Ideation Café A conversation to solve problems or generate ideas

An Ideation Café is a conversational method used to generate ideas to address a particular issue, problem, or opportunity. It is an adaptation of the Knowledge Café and avoids some of the criticisms of the traditional brainstorming process.

Listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.

This is also known as the group effect where group members engage in “a kind of ‘chaining’ or ‘cascading’ effect; talk links to, or tumbles out of, the topics and expressions preceding it”

Credit: Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor

Resources

• Article: Groupthink: The brainstorming myth by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker
• Blog Post: We need more conversation and less brainstorming by Andrew Armour