**What Is Brainstorming?

This is a technique we use to examine all of the possibilities and potential solutions to a problem, without making judgments about any of these possibilities until we have exhausted all of our options.

Dr. Alex Osborn, the originator of the Brainstorming Technique, and co-founder of what was one of the world’s largest advertising agencies in the 1960’s, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osbo
e, as well as the founder of the Creative Education Foundation, described this method of thinking as” organized ideation.” He believed that, “When you drive for new ideas, you shouldn’t drive with your brakes on.”

His method proved to be so effective that many top companies and organizations around the world still use it today. If it’s good enough for them, I certainly believe it’s good enough for you and me. Whether you choose to use this technique by yourself or with other people, there are some rules to follow:

1. Quantity of ideas is more important than quality

2. No idea is too outrageous

3. Do not make judgments

4. Criticism in NOT allowed

5. Evaluate and improve

6. Eliminate any options you are positive will not work

After you’ve decided which ideas you are going to keep, rewrite them on a separate sheet of paper. Put the new list away and think about it for a couple of days.

When you take the paper out again, write the positives and negatives of each idea listed. Some of your ideas will have so many negatives, they will practically eliminate themselves.

What you will have left are a couple of good ideas which have been thoroughly evaluated. You can now make a safe, sound decision as to which of these ideas to use or how to combine them to get the results you want.

If you use this technique, you will find more possibilities than you imagined and your ultimate decision will be much more exciting and effective than if you had just gone with your first option.