Boiling Point - Episode 135 - Marilyn Barefoot and Barefoot Brainstorming

The Business of Brainstorming

Show Notes

The Business of Brainstorming

Introducing Marilyn Barefoot and Barefoot Brainstorming

Children have a natural ability to be creative. You give a kid a box and she will imagine it as a million different things. At some point though a lot of us seem to misplace this creative ability to make random associations, but this skill is so important to so many professions, including creative entrepreneurs. This week’s Boiling Point guest is an expert in retraining your brain to become more creative once again.

Marilyn Barefoot is the head of Barefoot Brainstorming based out of Toronto, Ontario. Marilyn spent almost 30 years in the creative aspects of advertising and during that time noticed that in most agencies there was no process to being creative. Now Marilyn is helping companies all around the world by tapping into the creative abilities of their employees.

Check out this episode of the Boiling Point to see how you can get your creative juices flowing.

In this episode

Previous BP guest, Monica Adair fills in as a guest host for Greg.
We are introduced to Marilyn and hear a little bit about her background.
Marilyn tells us what prompted her to go and find a process for creativity.
We learn a little bit about the Osborn-Parnes model of creative problem solving.
Marilyn notes that children have the innate ability to make random associations and it seems that formal education impacts our ability to make the same associations as easily.
We hear a story of how random association helped Michelangelo invent the bicycle and how it helped develop Velcro.
Marilyn teaches of the importance of divergence and convergence in the process of being creative.
We hear some examples of how the brainstorming process has helped big companies make some unique decisions.
Monica loves the idea of getting ideas and thought out of their typical “silos” and making new and interesting connections to seemingly unconnected things.
Dave feels like there is so much more to lean from someone like Marilyn and notes the confidence she would have to have to facilitate such a creative experience.