A course tutor (Stephen P Reid) introduced me to a couple of Tony Buzan mindmapping exercises. I always thought brainstorming and mindmapping were the same thing, right? Well most people seem to think so.

Recently I've read Tony Buzans book. Pretty interesting stuff and gives the low down on how and why you should think this way. 

I think coming up with ideas can be fun and organised chaos at the same time. Solving problems can be really frustrating to point of making you want to stick your head in the gas oven. I've got my own technique of attempting to do, but no real technique or anything I thought formal. Turns out I was pretty doing it right. If you haven't read it, there's a quick read called A Technique for producing ideas (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Technique-Producing-McGraw-Hill-Advertising-Classic/dp/0071410945). Basically input everything, sleep on it, ping - there's the idea, then beat the hell out of it.

As I was once told, the best ideas are born drowning.

So I wasn't entirely happy reading the following article, How Aha!  Really happens: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10405?pg=1. It misses the whole point of using parabrain processing. And that's where the magic happens to deliver a Aha! moment, usually about 3AM... damn.

Basically the best thing is your bed. Get that brain working in your kip and the number crunching machine will do its thing.