I watched “The Daily Show’s secret to creativity” on TED talk. This was about how to increase our creativity.

There was a man, Trevor. When he got a call, his work life changed. He had spent a lot of his career working on his own as a stand-up comedian in clubs and theaters, mostly in South Africa. But now he works with a full creative team in New York City. Four days a week, they make a show that millions of people watch. Generally, creativity tends to go down in a big group but he succeeded. When you have a creative challenge, the natural starting point is to bring a group of people together to brainstorm. Workplaces have relied on brainstorming for years. However, it doesn’t always work because people are afraid of speaking up and looking stupid. Then, he tried to set up a brainstorming without a boss so that there is no person to judge and they feel at ease talking.

I learned a lot of things from this video. At first, I thought that it was difficult to speak his or her ideas in brainstorming, especially in Japan. In university, many students are together to brainstorm or discuss but they seldom start speaking. I think it’s because they are shy and don’t want to be the first person to speak up. However, my mind changed. I learned that it’s very effective to set brainstorming without any people with high social status. If there is a boss or a president, they are afraid of getting their words wrong or looking stupid. First, they start making pairs to write ideas. Then, they dig in further to find out how they create the ideal conditions. This pattern is called burstiness where they take turns in conversation and interrupt each other. There are several moments when someone tells a pretty good joke and they can become less stressed. You may think interruptions are rude but interruptions are not always rude because it’s important to make sure that everything is clear to continue the brainstorming. Also, I realized that effective teams figured out that it’s easier to take part in brainstorming when it’s held online because they can manage to do that in their busy schedule.