Word: brainstormers
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...chopped down from half an hour to 15 minutes six years ago, some 10 million fans proved they could be as loud as they had been loyal. The New York Times complained that "minority" viewers were being disenfranchised. The Washington Times-Herald asked: "Who's responsible for this brainstorm-someone who's mad at the human race?" The late Playwright Robert Sherwood moaned: "Calamity." Last week ABC's Kukla, Fran & Ollie, TV's second oldest network show (after Kraft TV Theater) went dark after a ten-year run, and all earlier sounds became mere whimpers...
...never has he been more determined in his search for new ways of doing things than today. To spur "creativity," businessmen will try anything, from the venerable suggestion box to such freewheeling idea-association techniques as "group thinks," "buzz sessions," "imagineering," and the most popular device of all, the "brainstorm." Originator of the brainstorm* is Alex F. Osborn of Manhattan's Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, who defines it as a method in which groups of people "use their brains to storm a creative problem and do so in Commando fashion, with each stormer audaciously attacking the same objective...
Originated some 15 years ago, brain-storming was extended by BBDO to its clients in 1953, has since spread throughout industry. The advertising agency now has a Vice President in Charge of Brainstorming, whose major function is to hold about three brainstorm sessions a week, see to it that his charges sound off loud and clear. The panel of thinkers is made up of admen and (at nonconfidential sessions) outside guests and friends (including housewives). They sit around in a comfortable, yellow-painted (yellow is considered conducive to thought) brainstorm room furnished in homey knotty pine, have plenty of pads...
...date, more than 75 U.S. companies have asked BBDO to train their staffs in the techniques of brainstorming. Corning Glass came looking for new ways to use glass in autos; General Electric wanted to improve its company newspaper; Armstrong Cork Co. was at a loss over how to celebrate Inventors' Night for 104 employees who had won patents for new processes. In the same way, hundreds of other companies have set up their own brainstorm sessions for plant personnel, modified the idea for their own use. B. F. Goodrich Co., for example, likes to use nontechnical workers to help...
Through its own training program, General Electric discovered that the flow of ideas from its middle-echelon executives increased 300%. International Business Machines is a brainstorm booster; Chrysler Corp. has tried it, and so have Union Carbide & Carbon, Celanese Corp., American Oil Co., U.S. Steel, Radio Corp. of America, Boeing Airplane Co. Even if the ideas themselves are unworkable, the discussion shakes up workers and bosses alike. Says Chrysler's William D. Merrifield, boss of the company's industrial education program: "The main thing is 'to develop a climate among your executives that is favorable...