Planting the Seed

I have written about this technique in my blog before. The following is an excerpt from an email I sent to a small group of people I am managing right now:

"I am a business philosopher. Sometimes I get philosphical.

The creativity technique I wanted to share tonight is called "Planting the seed". What I do is think about a problem (in this case, you just read about it). Spend not much more time than to read it and write it on your todo list and start a blank page in your notebook for your ideas. Then I forget about it and go about doing my daily tasks. What I find is the idea tends to incubate when I am not thinking about it I come up with ideas and solutions. This is where the notebook comes in - capture your ideas in it."

And then I assigned a challenge for them to think about and come up with ideas around. So I will see it the technique is too weird for them and what solutions they find.