Creativity and innovationBlue-sky thinking

Techniques such as mind mapping, blue-sky thinking and the six hats technique can help you come up with creative and innovative ideas.

Part ofNational: Foundation KS4Global citizenship challenge

Blue-sky thinking

An ideas session should involve generating as many ideas as possible. Blue-sky thinking involves a group of people looking at an opportunity with fresh eyes. As a group, you could write down everyone’s ideas on a flip chart.

Alternatively, people may be given sticky notes and asked to write down as many ideas as they can on each note before displaying them on a wall.

For example, in response to being asked for possible profit making ideas for their school during holidays, students might list a variety of ideas following a blue-sky thinking session.

A whiteboard titled Ideas for summer. Under the heading are Dance school, Holiday club, IT classes, Sports club, Reading clubs, Venue for youth clubs, Extra tuition, Language school and Nightclub

Real-life example

In 1975, an American advertising executive called Gary Dahl came up with a unique idea to make money. He bought stones from a building yard and placed them into specially made boxes with breathing holes. He named them Pet Rocks. He sold his pet rocks for $3.95 each, and after six months he had sold 1.5 million of them, making a profit of millions of dollars.

Close-up of differently coloured, rounded pebbles
Image caption,
Entrepreneur Gary Dahl used blue-sky thinking and made millions with his Pet Rock idea

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