Post 9 – Brainstorming in a spoken sense

Rekha Dhanaram

Our group brainstorming session wasn’t as productive as it could’ve been. I think this a result of many factors. The work ‘mind map’ seemed to have become a trigger word and instead of being excited to delve into our problem spaces we felt less enthused. And perhaps the fact that we chose to be seated around a single table in the corner with no real space for our butchers paper and bags put us off as well. However these factors were more accentuated due to my personal reflection of my progress in the subject prior to that class. I felt quite worried cause I hadn’t developed a focus, an area I really wanted to explore and this indadvertedly made me feel overwhelmed. However looking back whilst these weaknesses were present, I feel that by the end of the lesson I had gained something, even if it weren’t an actual brainstorm.

Instead throughout the course of the lesson we did discuss around the questions we were provided. As we were trying to discern our problem statements it was interesting to see what areas people found interesting in this topic which provided further revelations. One of the most valuable insight I took away from this exercise was how I can focus on a niche area and still help the bigger problem at hand. As we discussed the issue it became apparent that each of us were interested in different areas such as refugee experiences, media representation and the international community. And personally I found myself talking a lot about censorship, refugee rights and experiences. Thus when looking back it became obvious to me that whilst I thought I had no focus area, I had somehow narrowed my focus without knowing and became more well versed in one area.

At the conclusion of this class, whilst I didn’t have a brainstorm, I had answered all the problem statement questions and began to develop a statement as well. Whilst it didn’t seem like a lot at the time, the discussion and questions provided the framework for my proposal. In addition when I got home, I decided to brainstorm on my own to help articulate the conversation and thoughts of that day.

 

 

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