Tools for thinking
I'm a longtime fan of brainstorming techniques and methods for making the most out of meetings and that kind of stuff. Last week I was reading this post at the excellent Creating Passionate Users blog, and was reminded of IDEOs wonderful brainstorming cards.
This (and the links to their forerunners, Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards) made me wonder if something similar could be done for Greenpeace campaigns. A few hours of looking at Greenpeace campaigns and scribbling on bits of cardboard later and I have a prototype...
The plan was simple. Produce 52 statements that will make people think interesting thoughts about their campaigns. Write them on bits of card. Use the cards in brainstorms. Easy right?
If you want to try this at home, find 52 bits of card and write the following things on them - or make up your own. In fact, make up your own and leave them in the comments.
Things to think about
Provide a solution
Do it to a person
Make it really BIG
Recycle an idea
Give the victims a voice
Show what victory looks like
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Make it look really good
Highlight the good guys
Offer to help
Dress well
How would another organisation do it?
Go there
Surprise the observers
Teach people something
Make your commitment visible
Borrow someone else's symbol
Give everyone a chance to do something
Show the victims
Turn your message upside down
Start at the beginning
Do it yourself
Make it personal
Give them a choice
Attempt the impossible
Make a comparison
Respond today to tomorrow's emergency
Keep it simple
Bring your support with you
Show the ugly bits
Behave as if you're in charge
Make the protest permanent
Show the whole process
Take some guests along
Make it fun
Tell a story
Talk about morality
Invite some friends
Stop something, even for a second
Shock with the message
Show what you're saving
Assign blame
Move the problem somewhere else
Take a really big gamble
Ask nicely
Choose a figurehead
Highlight unexpected supporters
Make the hidden obvious
Take unreasonable precautions
Start at the end
Interrupt something important
Explain it without words
Then take them along to your next campaign brainstorm or whatever and see what they inspire. Or pick three at random and come up with a campaign that does all of them. For instance spend five minutes on the following...
"Think of a way to stop Denmark attending the 'normalisation' meeting Japan is holding about the IWC
Take unreasonable precautions
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Assign blame"
Leave suggestions for that in the comments too....
Follow Greenpeace »
Comments
This is in line with the time-honored Greenpeace tradition of consulting the I-Ching for strategic and tactical advice -- a way of channelling what Bryan Guyson and William Burroughs called "The Third Mind" -- chance as collaborator.
Imagine it as an opera
Draw it
Photograph it
Lay out the critical path as a board game
Name the Dominos
Make the audience essential
Name the superpower (mindreading? x-ray vision? muscles of steel?) that would win the objective
Put the target on a dartboard
Explain it to a child
Posted by: Brianfit![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/nav-commenters.gif)
|
February 8, 2007 4:33 PM
I've been a Greenpeace member for a while, but I didn't know there was a "time-honored Greenpeace tradition of consulting the I-Ching for strategic and tactical advice". That's good to hear, have a look at my I Ching program if you want.
Posted by: stevev | February 9, 2007 4:21 AM
Cool. The iChing was a major part of Greenpeace decision making in the early days, less so now I'm afraid. However I have been looking for an iChing program to add to our intranet - in an attempt to revive the idea. I'll be sure to check yours out.
Posted by: Martin Lloyd | February 9, 2007 9:01 AM
The IChing is used more recently than you think :-)
Posted by: Lisa | February 9, 2007 12:43 PM
Back in the days when Bob Hunter was the leading luminary, the I-Ching was used to determine which way to steer the ship to find the whalers and at the decision-making meetings of the earliest founders. See "Warriors of the Rainbow" by Bob Hunter and "Greenpeace" by Rex Wyler for more on that.
I wrote a Dos-based version of the I-Ching back in the 80s, which a few Greenpeace early adopters of computer technology used.
Lotus 1-2-3 style menus, 64-bit colour, compression techniques that made it deliverable on a single 720k floppy... the nines.
Posted by: Brianfit | February 9, 2007 1:25 PM
Yeah, I saw your I Ching program on the web a few months ago, it looks good, and sent you a message because I also wrote an I Ching program in Turbo Pascal about the same time, that was the second version, the first was a couple of years earlier in Apple BASIC, this is the third, the fourth will be in Java, if I ever finish this one. Eventually I might even get it right.
Posted by: stevev | February 9, 2007 2:50 PM