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Ever read an article that just strikes a nerve and sticks with you well after you read it? The recent (and somewhat controversial) Wall Street Journal article on brainstorming, Cubicle Culture, is one of those articles for me. I wanted to pull out a few choice quotes, but since I had it saved using Scrapbook for Firefox and thought others may want to read it (who don't have a registration) - here it goes... See also: The Tyranny of the Big Idea.

Cubicle Culture By Jared Sandberg

Some brainstorming sessions get off to a shaky start because the participants subscribe to a tenet that is provably false: "There's no such thing as a bad idea."

But there are plenty of other reasons why such sessions, intended to harvest good ideas, are often the source of bad ones. For starters, there's self-consciousness. "We sit there looking embarrassed like we're all new to a nudist colony," says Joe Polidoro, who has worked for a variety of banks. There's also the problem that creativity and its mulish muse can't be scheduled between, say, 9:15 and 9:45. Says Kate Lee, who used to work for General Electric: "I'm more mercurial than that."

John Clark, a former university dean of engineering, says brainstorming sessions come in handy to distribute blame in the event of failure. But in his experience, most often someone hijacks the topic at hand, tries to prove everyone else wrong, works to impress the superiors who are present, or just plain blathers for his own enjoyment. "I can't remember a single instance where a group produced a really creative idea," he says.

In fact, great brainstorming sessions are possible, but they require the planning of a state dinner, plenty of rules, and the suspension of ego, ingratiation and political railroading. Hosts have to hope that people won't expend creative energy trying to tell others their ideas are bad without actually telling them that -- admittedly a real business skill. And they have to cross their fingers that the session won't deteriorate into what some people call "blamestorming" or "coblabberation," where you get nowhere or settle on something mediocre to be done with it.

The popularity of brainstorming results in part from corporate America's knee-jerk faith in teams. In fact, the father of brainstorming, advertising executive Alex Osborn, advocated using people to storm a corporate problem "in commando fashion." And let yourself be labeled a "nonteam player," and you might as well start your own one-person consultancy.

But teams aren't necessarily so great. "There are so many things people do in management because they think it's good, but there's no evidence for it," says Paul B. Paulus, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. "Teamwork is one example. Brainstorming is another." Prof. Paulus conducted research on the number and quality of ideas of four people brainstorming together versus four people brainstorming by themselves. Typically, group brainstormers perform at about half the level they would if they brainstormed alone.

That's why if you don't carefully follow procedures, you risk wasting a lot of energy. "If you leave groups to their own devices, they're going to do a very miserable job," says Prof. Paulus. But if people brainstorm alone after the group brainstorming session, it can be productive, he says, adding, "It's ironic: You tap the benefits of groups alone. Everyone still presumes the best brainstorming is group brainstorming."

David Perkins, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, warns that sometimes group sessions can result in one person's bad idea tainting and limiting the range of others' ideas. "The best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down privately and then bring them in," he says. You want group diversity but no more than five to seven people or you risk ending up with "coblabberation."

"If you stand back and think about [brainstorming], it's plainly inefficient," says Prof. Perkins. But, he says, "sometimes you take the brainstorming approach because you want everyone to feel they have a voice."

That shouldn't be confused, though, with actually having a voice, says Christopher Holland, a policy analyst for the Australian government. "These things are usually designed to give people the idea that they have input into decisions when the decisions have already been decided."

When the goal really is ideas, some companies resort to hiring facilitators. Outsiders don't have political dogs in the fight and can, as Bill Hall learned, make people "get back in line." The last time Mr. Hall tried to conduct a session himself on how to save his organization money, "it quickly degenerated into a worthless day," he says.

Paul Baard, a professor of organizational psychology at Fordham University's School of Business, suggests starting off like this: "No one, present or not here, is going to be hurt during this process. We will not be using ridicule ... ."

For Martha McGuire, a senior vice president at a bank, the majority of brainstorming sessions arrive at obvious conclusions, or worse. "You end up with the more pedestrian solution that you would have had had you not held the session," she says.

Most of the details of the brainstorming sessions Ms. McGuire has participated in are a blur. The exception: a session in which her colleagues found a way to syndicate a huge credit facility despite prickly risks. And that one was memorable because it actually succeeded. So how many didn't? "It just feels like there were a lot," she says.

• Email me at jared.sandberg@wsj.com1.— Jared Sandberg
Wall Street Journal 2006-06-13

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• The 10 Truths of 'Real' Guerrilla Marketers - "People will get excited about your initiatives only if you clearly articulate how your proposition will liberate your customers in a way none of your competitors can. That is the true cause and banner of your guerrilla campaign. And if you can't come up with it, don't bother with the rest of this list." Though I now, ah hem, completely disagree with the section under the title "Deploy Mercenaries Wisely".
• How to Use Social Media in B2B Marketing - "The ITtoolbox CEO describes the differences between consumer communities of interest and professional communities of practice.... A community of interest is an online community where the primary value is based on the personal or social interests of its members. Examples include MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. A community of practice is an online community where the primary value is based on professional interests and is created in the course of members performing their jobs. Examples include ITtoolbox and LinkedIn."

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Execs Unhappy with Marketing, Moving Spend Online - "Online spending of all types grew to more than a quarter of marketing budgets. We could see even more growth online if executives start spending the larger budgets they have planned for the second quarter."
• Marketing to Women, Marketing to Men - based on information about how they read fiction. (via Marktd)
• Is Your Copy Trusted by Google?
• Reverse Engineering Your Competitions’ Keyword Strategy
• MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites
  

The Too Cool: Led-Digest.com email list for always having great search engine optimization discussions. Like this one from today - "Just be aware that those who have the high profile names in SEO may not be grounded in reality at all. Maybe they spend too much time talking, and not enough time working and analyzing." - As I say all the time.

"You're like a dull knife / Jack, you just ain't cutting" Talking Loud And Saying Nothing - James Brown

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

Yes, a girl has been busy and MIA! Well, as some of you know, I traded in my Consulting in my PJ's and 24 hour workdays for life in the Strategy Group of an Online Agency. Finally (finally!), I've been given the freedom to work from a "What if?" perspective. As in: "What if Brand X were doing ____ (fill in the blank with new media marketing channel)?" and you 'll see why I am super excited. Wouldn't you feel like you were given the Golden Ticket - a la Willy Wonka - if you could let your mind wonder to all the Online Marketing initiatives that a Brand could explore? And some of you called me crazy for giving up the PJ's for pumps - LOL!

Please note: There is a back log of email, messages, blog posts, etc. that are bookmarked that I still have to get through....

BTW: What's up with Y!360 being all jacked? Seriously, what's up with being taken to the Blog Settings page when I try to Save a post and then have to rewrite it?

The What Have I Been Reading Reading list:

• How Search Branding Is Better - "The fact that search unifies the buy-flow means a lot for search branding. Traditional branding is great at making people like you, but it's less capable at conveying the idea of relevance. Search, on the other hand, is built entirely on relevance--and so being present in the engines carries the associations of the engines' relevance with it." See also: Driving Search Presence through Industry Participation - I love that this article ties the "conversations" created back to Search Marketing.
• The Harvard Business Review's Excellent Avatar-Based Marketing - "When marketing online you want sustained engagement with the brand rather than just a click-through.... Avatars create an opportunity for just this type of engagement." See also: Advertising and Branding Models in Social Virtual Worlds (PPT)- an oldie but a goodie & Counting Virtual World Clickthroughs
• Your Video vs. Big Media Video - "By comparison, YouTube, the fast-growing video phenomenon, claims that 50 million videos are viewed each day on its site. Put another way, more than 2 million videos are viewed per hour on YouTube vs. 5,000 videos purchased per hour on iTunes, arguably the most successful distribution platform for digital content." See also: Camera. Action. Edit. Now, Await Reviews - Online Video Editing Software. & Marketing Movies, the Web 2.0 Way
• Marketing Through Common Short Codes - "Due to their ease of use for consumers, CSCs help increase consumer response to advertising and marketing promotions. They allow brands to offer easy-to-use, relevant, entertaining information that ultimately drives consumer action." See also: The Mobile Marketing Association's Short Code Primer (PDF) & P&G Moves Into Mobile-Marketing
• Kid Marketing Or, Why Your Kids Want The Toyota Scion "After playing around a bit on Postopia.com, my daughter’s favorite site as of late, I was reminded again of the power of kid marketing. She’s already made us go to Wal Mart twice to buy ‘post’ cereals. She’s only interested in Post cereals. She doesn’t care what kind, she just needs the code on the box to create a ‘Big Mouth’."

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• How the Social Web Should Impact Strategy. Jim Nail is everywhere these days, no?
• Carat, Carat, Carat! (Gotta love'em): MySpace + World Cup & Motorola Mobilizes MySpace
• General Mills to Let Agencies Call the Shots
• What every CEO needs to know about Web>1.0 / Web<3.0 (I am officially a tech nerd for writing that - LOL!)
• Marketers Step Up Their (Video) Game
• A Meeting of Minds in the Video Space
• What's You're Rebranding Experience

The Too Cool: Goes to the new additions to my daily reading list:Marktd, We're As Disappointed As You Are (Especially the great assignments from: The Account Planning School of the Web) & Word-of-Mouth Communication Study


"It's poetry in motion / And now she's making love to me / The spheres are in commotion / The elements in harmony." - She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby

Posted by: Natasha "That Girl From Marketing" Robinson