the impetus to move along past conflict. But this tends to reduce drama, an effect while generally soothing in reality and the sooner the better, by the same token harmful to fiction and to be put off as long as possible, because drama is plotted and structured so as to intensify the tension of conflict until reaching climax and resolution, dramatic tension, which, indeed, by either happenstance or cultivation in reality, may sometimes be known as creative tension.

 

Such prefer everything settled, everything neat, everything as it should be. They don't like any questions, uncertainty or ambiguity. All is at peace. All is quiet. All are obviously bored or else obsessive.

 

And this throws us face first into the struggle for open honest disagreement against anti-critical bias, timidity and underhanded consensus manipulation, which even future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry might never sidestep. 

 

The Dialectic of Socrates

 THE SIX TYPES OF SOCRATIC QUESTIONS

 

 

2b: Focused Listing

 

Click for pros and cons of Focused Listing.

 

The focused listening method is a word association challenge that may prove somewhat experimental, in that some repetition and modification for the sake trial and error may be required, so that, in the end, the topic will be neither too broad nor too narrow to be workable or illuminating.

 

Where as, in consensus manipulation chicanery including schooling or indoctrination, especially under however relative conditions of captivity, a leader, teacher, Political Commissar or "Facilitator" sets leading question, for true Dialectics, genuine Brainstorming and more honest Visioning, by all means let the floor should be open to prompts from all participants.

 

Then Focused listing can be utilized in Visioning to help define problems and/or opportunities, beginning with data collection, the compiling of verbal description from participants into Affinity Diagrams according to the Kawakita Jiro method.

 

Standard example: List words or short phrases that describe or define what a motivated student is or does.

 

Indeed, further refinement may be derived by Directed Paraphrasing, where in a point or definition must be restated for some specific audience, context or application. Such as any Law of Thermodynamics for children, or what assessment is or should be for stockholders, consumers or regulatory agencies, respectively.

Responses can be grouped into four sets:
Confused, minimal, adequate, and excellent.

Then examine responses within and across the four evaluative categories for accuracy, suitability for the intended audience, and effectiveness in fulfilling the assigned purpose.

 

Highlight the clearest and muddiest points offered. Identify the most unclear points and help clear up the muddy points of others.

 

Click for pros and cons of Muddiest Point procedure.

Then the responses can also be grouped to discover emerging patterns of clarity and confusion.

Then data analysis follows, wherein the lists compiled can be compared and discussed freely.
 

2c: Focus upon interests rather than positions.

Shared interests may also be found among the motivations behind the conflict of opposing positions in real life drama. Here are points crucial both to real world problem solving with real people in brainstorming and visioning and, no less, in fiction writing with imaginary characters as the events in sequence of plot logic bring the story to resolution:

_{Identify interests and POV:}

_{Ask "why?" (does anyone take whichever position that they do)}

_{Ask "why not?" (haven't they taken any opposing position particularly such of which one might hope to persuade them)}

Force Field Analysis - Understanding The Pressures For and Against Change (origin)

_{Explore multiple interests, as everyone typically has multiple interests and acknowledge competing interests as part of the problem to solve, in interactively reframing the problem to achieve any sort of synergistic win-win scenario, extrication from any zero-sum deadlock.}

_{Be concrete but flexible}

_{Subject all the above to Sensitivity Analysis, Focused Listing and Muddiest Point procedures}

_{Be hard on the problem, easy on the person (unless it's a fictional character!)}

2d: Ladder of Abstraction

• Select a candidate Problem Statement. 

• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
• Forced Lateral Thinking, "assumption smashing", challenge and even violate specific assumptions of a problem or situation. WHY and why else does that action need to be accomplished?  Compile a list of responses with the statement itself.

• Repeat with more problem statements.

• Revise the responses into updated or better defined problem statements.

• Then list the actual, hypothetical or dramatic obstacles, as applicable, of whatever sort. What and what else prevents or forestalls progress?  Revise and redefine problem statements yet again.

For the above point defines growth character development from adversity for oneself or anyone else in reality no less than for imaginary characters in fiction.

Alas, a common anti-critically biased mediocre minded failure of collective thinking is when the very questions are arbitrary and pointless, and the suggestions unimaginative, putting the proverbial cart far before the metaphorical horse. But even, however rarely, when dealing with choices of creative / dramatic tension that might conceivably make an effective difference somehow, nevertheless even discussion at all to the point still tends to reduce to pointless expression of position and preference that remain genially arbitrary for wont of Critical Thinking about the real situation and whatever principles apply thereto. 

Indeed, Martin Luther King regarded creative tension as key to personal and societal growth, i.e., societal positive disintegration from conflict resolution, synthesis and even reconciliation, making nonviolent resistance more than merely a tool for confrontation, because nonviolent resistance also serves to mobilize support for the cause so that the resultant conflict on every level, motivates everyone to take a stand, on one side or the other.  A "mentally and spiritually aggressive" technique not only avoiding "external physical violence," but also "seek[ing] to avoid internal violence [to the] spirit."

3: Explore

Encourage wild and exaggerated s from every POV

Any source must be allowable for points of departure.

It's much easier to tame a wild idea later on, than it is to think of an immediately valid, viable, founded or Justified one in the first place. Heck, the 'wilder' the idea the better! By all means, pop out bizarre and unworkable ideas to see what they might spark off. No idea is too ridiculous. Humor is also creative, after all. For, not only truth but inspiration does come forth in jest or from Stream of Consciousness free association and permutations. 

Optionally, practice close and detailed observation and description of pertinent objects, phenomena and even visual "deep thought" fantasies, until novel and even insightful details and/or connections and associations arise.

So, allow, state any ideas, however outlandish or downright silly, deferring  judgment or evaluation, suspending disbelief, conscience and even good taste, however momentarily. 

"A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing"

-George Orwell, 'The Freedom of the Press' essay preface to 'Animal Farm' - 1945

Exaggerating ideas to such extremes even as of the unfettered speculation in Science Fiction as a vehicle of satire, is often helpful in opening up thinking from fresh direction or POV.  And one can always put forward ideas, thoughts purely as creative points of departure, to spark off other people and not just as a solution to any problem in particular. 

Exploration, looking for Ideas, is ongoing and concurrent with Visioning. Because, just as Exploration is guided and defined by Visioning, so too is definitive Visioning Exploratory of and beyond the boundaries it seeks. In the words of George Bernanos, "there is no worse lie than a problem poorly stated." Hence, even problem solving, in and of itself, may limit the Socratic discourse of the questions rather than the answers and undermine the quest for personal meaning and new horizons.

3a: The Seven Creativity Tools

Click the link above to browse variant brainstorming exercises for making new variations and finding different correlations. Also see the creativity tools list.

3b: Ideation

Click the link above for an exhaustive list and explanation of different problem solving methods and approaches, the emphasis being on engineering. Also browse the Applied Imagination Question Summary and see: TRIZ.

3c: Techniques for working from Random Stimuli

Because the human brain is a self-organizing pattern creation system, always making connections, almost any random word will stimulate ideas on a given subject. Simply follow the associations and functions of whatever stimuli and also aspects thereof as a metaphor or even Forced Relationships/Analogy.

C U T - U P        William Burroughs and the cut-up technique...      C U T - U P        History of William Burroughs and the cut-up technique...              Exterminate All Rational Thought with: DadaDodo and WebCollage         "When I was a boy I felt that the role of rhyme in poetry was to compel one to find the unobvious because of the necessity of finding a word which rhymes. This forces novel associations and almost guarantees deviations from routine chains or trains of thought. It becomes paradoxically a sort of automatic mechanism of originality ..." — Stan Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician

Stimulation Toolbox
Job Force	Takes inspiration from occupations.
Ricliché	Uses playfully distorted proverbs as prompts.
Sloganeeze	Draws inspiration from advertising slogans.
Web Economy Bullshit Generator	Very clever, but the verbs are often real verbs.
Star Force	Asks how famous people might solve your problem.
	Follow a chain of quotations to inspiration.
WordGizmo	Creates new words to inspire you.
CorpSpeak	Generates random corporate memos.
WriteExpress	Combines word parts and rhymes with your entry.
Naming Prompts	Suggests 100 ways to think about naming.
Idea-A-Day	Over 700 free ideas and growing.
	. Automatically create sets of items from a few examples.
	Free web-based anagram server from your input.
	"All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie."
Oulipo Definitional Literature	Words of a chosen text are replaced with their dictionary definitions.
Multibabel lost in translation	Any phrase translated by computer back and forth between 5 different languages.
Haiku Writer	Confines itself to Just seventeen syllables. Procrustean, right?
Press Release Writer	Self-absorbed even for a writer, its whole oeuvre consists of press releases announcing itself... and if you can believe everything you read, it's pretty good at it!
Random Plot Points	A companion tool box to this one, First Aid for writer's block in fiction writing.

The Random Surrealism Gennerator  Isn't it splendid?

Bandages are for the wombs
-- Rampant Lady Bunny (1497 CE)

Q. Is Surrealism truly "as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table"? 

A. "The surrealist use of games, like that of art and literature, is primarily focused on the subversion of premeditation and rational constraints, but in addition it is also a subversion of the artist's ego with the potential for revealing the Marvelous heavily relying on the release of collective creativity." 

         Improv

                Surreal Zen

3d: Reverse Brainstorming 

Consider every POV, no matter how outrageous.

"The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly."

— Anthony Burgess   

For sheer creative Provocation, modify problem statements outrageously! -Even to the point of the ridiculous, totally far-fetched, backwards, impossible, or humorous, even downright wacky. Indeed, for story plotting, inspiration may even be derived from free association via the experimental introduction of entirely inappropriate elements and characters.

Deploying the Paramount Idea tool, define and put forth the primary motivating goals, and then (hypothetically) abandon it! For example, instead of increased sales, imagine bankruptcy and consider resource redeployment thereafter. Then readapt the new ideas either toward the primary the primary motivating goals initially put forth or possible sidelines that have been discovered.

Indeed, among the CRUTCHES FOR A GENIUS is Thinking in opposites, Problem Reversal, actually brainstorming ways to do things opposite or even dead wrong so as to accomplish or change nothing, criticism, fault finding for gaps in strategy, such as in how, where, to whom and in what way, and whatever measures under consideration would have no desired effect or virtually no effect at all, or even how to actually make things worse (such as, for example,  how to waste water rather than how to save it, or to alienate one's object d'amore rather than ever winning hearts and minds, or even the Six Surefire Ways to Kill a Brainstorm (rather than fostering creativity) so as to suggest solutions by defining problems, indeed, much as in plot oriented story lines. Just so, Fanfic Rebellion serves as an opportune demonstration of some of the creative and investigative possibilities. 

Premise with Antithesis or Counter Premise, in the richness and, as in the Zen dualistic opposition of Yin and Yang, the clash of paradoxical reconciliation and balanced accommodation of contradictions, and ambiguity, as a means of creative modification. Even the emptiest verbal abuse outright may be salvaged via the techniques of topic reclamation.

Evocative drama may turn upon social estrangement or other reversals and may also incorporate an opposing or contradictory Counter Premise or Antithesis. For better and more dramatic and engaging conflict on myriad levels in fiction, even diametrically opposing views and tendencies, indeed if not represented in the agenda of an antagonist or villain outright, may even be embodied by the foil and related character. 

Antitheses, opposites, may also be synthesized (combined), because concrete solutions to problems like truth itself (correspondence to reality) are often found in Dialectic synthesis of somewhat abstract extremes. But in consensus manipulation, Dialectic synthesis is perverted into it's own Antithesis as a means of peer pressuring consent in order to collectively conceal and suppress controversy.

Ulterior Transactions or headgames are such generally compulsive manipulation that has one false deceptive and/or self deceptive purpose on the surface, but another real dysfunctional, destructive and/or self destructive one beneath, in the drive for Existential Validation to irresponsibly "vindicate" and to justify as blameless the learned helplessness, self destruction, and defeat of the poisonously conditioned behavioral rut or leaned self image defense and coping routine that may be referred to as their script. 

Hence, in Transactional Analysis, the script Antithesis is a repertoire of curve ball responses and come backs design fitted to each of the known and catalogued types of headgames, to frustrate Existential Validation and offer, instead, an Existential reality check in the strategy of quick disentitlement from each particular categorized Ulterior Transaction or headgame by thwarting and escaping whatever the real payoff and moving away from any of the established roles and simply refusing to play the game.

• some social headgames

Transactional Analysis then seeks to guide and encourage people to interact more honestly and directly, often in a context of Group Therapy. But in the near future, the similar function may be achievable via future interaction on the frontiers of advanced automated Sociometry, though perhaps with some limitations.

3e:
		Concept maps

Open the FoolQuest.com folder in the IHMC Public Cmaps (2) Place

• Place the in the center.
• Use pictures, symbols and abbreviations.
• Use keywords
• Every word/picture is placed on a separate branch.
• Connect branches.
• Annotate.
• Use colors (at least 3)  
• Develop your own style.
• Use accents and associations.

History: Mind Mapping, also known as 'Radiant Thinking', is a technique that was developed in the 1970s by Tony Buzan. A Mind Map consists of a central word or concept, with 5 to 10 main ideas radiating out from that central concept.

Mind Mapping can be effective in taking inventory of current knowledge and also to make associations because each Basic Ordering Idea can become the center of another Mind Map. And a Mind Map is capable of producing endless associations. Indeed, the very structure of a Mind Map keeps giving rise to fertile new associations. Mind Mapping also helps organize information hierarchically, in a way that is not possible with lists. The tree-like structure of a Mind Map is a hierarchy and the non-linear nature of mind maps makes it easy to link and cross-reference different elements, hence the process of arranging information along the 'branches' and 'twigs' of a Mind Map facilitates superior grasp of the information.

Related technique's include:

The Relations Diagram (or Interrelationship Digraph) and Clustering.

Uses: Mind Mapping is used, individually or in concert, to help in sorting out and making choices, organizing ideas (one's own or those of others), memory, creativity, Self-Analysis, problem-solving, diaries, Genealogy, educational, teaching, note taking, presentations and more. 

And in case of writer's block, Writing flash fiction using bubble diagrams is an application of Mind Mapping to creative writing. For this purpose, the Random Story Starter can be supplemented with the Random Character Maker and Random Character Namer or DADA's Little Baby Namer.

And for an impressive, elaborate, robust, but at least initially somewhat daunting series of forms, all flowcharted together, be sure to check out

4: Quantity may be desirable, quality as we go

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
- Linus Pauling

As many ideas, POV, variations and synthesis as possible! 

Get each idea noted, noticed, and seek response as per item 5, next.  

The more creative ideas a person or a group has to choose from, the better. If the number of ideas at the end of the session is very large, then there will be that much more to sift through and work with for the best ideas in due course. 

Brainstorming should not stop until ideas become sparse, allowing for late-coming ideas.

In brainstorming, it may help to keep each idea succinct rather than elaborating in excessive detail - just capture its essence. Brief clarifications can be requested. Think freely, and reflect in due course. 

After all, can there really ever be such a thing as excessive participation?

4a: Knowledge-driven Epistemology proceeds from the Empirically derived hypothesis, the observation that often one typically strives to understand otherwise often quite baffling new information at all in context of existing knowledge. This proposition emphasizes the structure and accessibility of relevant knowledge as a crux of problem solving, deduction and even prognosis. Efficiently stored knowledge is structured into networked schema of information interconnected by links of rational association. It is just such richly interconnected structures of knowledge that constitute comprehension, hence new knowledge (knowledge being the recognition of truth, truth being correspondence to reality), and enable the recognition, in turn, of the relevance whatsoever of whatever appropriate schema. And so, for better or worse, knowledge actually tends to limit sheer experimental creativity of correlations.

Indeed, an expert is one well able to access by recall from memory such networked knowledge structures readily, and rapidly decide which information is important, which cues are significant and how to integrate these data to draw sound conclusions and derive appropriate decisions.

But improperly indexed knowledge is called inert, tending toward simply going overlooked in solving problems. If judgments/evaluations are made without coherent convergence of the diverging thoughts, creativity will tend to be lost! And that would be purpose defeating and pointless!  Therefore, eliminate, combine or group duplicate and then similar ideas and emergent themes. Otherwise, exhaustion may often motivate a precipitously poor and arbitrary choice from an unwieldy and disorganized list. Sort the ideas into groups and subgroups in preparation of the Affinity Diagram according to the Kawakita Jiro method of grouping observations into clusters and combining and making sense of like ideas to better create opportunity, then to build upon them and spark new ideas for any clearer picture of the problem to emerge and hence to structure more productive discussion.

An Affinity Diagram can be expressed in the form of a written list or by sorting pocket reference cards or as a chart with Microsoft Excel or even using of the free template for Microsoft Word 2000.  

Everyone can and should participate in sorting. But do not name or categorize groups or subgroups, at least until they take shape.

• The Joy of Sorting 
• sorting prompts

4b: Clarify each idea. Identify and explain different understandings thereof, as this can only better facilitate collaborative filtering from the Affinity Diagram later on.

5: Modification - Build upon the ideas put forward by others

finer points

Build and expand on the ideas of others through out. Try and add extra thoughts to each idea or and/or change or improve them. Likewise, use other people's ideas as inspiration for your own. Creative people, after all, are also sharp listeners. Synthesize (combine) several of the suggested ideas, even contradicting ones (Antithesis), to explore new possibilities.

It may prove just as valuable to be able to adapt and improve other people's ideas as it is to generate the initial idea that sets off new trains of thought.

It was in just such fashion, that the Beatles would regularly modify and improve one another's lyrics, back and forth, to such brilliant result. Hence so obvious why they where never as good separately. Indeed, Monty Python did much the same so innovatively for offbeat humor. And FoolQuest.com invites YOU, likewise, to peruse content, weigh in, and partake of collaborative brilliance, online!

5a: Concepts in a Hat 

Seek to find and explain new connections and relationships between the different ideas already put forth, and with other things, even all chosen at random. 

Or to maximize the challenge if Combination Creativity, find and list similarities even between the most unrelated and dissimilar problem statements.

Optionally, also try Mind Mapping or make use of the free template for Microsoft Word 2000+ pocket reference cards for sorting the entries into groups and subgroups in preparation of the Affinity Diagram according to the Kawakita Jiro method.

5b: Devil's Advocacy

For the full benefit of meaningful controversy, competing ideas can and should be argued/debated against one another, attacked and defended, adversarially. After all, one can and should always be free to express each one's own differing opinions, preferences or tastes. 

After all, the deferred judgment/evaluation of Brainstorming in the Hypothetico Deductive Method should not and does not mean the permanent surrender of all personal reasoning and conscience!

So, by all means, beyond simply emphasizing different priorities or POV, one after another, as in the Six Thinking Hats Technique, just as a creative challenge and logical test, one can also extend the best individual or collaborative Parallel Thinking effort by actually attacking and defending different positions in turn, the way law students do. 

Indeed, the Six Thinking Hats Technique may also prove excellent in redeployment to fiction writing, because unique and original well rounded characters in opposition each need plausible rationalizations consistent with differing motivation, for all of exactly the very sort of dramatic conflict on every level that Edward de Bono so deplores in real life!

6: Experimentation and Solution-Finding Guidelines

Hence the idea finding of Brainstorming must flow into the next aspect of the Hypothetico Deductive Method, which is examination for critical evaluation.

1. How well was judgment/evaluation deferred?
2. How flexible in spawning different topics or broad ideas? 
3. How well in suspension of bias of prior experience?
4. How fluent in spinning off variations of whatever basic topic or idea? 
5. How new or original in thinking up anything hither to unimagined or simply overlooked and unconsidered? 
6. How well in expressing things at all differently? 
7. How well in modification, expanding, combining, building and elaborating upon other ideas?

Collaborative Filtering:

Gradually narrow down the Affinity Diagram by crossing off or erasing ideas from the lists. Try to arrive at the few very best solutions/ideas.

 

Then follow through with thought experiment to imagine the possible outcomes. What might conceivably work, which might be interesting, appealing  and persuasive, or how it might go awry, which, while in real life planning one seeks to avoid, for fiction, may be more dramatic and offer more good plot twists. 

1. What solutions or ideas make sense or not?
2. What solutions or ideas have merit or not?
3. Are some too simple?
4. Are some too complex?
5. What will be practical/feasible/plausible and what is not?
6. What would be the foreseeable or most dramatic results, consequences and ramifications of each solution or idea?

Do not rank by preference. Neither rush to judgment/evaluation nor seek the single answer.

Choice by elimination is a last resort! Do not choose until first sorting for common themes or similarities. They are always there!

In the Problem Census procedure, problems, questions and difficulties are compiled and then voted on to be sorted by priority and then dealt with in turn. Then, in the Rational Management Technique decisions are guided by explicit criteria (if not established before hand then compiled by the participants), some criteria identified as crucial and even indispensable while others merely preferable or desirable, for possible solutions to then be identified and compiled and next perhaps rated on degree to which each solution fulfils the criteria, identifying the optimum choices among imperfect options.

Disagreement is indispensable to creativity. But if ever consensus in choosing decisions to make truly becomes an indispensable priority, and all else fails, then, eventually, as a very last resort, and even then subject to ongoing honest reevaluation, votes can be taken as to rating solutions and/or what to cross off, in turn, from the Affinity Diagrams, in Collaborative Filtering during Solution-Finding.

• The Art of Selection

6a:Pareto Analysis - Selecting the Most Important Changes To Make

The Pareto Principle, as so named by J.M. Juran, based upon Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 rule, is the idea that by doing 20% of work you can generate 80% of the advantage of doing the entire job by "Separating the Significant Few from the Trivial Many" under the premise that an estimated 80% of problems are actually due to only 20% of all whatever myriad and multifarious conceivable and possible causes.

Pareto Analysis can be of use when one encounters multiple related problems, or a common problem with multiple causes. Especially if one might be able to collect metrics on how many times each problem or cause occurs in order to observe whatever problems and determine their frequency of occurrence. This, in turn, derives the information needed for prioritization of effort to ensure expenditure of time and resources to maximize positive impact.

But where statistical data is short, or not quite applicable, some informal prioritization must suffice. (And that is where Brainstorming generally and Visioning in particular may come into it, to Explore whatever issues entailed.)  For example, each type of defect or failure observable or anticipated in a process under consideration may be "weighted", if desired, according to its severity, adverse impact and/or cost to repair.

Pareto Analysis is a formal technique for finding the changes that will give the biggest benefits, useful where many possible courses of action are competing for attention.

What Is A Pareto Chart?
"A pareto chart is used to graphically summarize and display the relative importance of the differences between groups of data. Learn when it's appropriate to use a pareto chart, histogram and bar chart, and what the differences are." From iSixSigma.

Use Pareto Analysis as applicable, to practical considerations of problem solving.

But what about Pareto Analysis somehow reapplied for more pure creativity exercises? Now that, as a topic, might make for an engaging Brainstorming Exploration and/or Reverse Brainstorm!

Indeed, to pad a good Hard Boiled Murder Mystery with adventure in the pursuit of endless red herrings, let the protagonist waste time on the Trivial Many shady characters and situations, by being diverted away from upstanding Significant Few with too much at stake and too much to hide!

6b: Acceptance Finding & Agenda Definition

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."

-Mark Twain 

Raising good questions in setting or revising agenda organizes and itemizes relevant objectives, whatever goals put forth, values, procedures and priorities, even step by step, framing clearly and transparently, into an order or schedule of whatever business to be done or considered, unless, as in the subtext of dramatic dialogue (never well written "on the nose" ), the inner conflict of unresolved hidden or ulterior agenda actually serving to obfuscate true intent.

List all that must be done for implementation as applicable, in order to make the idea happen, certainly if in actual reality, or even dramatically or in whatever hypothetical scenario or fictional context, as the case may be.

Is there or should there even be any deadline? In reality, deadlines are best neither to be neglected nor simply assumed and then imposed arbitrarily, even if whatever impending threat and the race against time does number among the time honored dramatic Techniques of Suspense plotting.

What materials and resources are required?

What obstacles or complications can be anticipated, and how are they best to be dealt with?

Who else must be involved? Consider and anticipate any known egos and existing agendas, in order to brainstorm how all said might be dealt with. Identify and reconcile interests, an aspect of people skills throughout Visioning and Focused Listing in particular.

Who should be consulted and included before hand? What strategic alliances might be advantageous, and what committees, if any, need to be formed?

Also, how and what day-to-day practices and cooperation to be secured, and problems dealt with as they arise? Can tasks be be itemized in writing and and then scheduled?

• Action agenda
• time and project management - theory

How are desired results to be arrived at? List the steps and sub-steps needed to be performed in sequence, starting from now, until the problem is entirely solved in a WHO-WHAT-WHEN format. Also, how is progress to be monitored?

To assess acceptable Slack Time, the margin of time to spare in accomplishing any part of the whole undertaking, task/outcome interdependencies of the steps in a complex process represented in a PERT (program evaluation review technique) diagram must be anticipated as clearly as possible by way of CPM, the Critical Path Method.

Definition • Explanation • How--To • FAQ

Of course, all plans, of however much foresight and detail, are still only hypotheses, prognoses, fictional plotlines that will need, likewise, be flexible to re-adaptation to the inevitably unforeseen, in reality no less than in any gripping fiction. And in reality no less than in drama, task/outcome interdependency translates into crucial trust issues of reciprocity, conflict and resolution.

 Browse, also:

           the futuring methods of futurological scenario planning.

6d: "Bullshit!" 

Hungarian Brainstorming, 'A steady stream of wild ideas, punctuated by logical and scientific reasoning'. Memetic mutation subject to selection (elimination) for fitness. The general idea of these forums, except without the score keeping of the party game... 

6e: Consensus and dissidence:

Decisions, decisions!

When fiction authors brainstorm together, sometimes they complete works in collaboration, and other times they create entirely separate works off on their own.

Or one can do both! 

And the same principle may or may not apply to individual and collective priorities, strategies and agendas to real action.

Introduction to Triz

Including the tools of Attribute Listing and Morphological Analysis, most succinctly, TRIZ, The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, the method of Semyon D. Savransky, is a discipline of solving complex problems systematically and how existing solutions can be reapplied to different but similar problems.

In 'TRIZ made simple,' Graham Rawlinson exposes the common misconception in practice of how incorporation of various TRIZ activities into whatever process of arriving at solutions, often blithely looses sight of the over all TRIZ process as a whole.

Breakthrough Thinking is a sequencing of a subset of TRIZ tools included, into relevant steps of a solution procedure, removing their tendency to overlap and hence any ambiguity of which to apply appropriately in any given application.

There are forty TRIZ principles most often applied to inventive problem solving, even in the widest variety of patents. TRIZ Contradiction Analysis identifies the particulars of how most inventions, like unto fairytales, must strive at the resolution of contradiction, conflicts inherent to situation. The difference is in Reverse Planning, retreating from sheer Fantasy, imaginatively, step by step, via Science Fiction speculation, into practicality, rather than flirting with normatively Surreal self deception as in fairytales.

• Einstein’s Three Rules of Work
• systematic inventive thinking techniques Versus Brainstorming

 

TRIZ and the subversive restoration of critical rationalist common sense

TRIZ also offers an important and underrated contribution to philosophy: Even the most modest of aspirations, let along any grand speculations, are often reduced to mere delusion of passive fantasy amusement, bereft of all realistic consideration of implementation and never really intended seriously.  But perhaps the most disastrous and pervasive species of pipedream is fanatical ideology so enamored and reverent of a grand ultimate purpose or ideal, as to abandon all practicality, conscience and ordinary responsibility, hence deadly serious but still bereft of all realistic consideration of implementation. Ideology then, is pipedream in action! -Which has been nothing but disaster.

Turning away from ideological madness and in rejection of massive wasteful bureaucratic state sponsored initiatives, in practical strategic application from step by step Evolutionary Epistemology, the famous recommendation of philosopher Karl Popper actually put into practice by billionaire philanthropist George Soros in his own highly successful personal foreign policy, so powerfully and cost effectively, is that of piecemeal engineering, meeting real immediate needs and problems without foresight, in small reversible steps. And controversy persist unto this day, whether or not Popper actually intended to rule out all long or medium range planning.

But as an engineer, in his TRIZ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, Semyon D. Savransky strives even somewhat surreptitiously to repair the madness of ideology by subtle redefinition of terms. Marxism deals in social contradictions, conflicts of interest at the heart of class struggle and eventually, revolution. But Savransky deals in the resolution of engineering conflicts, meaning design tradeoffs. -For classic example, how aluminum soft drink cans can either be sturdier for stacking without breaking, or lighter and cheaper for manufacture and shipping, and how soft drink cans design achieves both by the incorporation or supportive urn-like domed curves at top and bottom of the cylindrical can. And the Enlightenment hope by implication being that social contradictions should be engineered to resolution no less deftly. Savransky also speaks of ideals, but he really means: optimums. And the substitution of vague impossible ideals by the investigation of feasible optimums at all possible even in principle, is profound.  Indeed, TRIZ deals in appraisal of current conditions, discovery of the "ideal" (optimum), the measurement of the distance between the two for realistic assessment of requirements for bridging the gap, a process admitting doubt and limitation, therefore entirely taboo under the lunatic faith of ideology.

Q. Want more?

A.  ^{Browse:ycotted creativity techniques}

an impressive index listing methods, problem definitions, diverse and sundry exercises ...

Q. But if necessary or desired, how does one best follow through and make choices, arrive at decision, individually or collectively?

A. Click here to review.

Q. What about copyright and copyleft?

A. For one thing, in writing fanfic we are using already copyright intellectual properties under such sufferance as they let be.

Nevertheless, in my own work from the input of others, on this site, I acknowledge my fellow contributors, as best I am able, in my own copyright notices. 

 

And one can always insert one's own copyright notice when one posts, if one cares to.

 

Be it understood, however, that we are all posting to share for use by the other participants, because we will all be collaborating together. 

Hence, on these forums there may be some sort of an implicit copyleft in effect for for Open Source fanfic, because further addition and revision is continually invited, even though, in fiction writing generally, it is not clear that any content cannot ever be incorporated, one way or another, into proprietary versions or offshoots.

 

 

Q. What constitutes an electronic manuscript and what becomes electronic publication?

A. This remains unclear. 

Q. But what if I ever hope to be published?

Q. If the Online collaborative fiction brainstorms on this site only serve as a partial demo, then how is the proposed webpromotion in it's entirety conceived? 

A. Click here to read the proposal. 

Q. What are other collaborative fiction writing paradigms for Online writing communities, their strengths and pitfalls? 

A.  

Q. What is the role of forum moderator? 

A. To curtail bullying and consensus manipulation, extinguish flame, puncture whining, invalidate sulking, and, as, for all purposes and intent, acting chairperson, to organize forums and topics by subject and content in some useful manner. To encourage conversation at all to the point, and always, to help keep minority views alive for controversy to remain visible and transparent. 

Q. What are the oppressive and destructive popular misconceptions regarding collaboration and criticism? 

Q. How are the boundaries of topic pertinence defined? 

What is and is not?

A. There is nothing wrong with 'Star Trek' except bad writing, and seldom ever anything right with 'Star Trek' that does not begin with good writing. Same as with anything else... 

Q. But what if I ever hope to be published?

A. Obviously, fanfic is in all likelihood, inherently unpublishable, given whatever issues of prior intellectual property. Because the publication of fanfic is only ever tolerated in whatever limited exposure and amateur context.

A. An effort has been made to gloss over that which is merely perfunctory and boring, and to see that nothing has been included unless it is interesting or dramatic. To provide new and colorful motivated characters, and to speculatively advance the ramifications, or at least take over the top rather than simply rehash or further trivialize, the most appealing 'Star Trek' tropes. 

Beginning with the outline for introductory six part mini-series also serves as series "bible" for ‘Star Trek: The Ship of Fools’. 

Q. Why the title? 

A. The Ship of Fools, sacred fools, is a classical allegory of the human condition, blind and impulsive in hopes of salvation. And ‘Star Trek: The Ship of Fools’ is a tale of encounter with the unknown from Rashuman- like multiple perspective, and corresponding levels of dramatic conflict from motivations at odds.

Hieronymus Bosch • Annotated • schooled fools • yellowdog

 

 

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