Tag: kalideascope
Some time ago, I took James Webb Young’s kaleidoscope analogy for having ideas and ran with it, building a whole model for helping engineers (and other humans) understand…
In December 2016, I visited my favourite building, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia. That afternoon, the low sun shone straight in through the stained-glass windows in the west wall, filling…
Two days ago we had the Convergent Poem, full of ways of working that engineers (and other humans) tend to get praise for. Here is its awkward sibling,…
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about doing more with the tags on this blog. Tags are the keywords that I assign to every post on this blog….
Juice the Brief is one of my favourite techniques for uncovering the possibilities hidden in a design brief. It’s a simple yet powerful way to stimulate creativity, generate…
Having spent his whole professional career performing and recording symphonic music, my father, Nigel Broadbent, is a font of knowledge about composers’ creative methods. For engineers (and other…
Having ideas can be hard, especially when we already have a first idea. How do we trick our brain into thinking that we should go in search of…
In this post I share some initial thoughts on how using ChatGPT to generate ideas changes creative thinking for engineers, and other humans. My simple model for idea…
There’s lots of regenerative design thoughts bubbling around between my ears. I often get to a point in my creative process where I feel I can’t write something…
I have nothing to say but lots to show you – Walter Benjamin. I heard this quote this morning on In Our Time and it really struck me….
‘Act it Out’ is my favourite technique for shifting creative thinking from the mind to the body. This post is another in my series on Turning the Kalideascope,…
Changing the key system is a technique I teach to help people develop new ideas when their thinking has become stuck. It’s one of my techniques for ‘turning…
I have had the great fortune of having spent three weeks in France, a good portion of it cycling. Touring is a great way to leave behind your…
Here’s four things you can do straight away to give your project a creative boost. Write down the brief. What are you trying to do? Who are you…
Asking what if. It’s my go-to technique for stimulating rapid idea generation in groups. In this post, the latest in my series on creative thinking tools for projects,…
We move now in my series of posts on tools for creative thinking from gathering inputs to stimulating new connections. This is what I call ‘Turning the Kalideacope‘….
There are some inputs to our creative process that we build up over time so that we are ready to draw on them whenever we work on a…
We need creative thinking tools in our project toolkit to get the most out the opportunities that a new project offers. Projects provide a setting in which people…
Together, the people around you know so much more than you do. In my last post for now on Filling the Kalideacope – gathering inputs for the creative…
This post is another in my series about inputs to the creative process, what I call ‘Filling the Kalideascope‘. Today’s input is visiting the site, and it cuts…
My starting point for gathering inputs to a creative project is the working brief. The technique that I use with participants in my workshops is what I call…
Yesterday I wrote about the inputs you might gather at the start of a creative project. These are what I call inputs in the moment. But there is…
In my last post I described the Kalideascope as a tool for having ideas. You fill it with inputs and then turn it to create new the connections…
In my last post I cited James Webb Young’s definition of an idea as being a new arrangement of existing elements. He goes on to suggest having an…
This course, which I deliver at Constructivist for the Institution of Structural Engineers is my longest running conceptual design training course. It is an introductory course, which splits…
I spend most of my time designing creativity training for engineers. In this episode we flip the format. Alexie Sommer, Independent Design and Communication Director and collaborator on…
My Dad and I talk about chords. How would you get from one key in a piece of music to another? To onlookers, it might seem as though…
This week I have had the feeling that I have been struggling recently to find focus on my creative work. I have lots of projects on at the…