At the In-House Agency Forum Spring 2007 conference today. On the tail end of Tom Monahan’s opening was this way to come up with some great ideas. Say you’re a designer or product developer. Tom’s example – let’s say you do stoves. For cooking.
– First, think of all the ways it could be designed impossibly wrong. Get crazy. No door? No off switch?
– Then, build off of those and think about how to make the stove better. Fix what you just created.
– Now: would you have thought of those new ideas if you hadn’t first thought about how to make it bad?
That’s a way to start a 180 degree shift in thinking – first forget about what you know.