Whack Your Thinking
Most creativity techniques are concerned with forcing us out of our usual ways of looking at things.
The lateral thinking techniques of Edward de Bono are typical. De Bono is renowned for his highly effective systematic approaches to generate alternative points of view. However, while the term that De Bono popularised, ‘lateral thinking’ is often used synonymously with creativity, his is not the only approach.
An approach that has many advocates is Roger Von Oech’s ‘Creative Whack Pack’. This consists of a pack of cards, each of which consists of a story and a challenge to look at your problem or situation in a different way.
The cards are organised into different suits, each of which corresponds with a different stage of the creative process. They can be used in many different ways. However the most straightforward is to simply turn a card up at random, ponder on the story and respond to the challenge that Oech set.
A more recent addition by Von Oech has been his Ancient Whacks of Heraclitus. This is another set of cards based on the epigrams of Heraclitus. Heraclitus was a provocative ancient Greek philosopher who was known as ‘The Enigmatic One’.
If you would like to purchase one of Von Oech’s products, click here his individual book page item directly on amazon.co.uk
Find out more information on De Bono’s Lateral Thinking
