RSA Shorts: On Brainstorming & Introverts

A chill day to yourself is a glorious, often elusive thing. I feel like I've been going a million miles an hour since I started freelance consulting in April. Yesterday I had no obligations, and it was a wonderful thing! I got caught up on some of my favorite blogs, pinned some of my favorite finds, and saw my world become a little more enlightened through things like RSA Shorts.

RSA stands for Royal Society of enlightenment for Arts, manufacture & commerce. It's a non-profit based in the UK and committed to finding innovative, practical solutions to today's social challenges. Through its ideas, research & 27k-strong Fellowship, RSA seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between today's reality and people's hopes for a better world. In RSA Shorts, the charity aims to drive big ideas home through narrative, animation and illustration.

I saw "The Power of Quiet" video on High Snobette & was moved by the thought of a society that placed balanced responsibility and notoriety on extroverted, charismatic leaders with their quiet, introverted counterparts. Author Susan Cain talks us through the common scenario of sitting in a brainstorming meeting, and going with the opinions of the loudest person in the room. Is that always the right route to take? Cain uses Apple's Steves (Jobs & Wozniak) as a prime example of why we need extroverts and introverts to make the best ideas come to fruition.

I went to RSA's site and found only one more Short, though equally thought-provoking. In "Does Brainstorming Work?" Jonah Lehrer challenges the process of brainstorming as we know it, where no criticism and "all ideas are good ideas" is the name of the game. "Criticism is what surprises us, what invigorates us, what wakes us up & forces us to pay attention to the ideas of other people. It forces us to dig a little bit deeper."
Some colorful ways to look at things a bit differently. Enjoy your Sunday, and if you have a cool site or Sunday read you're currently into, let me know in a comment! I'd love to see what you're into.

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