Creativity Workshop at RadioAsia gets Interactive
can be created in any workplace. The session started with a quick fire brainstorm of ideas about how to do follow-up coverage of the Nepal earthquake story and this quickly generated ideas but the pace rapidly built as the workshop went on.
A
ctivities were kicked off with a workshop dedicated to “unlocking the creativity” of
all the journalists in the room. The session was led by Neil Curry and Mick Slatter, both Directors of “Beyond Broadcasting”, an international media consultancy firm based in London and very active throughout Asia. They were helped by Fiona Ledger, Executive Editor of Drama for BBC Media Action in Myanmar. The session was opened by Vijay Sadhu of the ABU.
There was a packed crowd of about 80 people, made up of local journalists and delegates to the conference from across Asia-Pacific. The idea of the workshop was to treat it as a giant free-flowing brainstorming session, generating the maximum possible number of ideas and demonstrating ways in which a creative environment
Neil and Mick both prowled around the floor, drawing ideas out of participants and then completely re-arranged the layout of the room to try to create a less formal feel to the environment. There were very lively exchanges about “the elements of a creative environment”, “where ideas come from” and “what stops people being creative” with numerous ideas coming from the floor, particularly from the local participants.
There was also much discussion of “story spotting” with the facilitators showing pictures of several things they had spotted during the few hours they had been in the country. This sparked ideas form the crowd, who, by now were in full-flow.
An important take away from the workshop was that there needs to be an open atmosphere and culture in any organization in order for every individual to feel free to put forward their ideas. There was a particular focus on encouraging Editors and senior staff to avoid too much “nay-saying” when it comes to responding to ideas from
their teams. It is important that there are as many ideas as possible in the air so that Editors can then figure out how to select and execute the most creative ones BUT the focus of brainstorming needs to be on the generation of the maximum possible number of ideas, in the initial phases. This means, avoiding using the works “no” and “but” and preferring to use the word “and” instead, in the spirit of building on ideas rather than knocking them down.
It was pointed out that truly creative brainstorming usually has some structure and format to it, as follows; 1. Have a strict time-limit 2. Choose a facilitator to drive, guide and collect ideas
3. Ensure one person talks at a time 4. Ban the words “NO” and “BUT” 5. Encourage the use for the word “AND”
6. Avoid “debating” ideas at this first stage
7. Generate quantity
Using these techniques, the session concluded with a further brainstorm on ideas for the coverage of the Nepal Earthquake, using the rules above. This time it was also made sure that the ideas were framed as “questions” rather than just broad ideas. This final session was only 5 minutes long but led to about 60 questions being generated form the 6 groups.
ABU News 31
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