Finding-Ideas-Outside-the-Box Archives

10 Ways to Start a Blog Post — 01-29-07

January 29, 2007 by Liz 20 Comments

Start with a Few Words

Sometimes a few words can get a whole lot started.

When I look at the people around me . . .
If I could, I’d invent . . .
It happens the same way every time . . .
When I sit down with the news every morning, . . .
Every relationship has an ROI. . . .
When I was kid, I always thought that by now . . .
Can you help me out here? Is this a new thing? . . .
In this economy, anyone . . .
If you want to have a meaningful conversation with . . .
At this very moment, somewhere in the world, . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

One 12-Step Process Model . . . So Many Uses

January 22, 2007 by Liz 2 Comments

What Process Is it?

This is so cool. I was thinking about the processes I follow this weekend. I figured out something you probably already know. The process I outlined in the post called One 12-Step Process . . . What Process Is This? is all of these:

The writing process as we teach it in school.
A great process for testing a concept.
A process to build a brand yourself or your business.
A process to follow for planning a career path or writing a business.

I didn’t realize how these endeavors were in so many ways alike.

It’s amazing what one process model can do.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think I can help with your writing or your business, check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

One 12-Step Process . . . What Process Is This?

January 22, 2007 by Liz 1 Comment

Complex Activities Need Process

When we use a process to structure our thinking, we provide strategy with a safety net. Here’s one 12-step process. Can you name the effort, action, or project that it describes?

Find your big idea — one that uniquely fits you.
Narrow your focus so that you can be more effective.
Organize your thoughts.
Make a plan.
Ask for feedback from folks with more experience.
Adjust your plan in response, as you see fit.
Execute your plan. Let the word out.
Celebrate your accomplishment.
Listen for feedback from folks who find out.
Use the feedback to make more revisions.
Spread the word about the new and improved version.
Celebrate again, but keep testing, listening for feedback, and adjusting. Know that you’ll never be fully finished.

It goes without saying that you can’t develop my plan, and I can’t develop yours.

What process is this? Did I miss any critical steps?

–Me “Liz” Strauss
If you think I can help with your writing or your business, check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Ideas? 20 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

January 20, 2007 by Liz 10 Comments

Get Curious – Ask Questions

What are you thinking right now? Are you thinking about your answer to that question?

We’re good at answering questions. We learn that in school. Sometimes we get so busy preparing our answers that we miss what’s going on around us.

10 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

Imagine you just landed on this planet. You’d have a passel of questions and a totally beginner’s view. The key is not to fix things, but to find new reactions to what you encounter.

Take that beginner’s view. Get curious. React and respond to what you encounter. Ask questions about everything and the ideas start showing up. Start with these 20 questions to kickstart new thoughts.

What do you see what you look at me? What do you see when you look at yourself?
What do you hear when you listen to all of the sounds around you?
What is it that everyone wants to know, but is afraid to ask? What are the silly things we don’t tell people that they should know?
What do we do that is touching or ridiculous?
What do we take for granted that seems to have no logic?
What would you do if you had only one day to spend here?
What of our ordinary buildings, machines, and gadgets would stymie and fascinate you?
What about our planet would amaze you?
What about humanity would inspire you?
If you had a conversation with yourself, what would you talk about?

The ideas are waiting in the details. Twist your view; add a dash of imagination; and take a look.

10 More . . .

I have 10 more questions. They’re all about you.

Do you do stuff like keep your ketchup bottle upside down or choose CDs based on who’s in the music store?
Do you find money that you forgot about in a jacket pocket?
Do you get nervous when a boss starts a friendly conversation for no apparent reason?
Do you know a story that people ask you to tell over and over?
Do you wonder what else you might have done with all of the time that you’ve been blogging?
Do you know the most important thing you’ve learned?
Do you know what gadget you would invent if you could?
Do you have a secret for dealing with folks who cause stress wherever they go?
Do you know what you want to be if you grow up? Will you share an idea or two?
Do you wonder what it’s like to be me the way I wonder what it’s like to be you?

If you answered “yes” to any of those, and you decide to write a post, I’d read your answer. I bet that lots of folks would.

Remember react and respond to what you encounter. Ask questions about everything and the ideas start showing up.

Be irrsistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Mind Mapping: Right Brain Work Ahead — Enter At Your Own Risk

November 14, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Let’s Get Visual

You wake to a song on the radio, an oldie that takes you back to where you heard it. That was at a summer concert on the freshly mown lawn. You can almost smell the grass again. You see the faces of the friends you were with, especially your steady date. Bits of conversation from that night come back to you. You start to laugh at a joke you thought you’d completely forgotten.

Almost all of the work that made that experience happen was your right brain making associations. The song you heard was associated to the event and each detail that radiated out from it, until you had a picture of the event.

Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping — The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential — is a way of taking that kind of relational thinking out of your head and putting it where we can see it.

You might already know how to do it. Chances are you know a kid who can. Grade schools have been teaching how to organize and map ideas this way for a couple of decades. In school this technique is called clustering, idea mapping, concept mapping, or idea webs. They’re part of the curriculum as early as age 7.

When to Use a Mind Map

Mind maps are useful for clearing your mind of the thoughts around an idea. A mind map is best used for capturing an idea and its parts while it’s happening. They work well for most people because they allow for information to be structured in the same way as our brains relay it: I made the mind map below as I was conceiving the basic services for the Perfect Virtual Manager (PVM).

This map represents the thinking at stage 1. It shows the groups PVM would serve and the basic services each might use. The map helped me define the service and became a visual to talk and write from when I was discussing the idea with others. Now the fledgling concept shown here is far more complex.

Perfect Virtual Manager Map

One look at the mind map and folks have the “big picture” of what kind of service I’m offering. It gives them a solid grounding through a visual. What began as a way for me to work with my thoughts has produced a useful tool for sharing the first stage of the offering.

Mind mapping is particularly good for situations in which you want to share somewhat structured ideas with a client, but you don’t want them to look so finished that the client has no room for input.

Here are some resources for mind mapping. You don’t really need software to do it. I find a pencil works well too.

Have you mapped your mind lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Stop Writerâs Block: 10 Minutes to Ideas to Write About

November 9, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Plenty of Ideas — Make Things Up!

A young man wrote this week,asking how he might open his mind to be more creative. We passed emails back and forth. He said he knows that he stops his ideas. He asked if I might point him to how he might open his mind to let the ideas flow.

Do you have that problem too? Let’s check.

Stop right now and make something up. I’m sure you know how. Make me taller or shorter or older or younger, or any some such. Invent a new character in your life who is all evil or who is all good. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Okay we’ve got the making things up part covered. Most of us learned that in childhood.

Making things up is the stuff that ideas are make of. The exercise training for getting better at doing that involves time spent test driving your subconscious and unconscious a bit.

I’m going to show you one way to do that using a photo, your brain, and about 10 minutes.

C’mon turn the page.

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