Setting Contexts

I can see this point – but I am a firm believer in brainstorming (and mindmapping along the way!). Brainstorming generates more than ideas. It generates community, teamwork, it teaches being open to new ideas and paths of thinking. There are no wrong ideas in a brainstorming session.

But again – this is a different point of view…

blog.pmarca.com: Quote of the week: Why brainstorming is a bad idea: “blog.pmarca.com
Often wrong, never in doubt.
Quote of the week: Why brainstorming is a bad idea
JUL 31, 2007

From Frans Johansson’s book The Medici Effect:

Brainstorming [is] used in nearly all of the world’s largeset companies, nonprofits, and government organizations. And the reasons seem obvious… ‘The average person can think of twice as many ideas when working with a group than when working alone.’… But is it true?

In 1958… psychologists let groups of four people brainstorm about the practical benefits or difficulties that would arise if everyone had an extra thumb on each hand after next year. These people were called ‘real groups’ since they actually brainstormed together. Next, the researchers let ‘virtual groups’ of four people generate ideas around the ‘thumb problem’, but they had to brainstorm individually, in separate “

(Via http://blog.pmarca.com.)

BTW – http://blog.pmarca.com is one of my must reads each day.