One of the non-digital multimedia experiences I have experienced is brainstorming. On the IAT (interactive and technology)course, our instructor introduced the method to us. She breaks us into several small groups of 5 and asks us brainstorming on the final project: a 3-minutes stop motion animation. First, we voted for a leader from our group. As a leader, he needs to keep the discussion on the topic. And notes down all the ideas on the whiteboard. There are 4 core principles in a good brainstorm process. First, postpone the evaluation. When your group member is proposing ideas, don’t evaluate them. This will undermine the confidence of the proposer and affect the effect of brainstorming.

The second principle is not to set limit on ideas. We should encourage people to come up with creative and wild ideas in brainstorming. Thirdly, build your ideas on others’ ideas(chain reaction). Thus, we can extend from one basic idea to explore more creative ones. And the most important principle is “Win by quantity”, which is the goal of brainstorming. The more ideas come up, the more possibilities there are.

I think brainstorming is really interesting and effective because it lets everyone in the group engage in it. And more people can produce greater strength, more brains can create better ideas. It also improves our teamwork and communication skills. I think the most fundamental reason why brainstorming can create creative ideas is that everyone in the group has a sense of competition. In brainstorming, the competitive psychology promotes the efficiency of people’s psychological activities and creates more and better ideas than usual.

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