Usually I like to give you a friendly poke in the eye, but today I thought I'd splash some virtual water over any worn out thinking methods you're using!

Try this simple technique for fresh ideas:

• If you could be a celebrity or other well known personality for a day, who would it be? Even if you could swap places with someone from another walk of life.. who would you choose?
  Write that name down.
• Now, write down 6 things you know about that person or what they do.
• Now, turn your mind to a challenge you'd like to solve - such as 'What is a great, fun theme for our office Christmas party?'
• With the challenge in mind, imagine what that person might do to solve it. Step into their shoes - imagine being them for a moment. To get you started, look at the list of things you wrote.
• From that list, you'll send your thinking in a whole new direction and you'll get a fresh idea. Guaranteed!
• Oh - and check the next article in this very newsletter - we did JUST that, and we've got a list of Christmas party ideas you can have, free.
  

When I'm travelling to your town, you might like to take the opportunity for a chat about how we can help your team get fresh ideas - drop me a line and I'll drop in.

Brisbane: 13 + 14 Oct. Perth: 25 Oct. Sydney: 21 Oct. Adelaide: 29 + 30 Oct.

Territorians: Darwin Monday 28 and Alice on Tue 29 (join the workshop for October Business week at the Convention centre in both towns too).

enquiries@ideasculture.com or 1300 734 904.

We have now put the finishing touches to our two new babies and they are ready for you to take home as long as you promise to look after them.

We did our own brainstorm in the office on Christmas Party ideas for you. If you enquire about either of these programs below, the Christmas Party Ideas PDF is yours, free - we'll send it with the PDF brochure about the program you're interested in.

IdeasCultureFood is a program which creates a culture of ideas and creative thinking whilst keeping you and your team motivated by giving them a friendly poke in the eye every month. On a random day each month, a presenter will arrive and teach your team something interesting – including things like juggling, cooking, relationships, negotiation, creative thinking, painting and music. 1 or 2 year programs available.

Creative KickStart '09 is your chance to bring us into your team for 3 months over this upcoming quiet Christmas time. We help your team identify their limiting barriers and sources for untapped revenue. By the end of Jan, your team will be ready to hit the ground running for a record breaking 2009 – with a tailored system for generating ideas through the entire year to solve any challenge.
(KickStart is available to Melbourne clients only for now).

For the PDF brochure, phone Ilana, Sophie or Yvonne at the office on 1300 734 904 or email programs@ideasculture.com.

You may be looking for inspiration about ways to introduce creative thinking techniques to your team. An easy way to try us out is to engage us to facilitate a 2hr brainstorm session on one specific issue your team is facing.

Here's a tiny slice of what we've been up to lately:

• Microsoft - MC of the Student Day as part of the annual Tech Ed event.
• Self Storage Association national converence presentation and round table discussions.
• NMIT creative thinking keynote/workshop on staff retention and various other industry issues
• Telstra team building, tailored, interactive quiz challenge at end of conference.Frankston City Council brainstorming workshop to kick-off strategy day
• First Class Brands conference - helping small financial business owners with techniques they can use to get fresh ideas dynamically
• Bulleen Boomers Basketball Club creative thinking techniques for fundraising

We've found that the most common challenge faced by business is that of staff attraction and retention - especially when dealing with Gen Y. Some wonderful ideas have been generaged in our workshops - here are just a few:

• Empower the Gen Y with their own job description - let them write it, and let them also write their own rewards scheme. Within reason of course!
• Give them as much responsibility as you can - even create new reasons to give it. Such as DJ for a day, or organising social events, organising community events that your business can volunteer for, allow them to set and monitor budgets for smaller teams.
• Start a job-shadow program where Gen Y spend half days with senior team members, even moving into a job-swap program if you dare!
• Offer incentives for recruitment leads, business ideas and business development opportunities.
• Create a Young Leaders group which meets regularly at your expense and provides feedback and action steps back to management.

A quick tip for brainstorms: Don't forget the importance of brainstorming solo first. Set the room a creative thinking task but ask everyone to complete it in silence for at least 2 minutes. Then pair up, share ideas and build on them, then get into a group of 4 and do the same. Then share the top ideas with the rest of the room.

Such excitment for the whole family this week when the revamped shopping mecca near my home (Westfield Doncaster) opened its new car park with that amazing technology called Park Assist.

I spoke about this over a year ago when I discovered it in a Sydney car park.. As you enter the car park you are presented with a neon sign which displays the number of available car parks in each direction. For example – left: 72 spots.. right: 200 spots... so you turn right, then the signs display how many spots available straight ahead or off to left and right. You turn right and notice that every single car parking space has a sensor above it, with a light which is either red or green, depending on whether there's a car in the space or not.

LOVE IT! What do you think? www.parkassist.com.au

And on the subject of interesting things: I found a unique website this month – www.belonggroup.com.au – Simon Hammond is a branding guru. Delete the search text and start to type any word, a letter at a time. Very clever huh?

And for fun - have you ever harboured a desire to be a Brazilian soccer star? Find out your Brazilian Soccer player name!

For more about our workshops and keynotes, visit the Ideas Culture website or phone 1300 734 904.

We love hearing from you, please keep ‘em coming! Email us anytime: enquiries@ideasculture.com

		Here’s a challenge for you – Grab a child - any child (well, ok - one that knows you well!) and see Wall-E or Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Not just for fun - but to fill your head with brand new, fresh STUFF you can use to spark new ideas.