Brain Storm...or Brain Drizzle

March 11th, 2010 - What do you call putting eight people in a room from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. everyday for 4 and a half days? Well some would say torture, of course not me. Others might say bonding. But if you work in corporate America it is called "brainstorming".

When trying to solve a problem in a short period of time there is nothing like "brainstorming". This is where a select group of people gather together to solve a business problem. If you have participated in brainstorming before you are well aware of the dynamics of the group. Because no matter how many times you participate in how ever many groups, the overall makeup is the same. There is always the one person whose brain works on overdrive. They get an idea, you capture it, and then they say, but really it should be...and they rethink it. Meanwhile you are still trying to understand the first idea. Then there is the naysayer. No matter what you say, they will repeat, we did that before and it didn't work or no one liked it. It will only be when you finally, after several hours of discussion, and you change your mind, that the naysayer will say, well maybe it could work now, after all times have changed. My favorite type, and one I can relate to, is the one whose patience sometimes run short. They are like, let's go, let's not beat this to death, doesn't have to be perfect, 80/20 rule, good enough...well you get the picture. Inevitable there is also the real quiet one, they sit quietly and barely talk, oh but when they do, what they say is profound. The rest of the group is blown away by their insitefulness. It is like E.F. Hutton, when you want to capture someone's attention...whisper. You also have the note keeper, who is busy pounding away on the keyboard, trying to capture the thoughts of 7 people talking above each other. Now this is the person who holds the power. They can bring the entire group to a halt, just by stopping their typing. It goes quiet in the room, all eyes go to that person, and in unison they all say, "did you get all that". The person remains quiet for a few minutes, which seems like forever, they rub their forehead, do a slight nod back and forth and finally after an eternity they say, "yeah got it". A sigh of relief is heard through out the room, and a bio-break it called. The last and most imporant type is the person or persons, who sit at the right hand of whomever you are doing the work for and will be an influential person presenting the results..usually this person is known as the 'knowledge czar' and they are a force to be reckoned with. Tread carefully and hang on every word for if they leave the group, the "brainstorming" quickly turns to "braindrizzling", and the result you will have could be terrific, creative, and brilliant, but it will have nothing to do with solving the business problem.

I thought with modern technology the need to gather folks in a room to talk face to face was outdated. We now have crowdsourcing, video conferencing, and cameras right on our desktops, who needs to travel and sit in a room together and actually talk face to face, and draw on a white board, and holler over each other, and spill lunch with each other, Who needs this? Apparently Corporate America as it is the best way to solve a large problem in the shortest amount of time. And now this brain is done storming and drizzling and the only thing it is going to do now, is DREAM....