Random stimulus

Random stimulus is a well-known technique of generating ideas, the essence of which is in building links between a given topic and an arbitrary object (stimulus). At first, it seems too simple, even primitive, but this feeling is deceptive. With practice, this tool is much deeper, more convenient and more efficient than it looks at first glance.

Anything can act as an incentive - for example, a randomly chosen word from a dictionary or a thing from your environment. There are no wrong incentives. However, if you are at the very beginning of mastering this technique, choose any number from 1 to 100 and use the list of random incentives.

Instruction

1. Clearly formulate the task.
2. Select the incentive word and write it next to the task. It is often useful to write down its properties or distinctive features under the stimulus, but if there are not enough of them, supplement them with other associations.
3. Keep in mind the task and stimulus, trying to apply the property of the stimulus to the task. After a while, the connection between the stimulus and the decision, from which ideas can be born, will begin to arise in your mind. Fix them without going into a detailed description or assessment, and move on to the next property.
4. After the break, look at the resulting list with a fresh look, select the most promising ideas and refine them.

Rules for working with a random stimulus

• You can not change the selected incentive - for example, flipping through the dictionary in search of more suitable words - even if it seems to you that it is unsuccessful. As already mentioned, the wrong incentives do not exist. Leafing through the dictionary, we are actually moving away from the search for new solutions - we are trying to find something corresponding to our usual ideas, while the task is to go beyond them.
• To work with the stimulus is given a short time (3-5 minutes). With a certain practice, this is enough to generate about a dozen ideas.
• If the work fails, do not try again until the next day - better try another tool.

One of the essential conditions for success here (as in most other methods of creating ideas) is a well-formulated task. What kind of idea do you need? For example, if you want to create a blog idea, do you mean first of all the idea of ​​the main topic of the blog, its name, design, content, ideas of individual articles or something else? The more specific the wording, the more interesting and more useful the ideas received.

Our goal in creating ideas is not to create something unseen, out of the ordinary, but to successfully solve our specific task. For example, referring again to our example - the task of creating a good blog, we will see that a good blog is not only an interesting, but also understandable blog, while everything unseen though interesting, but usually incomprehensible. The clearer and more concrete the task, the better the result will be, and vice versa, with one addition: if the task is large, you should not expect ready solutions from random stimulus - most likely these will be raw ideas that need improvement.

It is not necessary to be “honest” - use the incentive literally, directly, or build only the connections directly arising from it. Often interesting solutions are obtained when it is possible to move from a literal understanding of the stimulus to more abstract connections.

And one more thing that often stumbles at the beginning of mastering the technique of a random stimulus. Do not take as a learning task naming (inventing the name) - this task is too difficult to start.

Random stimulus is a highly productive technique for generating ideas and one of the key tools for understanding the mechanisms of creative thinking. However, in order to master it, we need enough practice. By practicing random stimulus on your immediate tasks, you will see that each time you get better and better.

Story

The history of the random stimulus goes into a deep past, to the ancient systems of the interpretation of signs (for example, such as the Greek oracles). A rather detailed description of the modern version of this method is in Edward de Bono’s book “Lateral Thinking”, a more popularized one is in Michael Micalco’s book in Thinkertoys.