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Posts Tagged ‘online polls’

Brainstorming is as much of an art as it is a science. And when you brainstorm for ideas on what to write poll questions, it takes on a whole new dimension.

Learning how to brainstorm is easy. It may take everything you have to do it because it is brain-intensive, but usually the times are short and targeted.

The two main necessities in brainstorming are concentration and intensity. Don’t reject any ideas initially. Instead you’ll need to record them all so they can be used later. Use a whiteboard or a chalkboard if necessary.

Not to belabor the point, but don’t reject the ideas initially just because you think it’s an irrelevant idea or doesn’t have value. rejection will come later when you get a birdseye view of what you’ve actually written down. As much as possible, increase the positive flow of information.

Sessions last from five minutes to a full day (Twitter was formed out of a day long brainstorming session). The sessions are intense and focused. But those five or ten minutes are extremely productive.

To get the most out of typical brainstorming session you need a free and open environment, unencumbered clutter and chaos. A small group of three to seven brainstormers is best. Keeping it small keeps it more focused.

Next you’ll want to brainstorm ideas for potential poll questions. You may be the three to seven people! That’s okay because you can work with you!

Make certain you keep the sessions short and focused. Give detailed instructions to the participants so they know what’s expected of them. Five to ten minutes at a shot will generate a lot of good ideas. Next, Choose an overall category: sports, current news, religion, politics, that sort of thing. You may want to narrow your focus even more: for religion, choose a denomination. For sports, narrow it down to one sport, for current news or politics, choose a current international situation. You get the idea.

Now you’re ready to sit down to think and record. Here’s how a typical session could go: Sports leads to baseball, which leads to a team, which leads to the Yankees, which leads to Derek Jeter. From there you see if there’s anything in the news about the Yankees or Jeter. Then you tailor a question (especially if you are in the New York market) that talks about the Yankees or Mr. Jeter.

As you do this more often, you’ll get better at it and it will be be easier. Be careful, though, because brainstorming is easy to take shortcuts with. Chances are good that you’ll uncover some other You may reveal several other questions that you can use later down the line. Five to ten minutes every time you do a poll is all it takes.

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