Brainstroming and Social Change, Again

Last time I wrote about brainstorming techniques that would help social innovators and activists to get better results. This post builds on that idea with some advice on what sorts of social innovation or activism tasks can be helped by using various brainstorming techniques. You’ll need to do a little homework after reading this post, and might need a reference source while you read. I suggest http://www.mindtools.com/ for information on the brainstorming techniques I’ll mention here.

Here is my brief guide to common tasks and a brainstorming technique to use with each:

1. Advocacy - random input for demonstration tactics and messages
2. Education - morphological analysis for alternatives to the usual component parts
3. Fundraising - random input for strategy and tactics; provocations
4. Policy - morphological analysis, SCAMPER
5. Program design - provocations, morphological analysis, SCAMPER
6. Social marketing - random input, morphological analysis

Provocations and random input are described in Edward De Bono’s book Serious Creativity. Random input, SCAMPER, and morphological analysis are covered in Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko.