How to use Random Words

adapted from Creativity Workout by Edward De Bono

Many of the exercises in this class will focus on Lateral Thinking and the use of Random Words to help you develop creative solutions to problems.

The use of Random Words is a serious creative tool.
It is one of the basic tools of " lateral thinking."
This tool alone was used by a group of workshops to produce 21,000
ideas in an afternoon, for a steel company.
It is the simplest of the creative games or exercises-but by no means the easiest to use.

PROCESS
1. You clearly define your focus.
What is the problem you would like to solve?
It Is important to be very clear about the focus.
If you do not know what you are shooting at,
you are rather unlikely to hit the target!

2. You obtain a Random Word
Your random word must be a noun which will be much easier to work with than a verb.
There are several ways to obtain random words.
.... Run your finger down the page of a book and where it stops -
that's the word you will use.
.... Create a table of words that you can reference and choose words
using a system of random numbers (pick 2 numbers-17, 4 then in column 4
count down to word 17)
.... Use one of the online random word generator links (see Helpful Links>Random Words).
.... Use one of the online random word list (see Helpful Links>Random Words).

Very Important: Do not keep trying different random words until you get one you like.
That destroys the whoe point of the exercise. You must use the first word you obtain.
If however, you do not understand or know the meaning of that word, then try again.

3. Use the Random Word to stimulate new ideas for the defined focus.
NOTE: There is a need to be disciplined and focused.
It's never a matter of messing around and hoping an idea will somehow emerge.

LOGIC
logicians tend to get very upset with this method. If the wordis random,
then any Random Word would help.
So any Random Word would help with any focus.
This seems to be a definition of "nonsense."
Yet in a "patterning system" the process is indeed logical.

Imagine you live in a smallish town.
Whenever you leave home, you always take the main street to get to your destination.
One day, on the outskirts of the town, your car breaks down or you have an accident. For some reason you have to walk home. You ask around for directions. You find yourself arriving home by a street you would never have taken on leaving home.
If you start from the periphery, you can open up paths you would never open up from the center. The Random Word drops you at the periphery.

USE OF THE METHOD
1. You should not just look for some sort of connection
between the Random Word and the focus (problem).
This does not have any stimulating effect at all.
The task is not to connect the two, but to use the Random Word for stimulation.

2. You should not rearrange the letters of the Random Word
or use the letters as an acronym. Take the word as it is.

3. You should not take a series of steps in order to arrive at a new Random Word.
You should not say (for exampie):
"Ship suggests sea; sea suggests navigation;
navigation suggests stars-so let's use the word stars.

4. You will probably need to work in concepts and values rather than simple associations.

5. At every point, look out for possibilities, values and new directions.
Once a possibility has emerged, pursue that possibility.

6. Never never, never say:
" I do not like that Random word: I am going to get another one."
You need to force yourself to use the original Random Word.
Otherwise you will simply be waiting for an easy
connection and you will not stimulate new ideas at all.

RESULTS
Your new idea may do one of several things:
1. Solve a given problem.
2. Offer an Improvement or simplification of a process.
3. Provide a new Idea.
4. Open up a whole new direction.
S. Define a new concept.
6. Define a new value.