Thinkertoys and social change
Michael Michalko's (1991) book Thinkertoys is about creativity for business problem solving. Thinkertoys describes 34 techniques for creative thinking along with techniques for evaluating ideas and for becoming more creative in general. This post is about using those techniques in government, activism efforts, nonprofit management, education, and social entrepreneuership.
Most of the challenges that governments, activists, and nonprofits face fit into three categories: design, improvement, and marketing. New programs, policies, or services need to be created (design). Existing programs, policies, and services could be made more effective (improvement). We want people to change peoples' behavior in a certain way or garner their support for some effort of ours (marketing).
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I just now learned that a second edition is due out in May. The second edition contains some new techniques and some new examples.
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If you decide to read Thinkertoys and use the techniques then consider these two pieces of advice. The first is that you should decide what sort of challenge(s) are facing you now. Are they design challenges? Improvement? Marketing?
If you are trying to "sell" people on donating money, voting (at all), voting a certain way, becoming paid members of your organization, or changing their behavior then your challenge is one of marketing.
If you want to get better results from a program of any sort, then this is improvement.
If you want to create a new fundraising campaign, public education project, protest form or method, education program, or social service program then your challenge is design.
With those thoughts in mind, the second piece of advice is to consider which of Michalko's techniques are useful for your type of challenge. Here are my ideas regarding which types of challenges can be best addressed with which techniques:
Marketing - idea grid (with modifications), intuition, fantasy questions, SCAMPER, Phoenix Checklist, mind maps, analogies, scenarios, diagramming, random stimulation, analogies
Improvement - SCAMPER, attribute listing, dreams, intuition, reversal, fractionation, diagramming, random stimulation, analogies
Design - mind maps, fantasy questions, intuition, incubation, dreams, morphological analysis, SCAMPER, matrix (with modifications), random stimulation, analogies
Most of the challenges that governments, activists, and nonprofits face fit into three categories: design, improvement, and marketing. New programs, policies, or services need to be created (design). Existing programs, policies, and services could be made more effective (improvement). We want people to change peoples' behavior in a certain way or garner their support for some effort of ours (marketing).
+++++++++++
I just now learned that a second edition is due out in May. The second edition contains some new techniques and some new examples.
+++++++++++
If you decide to read Thinkertoys and use the techniques then consider these two pieces of advice. The first is that you should decide what sort of challenge(s) are facing you now. Are they design challenges? Improvement? Marketing?
If you are trying to "sell" people on donating money, voting (at all), voting a certain way, becoming paid members of your organization, or changing their behavior then your challenge is one of marketing.
If you want to get better results from a program of any sort, then this is improvement.
If you want to create a new fundraising campaign, public education project, protest form or method, education program, or social service program then your challenge is design.
With those thoughts in mind, the second piece of advice is to consider which of Michalko's techniques are useful for your type of challenge. Here are my ideas regarding which types of challenges can be best addressed with which techniques:
Marketing - idea grid (with modifications), intuition, fantasy questions, SCAMPER, Phoenix Checklist, mind maps, analogies, scenarios, diagramming, random stimulation, analogies
Improvement - SCAMPER, attribute listing, dreams, intuition, reversal, fractionation, diagramming, random stimulation, analogies
Design - mind maps, fantasy questions, intuition, incubation, dreams, morphological analysis, SCAMPER, matrix (with modifications), random stimulation, analogies
posted by Dr Society | 10:57 AM
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