News blog

Why brainstorming doesn't work

8th November 2011: We often were critical to brainstorming and other similar techniques like idea cards that promise a quick way to creativity. I think the quick ideas from such techniques are badly rooted and will mostly fall appart when "put in the rain". For producing deeply grounded synergetic and recilient creative resolutions to complex problems one needs to go into longer processes such as described long ago by Jaques Hadarmad. His model was described with four stages, preparation, incubation, illumination and evaluation. This indicates an individual creativity but also a creativity in context or a systemic model of creativity as described by e.g. Csikszentmihalyi. We still use brain storming at occations and moments in the process, but the studies referred to in the article below make me doupt even that. Im looking forward to some tests...

Read the Washington Post blog article here: >>>>>>

Here is the link to one of the studies by Nicholas W. Kohn and Steven M. Smith
Collaborative fixation: Effects of others' ideas on brainstorming >>>>>>

Collaborative fixation: Effects of others' ideas on brainstorming^†

Nicholas W. Kohn^1,*,
Steven M. Smith²

Risk Management

2nd October 2011: Magnus Bjelkerud had a lecture on the topic of Risk Management for the AHO master students. He especially emphazised the advantage of the GIGA-maps to identify hazards in a system.

Harold Nelson at AHO

Nelson-bw

31st November 2011: Professor Harold Nelson visited the S.O.D. studio and gave a lecture and had a discussion with the students about their projects. Harold Nelson is one of the important scholars when it comes to systems thinking in design and it was a great pleasure to hear him lecture.

GIGA-mapping workshop in Tallin

30th October 2011: The 17th to 21st Oct we did run a GIGA-mapping workshop at the Technical University of Tallin, Estland at the design department. Twenty masters students, many international and with prior work experience, working with design for physical activity under the guidance of professor Martin Pärn participated. The feedback from the workshop was very good!

GIGA-mapping workshop in Kolding

30th September 2011: In September we conducted a GIGA-mapping workshop at the Kolding School of Design in Denmark.

Within four days the students defined area of interrest. mapped out the "landscape" of this area and developed extensive mappings that were redesigned digitally.