Brainstories!
Bored with brainstorming? Try creating brainstories -- "off the cuff" anecdotes with the power to give you a whole new perspective on the problem at hand. Learning how to build your own brainstories takes just minutes, and you'll be amazed at the insights that even total beginners can generate!
What is a Brainstory?
Brainstories are randomly-generated tales you make up on the spot to compensate for missing information. Any question that would normally require time-consuming research, extensive surveys, or in-depth studies to answer can be explored with a brainstory.
How can I benefit from Brainstories?
Brainstories will never be a substitute for hard data or careful research -- and they aren't meant to be.
When research or survey time is limited, though, a brainstory session can force you out of familiar ways of thinking about a problem and help you see perspectives other than your own.
At the very least, brainstories will free you from the tyranny of The First Answer. Especially in creative or corporate settings, people hungry for action tend to latch on to the first answer, idea, or solution they manufacture. A brainstory combats this tendency by encouraging you to explore a line of thinking that's completely divorced from your usual train of thought.
Finally, because brainstories are completely made up, people "loosen up" as they create them -- a fact that often leads them to vocalize things they'd normally suppress. The result? People in a brainstory session tend to say more of what they really think -- they're just telling a story, after all!
How do I make up Brainstories?
It's easy!
1) Start with a question that would normally require hours and hours of research, documentation, or work to answer. Some examples include:
- What do customers really think about our products?
- What is a call to our customer service call line like?
- What is our current order fulfillment process?
- What are the three major turning points in the novel I'm writing?
- What three factors made my main character into such an emotional cripple?
- What different ideas can I combine to generate a startling work of art?
- What do trainees really think about the courses offered at the corporate university?
2) Draw three Tarot cards (or three cards from the Instant Ideas! deck, if you prefer). Place these in a straight line, one after the other, from left to right.
3) Think of the cards as an outline for a story designed to answer your question. Some examples:
In answer to the question "What do customers really think about our products?", you might draw three cards:
- How the customer feels at the moment of purchase.
- How the customer feels while using the product.
- How the customer feels after having used the product.
In answer to the question, "What is our current order fulfillment process?", you could say cards 1, 2, and 3 represent:
- What happens when an order comes in
- What actions are taken next
- What factors influence the success of the order fulfillment process
In answer to the question, "What three factors made my main character into such an emotional cripple," you could assign the following values to the three cards:
- An incident from his early life
- A reinforcing incident from his teenage years
- A reinforcing incident from his early adulthood.
4) Write or tell your brainstory -- a completely made up answer to the question at hand. Here's a sample brainstory, generated on the fly:
In answer to the question, "What do customers really think about our products?", Ricco drew three cards from the Instant Ideas! deck:
- Feeling at the moment of purchase - Blue 11 - Shyness
- Feeling while using the product - Yellow 13 - Calculation
- Feeling after having used the product - Red 3 - Pursuit
The resulting brainstory: "Initially, customers have a hard time finding our product, because the packaging makes it blend in with all the others [Shyness]. When they do find it, they spend a lot of time wondering whether or not there's any real benefit associated with switching to our product [Shyness]. While they use the product, they're surprised by how little of it is required to get the same lather they get while using more of their old shampoo [Calculation]. They're so shocked by this, they stand there in the shower and check the bottle, the net weight, and the price all over again [Calculation]. Finally, after having actually used the product, they dedicate themselves to finding it again [Pursuit] and telling others about it [Pursuit]."
5) Once your brainstory is told, scan it for information or ideas that might prompt actual research or important action. For example, based on the brainstory told above, Ricco's company might create the following "To Do" list:
- Compare our packaging to the competitors. How different are we? How easy are we to see on the shelf?
- Analyze how effectively we're communicating the benefits of our product. Are we using language the customer will respond to?
- Do customers realize that they can use half as much of our product and get the same results they'll get with other shampoos? Are we doing an effective job of communicating the fact that twelve ounces of our shampoo sells for the same price as the competitor's brand -- but goes twice as far?
- What are we doing to reward faithful customers? Might a "Buy one bottle, get the next for half-price" promotion be worthwhile? How can we encourage customers to tell friends and family about our product?
Clearly, a brainstory can't take the place of actual research -- but the stories you create with this process can:
- force you to see your situation or process in a new light
- suggest areas that do need additional research or study
- give people a forum in which they feel free to say something they think, but are afraid to say outright.
What are my next steps?
Download the free Instant Ideas! deck (don�t forget you�ll need the Orphalese Tarot software in order to shuffle and deal the cards) or get out your handy Tarot deck -- and give brainstories a try today!
