Page 138 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

c•il to work more I lo.ti.1\ ‘vith local busine. , and inithition
of opportunities tor students to contribute to the promotional
literature and the video tape."'

Jeffrey McElnea, president of Einson Freeman, Inc., an award-
winning and highly profitable New Jersey sales promotion
agency, describes a modified version of the brainstorming
process as a vital component of his firm's success: "For each
new campaign, we flash every established [sales promotion]
technique onto a screen. Then we go through each alterna-
tive and hypothetically try to fit the product to it—just to see
what would happen. Then we start to combine and recom-
bine the techniques, and there's where the unique part comes
in. New techniques are created by synthesizing the old." In
one of the agency's award-winning campaigns, "The Smaller
the Better Sweepstakes," contestants had to walk into a store
and listen to the new Sony Super Walkman to find out
whether they had won a prize."

One Southern Bell manager uses case situations to counter
the adverse impact of personalities in brainstorming prob-
lem-solving situations. She poses the problem in the form of
a case. As moderator, she rewards participation but not ideas,
thus avoiding a reward-seeking environment.

Most major Japanese firms use some version of brainstorm-
ing. For example, Honda engineers attribute a major break-
through in engine design to a brainstorming exercise that
resulted in a 35 percent jump in fuel efficiency in the 1992
Civic VX. 1 2

SUMMARY OF STEPS

1. Select a group consisting of six to twelve people, a leader and a recorder.
2. The leader defines the problem for the group, preferably in advance of the

brainstorming session.
3. The group suggests solutions to the problem in an interactive format, fol-

lowing the four rules of brainstorming:
a. No judgments are made about any suggestion.
b. All ideas, even absurd or impractical ones, are welcome.
c. Quantity of ideas is a major objective, since it leads to quality.
d. Ideas may be combined, refined, and piggybacked.
4. After twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, the group takes a break and then
returns to critique the ideas.

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