My family and I were sitting around a campfire in the deep woods of Ontario many years ago. The kids were restless as it was raining all day. Trying to keep ourselves entertained, my 8 year old daughter came up with a creative game called “three things”.
The premise of the game was for one person to pick three random things and the other would immediately have to tell a story that combined all three things. We played this for hours the first time and the time passed quickly and over the years we have become very good at this rapid story development.
Years later, when I was researching some design theory for teaching my MBA class I was fascinated by the work of a group of Harvard and MIT researchers that were essentially creating the same thing just on a much more theoretical basis. So combining my daughters game and the work from these researchers I have been able to come up with some very interesting and unique solutions.
The point is that even the most simple game with association can yield terrific results. Associational-thinking is the place where creativity and innovation collide. This type of brain exercise using these three random things for interconnection will become (if it’s not already) an important tool for then next generation of innovators.
– Kelly Parke
