We all love those EUREKA! moments but they can seem elusive, especially when we feel pressured to come up with the ultimate solution to an ongoing problem.

How do we encourage those lightbulb moments on demand?

It’s a problem that can create a wall of resistance which prevents companies from moving forward with their marketing efforts.

We are all inundated with online content every day, so it’s essential to find fresh, new and unique ways to tell our company’s story. We want to share with you three techniques that we use when we are coming up with our out-of-the-box ideas for our corporate video clients.

Change Your Environment

Stand on your head and you’ll instantly see the world from a different angle. If you do have headstands in your skillset, by all means try it! For the rest of us, we can change our physical environment to change the way we approach a problem. When we are in fresh surroundings

our brains operate differently and the creative problem solving areas of our brains ignite. You may have noticed this affect when you’re on vacation in a unknown destination. You are constantly finding innovative and inspired solutions to the challenges you are faced with; language translation, decoding a map, working out a foreign public transport system to name a few.

In the office environment we can trigger a similar response by moving your brainstorming meetings to a new area of your office building, or (even better) moving your meeting outdoors to a local park or even a cafe. You can also move chairs around or switch seats with your colleagues, or even remove chairs and sit on the floor. Music can be another powerful creative stimulant, try playing movie soundtracks at a low level in the background of your meeting.

Mind Mapping

This exercise can be done by individuals and as a group. We like to start individually. Everyone has a big piece of paper and a marker, we set a timer for 2 minutes and we set a starting point: e.g.: The most effective security software available. Start with your central idea in the middle of your page and then as ideas relating to this blossom, draw a line from the originating idea, and add it in a new bubble. When you have 3-4 related idea bubbles, refocus your concentration to the new secondary idea and bubbles and repeat the same steps. The key to Mind Mapping is to NOT censor yourself. Sometimes it’s the craziest, seemingly unrelated responses that the final ideas are inspired by. Once you’ve completed the process individually, compare results with your colleagues and look for common threads as well as ideas that really excite the team. You may want to use the “hottest” results and start another Mind Mapping exercise as a group using a whiteboard or large sheet of paper, so that all can follow along and contribute.

Right Brain Stimulation

There are many studies about the differences in right brain stimulation when you compare typing on a device versus using a pen and paper. When we pick up a pen and put it to paper the visceral sensations awaken more areas in the right side of our brains – the creative side. When it comes to brainstorming, we ban devices from the room/area we are working in. Not only are they a distraction, we want to utilize the power of scribbling! An exercise that takes this concept a step further, is to ask your team to draw pictures in relation the central starting point. Many a concept has been discovered by creating small doodles and drawings of the ideas that we come up with. This technique is also fun, and that should never be underestimated. A sense of playfulness is very beneficial when thinking outside the box is required! We need to tap into our childhood abandon of the “right” answer, and open our minds to every possibility.

Bonus Tip: Apply The #1 Improv Rule:

When actors and comedians are studying Improvisation, one rule trumps all. No’s are not allowed! A performer cannot veto an idea that is presented to them by another artist. They must accept the idea and respond with an affirmative: Yes and…

This rule should also apply to brainstorm meetings. There’s nothing that will kill an idea faster than a negative nelly! It’s important to nurture an environment where every member of the team feels as if they can heard, that their ideas will be considered, no matter how wacky.

Before you dismiss these ideas as a waste of time, consider the offices of some of the most innovative companies in the world. Google, Uber, and Pixar spend millions of dollars each year in their efforts to create an environment that will continually inspire their teams to think big. You might not have the budget to install a hot air balloon meeting room (Google) or a designated nap rooms for a quick snooze (Uber), but you can make small changes that will generate a big response.

And if you would like some help – we can be your creative collaborators and will guide your through the process, or even do it for you if you prefer! Send us an email to get started (info@frontrunnerfilmsllc.com), or visit our website to find out more about why we’re different to other corporate video production companies and see the out of the box ideas we’ve created for our clients.