One way to generate more excitement and brainstorm when working on group or collaborative projects is to approach it a bit differently than you may have in the past.  Regularly at my job managing research & development at iStreamPlanet, we spend hours investigating different paths of development, exploring ideas and experiences, thinking way beyond the confines of normal programmatic or visual design practices…it has become a hallmark of how we are able to create efficiently and quickly produced solutions to technological problems.

Image: Adaptive PathI was also recently at Mix08 where it was apparent that there was an huge interest in more collaborative approaches to problem solving and with the advent of socializing technologies, you should broaden your means of getting ideas generated.

I was prompted to think about this after reading a blog post on Adaptive Path about this very topic here and after watching one of my own UCD groups use overhead projections and whiteboarding.  But this is only a slice of the puzzle.  Be proactive, and be open-minded when searching for solutions.  Use colors, use technologies, use visuals and be big.  The answer is always out there, but it may be buried in a mound of ideas, so give it a reason to pop out.

[read "Tapping Into Conference Participants’ Brilliance"]