You are trying to solve a problem, trying to design a product or a service, generating ideas for adverts, stories or songs.

Then you have different ideas, different options.  Which one will be the best?  When thinking about ideas, you can use tools such as cost-benefit analysis, SWOT or voting tools, pareto, etc. or you can try different ideas to see what happens.  Or you can think about the benefits of the different ideas and try to combine them.

As a hobby you can create whatever you want.  As a business, you are investing with the idea of a return, so you need to be efficient in the way you spend your time, energy and money.

In "Dragon´s Den" always there is that question or who has used it? What is the feedback from customers?  And also there is feedback about the pitch.

In "The Apprentice" there is always one day when they have to do focus groups to receive feedback.    There is some observations about how not to do the focus group in www.experiencesolutions.co.uk 
Wikipedia provides information about the meaning of focus groups.

 It is well known the way "Innocent" tested their business idea with the bins "yes" or "no".

Thinking about ideas can be as easy as listing the pros and the cons.  But when thinking about business ideas, business models, products and services, the following video shows very interesting ways to testing them.

Today I attended a very interesting session from Tony Biola (from  http://www.growpersonalsuccess.com/about-tony-abiola-dada/) and Nick Howe (Natwest enterprise manager, https://twitter.com/nickhenterprise).


Most of the session was delivered by Tony Biola with a very personal style, very engaging and full of his own experiences and thoughts.  After a very challenging life experience since he was a young person, Tony has been involved in working with young people, helping them to develop their talents, their creative passions (http://www.urbanvoiceuk.com/w/) and also developing  mindsets.  Interestingly, when I was talking to one of the ladies who is engaged in the GPS programme (what is changing her life), she admitted that in the beginning, the reason why she got interested, was to help his son.  However, she realised that the programme could have a big impact on her own life.  Tony´s messages are full of common sense, based on his own experience and he has become an empowering coach for young people and adults.

As it is mentioned on his website:

"Tony is a creative social entrepreneur, singer, songwriter, author and former senior executive within the education system. His creativity has led him to meetings with the heads of both Apple UK and Loreal as well as the staging of projects which have been supported by The Home Office, the Mayors Office, The British Army, Island Records, Yamaha, Channel 4, and many others, including more recently NatWest & HSBC Banks as he offers support to aspiring Entrepreneurs and creatives."

On the other side, Nick Howe, presented a very interesting process from Business Idea to Full business lunch, going through Market research and Test trading.  In little time he showed very useful tools and resources to support people with business ideas.  Nick Howe was able to make a very engaging and friendly presentation about business.  He was very supportive and mentioned the importance of mentors and tools such as cash flow forecast, personal budget and business plan.  When explaining about the business plan, he mentioned the analogy of a journey plan.  The image of Nick Howe is like a coach, who uses all his banking experience and what he has learnt from customers to help other people.  Individually I asked him some questions that he answered about mentoring and elevator pitch (and later he asked me about the change on my pitch when he was presenting to proof the benefit of having feedback.  


I think this was a very interesting combination, based on looking for success through win-win situations with clients, finding out about your talents, skills and motivations.

Tony Biola made some interesting remarks about similarities between both of them, challenging attendees to think about goals, vision, finding out our passion, finding out what to do and why.  The same way that Nick explained about the steps to launch a successful business from having an idea that you are passionate about, doing budgets, cashflow forecast, market research and business plan, Tony Biola related it not only to business success but also about the whole person success based on personal development and doing a life plan with goals, vision and passion.



On this ocassion we can see again two of the tools that are often used to innovate and generate new ideas by using combination of ideas, motivation and experiences and analogies between different fields such as business and personal development.

According to Wikipedia, "Conceptual abstractions may be formed by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction

In learnet, there is an example of the difference between abstract and concrete thinking including how it relates to the use of analogies:

" A concrete thinking adolescent can recognize that a good strategy in football is to make maximal use of the team’s most talented players. An abstract thinking adolescent can recognize that this strategy in football is the same as using ones cognitive strengths in studying for an exam. In general, abstract thinkers are able to perceive analogies and relationships that others may not see and thereby understand higher levels of abstraction."  
http://www.projectlearnet.org/tutorials/concrete_vs_abstract_thinking.html


Abstract thinking and elevator pitch
When thinking about my elevator pitch, I could state it in a way that encapsulates its meaning but doesn´t explain very well, ie. "Information products and services to improve creative thinking" or I could unpacked the idea in such a way that it explains better what I do, even though it doesn´t cover everything I do. Ie. "Workshops to learn and practice tools to generate ideas, solve problems and innovate".  And I could add what make me different: "My workshops promote individual thinking to change own protocols, irrational thinking and thinking barriers" and explain how everything started when I was a teenager.


In this sense, abstract thinking can help us to change the way we define a problem and make it more complex or simpler, ie. "How to think" will be more abstract or general than "How to generate ideas".  "How to solve a problem" could be seen as a more complex thing to do than "How to improve something".  By making it more complex or simpler, we can think about different type of ideas.

Abstract thinking and mission vs problem solving vision
There are some techniques such as visualization, in which we can imagine a problem or a solution and we can try to see, not only images, but also behaviours and thoughts of other people.  We can perceive not only images, but sounds, tastes, smells, touch but see ourselves on that situation or people we know or experts talking about it.

We can also see ourselves performing an activity that we don´t feel very confident about, following the steps to do.  That could help as a way of mental training, in which you revise the steps to do.

I find very inspiring going to church, as always there are messages, stories, etc. to relate to problems or hobbies I relate to.  Last Sunday, one of the readings was about Jonah (the one that was swallowed by a whale for refusing doing what God asked him to do).    And in the Gospel of Mark was mentioned "Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men".  On one side there are plenty analogies that can evoke ideas related to our present problems or improvements.

We might not have any problem, any worry, but always we can think how to improve something: products, marketing, staff, environment, society.
It is interesting to relate this to abstract thinking because we can elevate the level of abstraction generalizing from "What should I do?" to "What can I do?" or doing it more specific like "What would I like to do?" or "What does God want me to do?"

On one side, changing the level of abstraction can be useful to think about different ideas.  On the other side, changing the level of abstraction can help to be more concrete and focus more on an action as we elevate it to the category of mission. "What is God asking me to do?" Or to a category of searching for something "What is God telling me with this reading?"

Vision of the mission.  We can think about a global mission, such as "World peace", but at the same time, like the environmental motto "Think globally, act locally", we can focus on a practical thing we can do this month or this week.

Interesting article in Dailygood.org:
Using emergence Emergence to Scale Social Innovation

Interesting video with John Bird:

Interesting video with Doug Richard:

On many occasions routine is perceived as something negative.  "Doing the same things you will get the same results".  It seems easy and boring.
Changing of routines, changing of information resources, changes of timetable, changes of shops we go, changes of people we meet with, changes on the topics of readings we do, changes of activities, changes of places we go, changes of movies we watch, etc. etc can be a powerful way of having new experiences, new information and new ideas.

However the power of routine is for me a very especial topic.  When you do things repeatedly, you become used to them, they become automatic, without effort, without thinking about them.  At that time, it seems that the incubation period of ideas is when is more probable.  That is why when having a bath, shaving, cleaning, walking, etc there ideas appear without being willingly looked for. 

Have you felt that sometimes you do things without thinking about them? Sometimes there are "automatic" actions that if we stop to think about them we might not do them as well as when we do them automatically, unconsciously.

In fact, there are situations in which you just write about something and it is as if naturally the ideas come spontaneously, with a special meaning and emotional load.

Yesterday I attended a session with "The Bright Ideas Trust" and it happened something very interesting.  This type of thing sometimes has happened when I read books about the same topic.  There are many things that I have learnt about them before, but there is something different, a small detail that can make a big difference.  For some reason I enjoy attending seminars that I have some previous ideas about.  I think this is because when I am in this type of sessions, my mind is flying around linking topics that are mentioned with other things.  As some of the ideas are familiar, it seems the perfect time to do connections with the ideas that I am working with. On this occasion, there was an activity about presenting your Elevator Pitch.  I want to say thank you to Stephen, the person who delivered the session because I felt he gave me a very good advice.   This advice is something that in the past I had already thought about, but was this moment, when Stephen mentioned it and gave me his advice, that it became clear to me what I had to do.

The next day early in the morning, when I was in the tube, the ideas about my Elevator Pitch came automatically and they arrived with a very meaningful and emotional load.  Basically, the comment that Stephen did was that my Elevator Pitch was maybe a bit abstract, as when I mentioned about creative thinking, that concept might not mean the same for me that for somebody else.  What does creative thinking mean to me? Why? What are the benefits?

So.... how have I changed my Elevator Pitch?

The truth is that still I haven´t polished it but the ideas that are coming to my mind are more graphic, more visual, easier to transmit to others:

The first idea I had was:

"Information products and training on Creative Thinking for personal and professional development.

Clients learn how to generate ideas, solve problems, identify thinking errors and thinking barriers becoming confident to deal with any situation.

Most of the businesses in this field concentrate in group thinking.  I focus on individual thinking, with memorable and engaging tools to use at any time.

The idea is to empower staff to be more innovative on a personal and professional level.

The idea come from when I was a teenager and...."


The idea after thinking how to encapsulate it better, explaining what does it mean for me and to make people to understand it better is still under development.  But that advice helped me to view other ways of expressing it, such as:


"Thinking support for freelances and business owners.
I am like a maths tutor and the "formulas" I use are tools from creative thinking, innovation, coaching, facilitation, Motivational Interviewing,  CBT and counselling.
There are a lot of "formulas available online".  The ones I use are the ones that I enjoy using, I have experienced on and I firmly believe on their benefits.


I use different approaches.  On one side I can help you to use memorable creative thinking tools.  On the other side, considering that everybody is creative, the work consists on eliminating the barriers to stop you being more creative such as fears and automatic thoughts and help you to understand and change your thinking protocols."

More recently I have introduced more changes to my Elevator Pitch:

I deliver workshops to practice tools to solve problems, generate ideas and improve things.  These workshops promote individual thinking to challenge your thinking process, automatic thoughts and thinking barriers.

Everything started when I was a teen.... (my real life story).

Thinking creatively will empower you to discover new options to compete and and to feel confident to solve any new problems that could appear.


Going back to martial arts, when somebody starts, there are  movements that are repeated constantly for a long period of time.  By doing this, these movements become "automatic" is like you are programmed to do them without thinking too much about them.  This means that instead of thinking about how to do the movement, your mind can focus on something else that can be more helpful to co-ordinate a chain of movements or being aware of the changing environment to adapt the movement instantly.

As it is mentioned in 
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/features.php?id=21127
"We recall the film The Karate Kid where a Japanese martial arts master has his young student spend his day waxing cars or sanding floors, repeating the same circular hand movement all day."

 When you do the same things on different days, even if the activity is the same you are not the same.  In the beginning you might do it not being very confident about it.  Later you become more confident and you don´t need to concentrate too much about it.  You are not the same because there are changes in your life.  The way you do the same activity can be transformed by the thoughts you have while performing the activity.  By your thoughts, a boring activity can become an exciting one.  On the same case of the example of The Karate Kid, if he knew that the movements of waxing and sanding were techniques to use in combat, his thoughts and intentions while doing the moves could be focusing on doing them with strength, visualizing doing it against an aggressor.  When doing routines, the activities can be transformed by your changing thoughts. 

The power of routine can be linked to the power of programming oneself.  The power of habits, creating anchors (NLP) to guide our actions.

Since I came to UK in 2002 I have seen that many people from Spain have emigrated to UK.  This is due to the fact that the unemployment rate in Spain is nearly 25% and in UK is around 6%.
 http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/unemployment-rate

On the other side, for anybody trying to start up a business as a sole trader it is far more encouraging to do it in UK as you don´t have to pay the social security payments you have to pay in Spain when the business is starting.  

According to 
http://steveridout.com/uk-spain-tax-calculator/
"Spain requires a minimum of about €250 / month social security payments every month. This isn't so bad once you are generating a reasonable profit, but if your revenues are small while starting up, which may take years, this could kill your business.  In contrast, the minimum National Insurance contribution in the UK is only £2.75 / week (about €15 / month), and it's even possible to exempt yourself from this if you don't earn much."


When I was studying in Spain, I used to help my younger brother with his studies (mainly maths).  I used to enjoy doing it and he used to be very motivated to do his best, so it was a very pleasant activity that helped me to learn better what I was teaching.  

Even though I never asked for it, my parents used to pay me as I supposed they considered me something like a private tutor, what was very nice.  I used to do it because I wanted to help my brother and also I enjoyed it, so the payment was a substantial bonus.  

And that was the beginning...
Soon I had another student (who was in my brother´s class) asking me for private classes.  And later, parents who were friends of my parents were asking me to teach their children...  This was a very interesting experience as never I thought about it and in fact I taught to some people but I did not continue for long as I was starting going to university and I was very busy.

Everything started because of helping my brother.  Never I thought about making a business, looking for a niche market or doing a business plan.  However, the income it gave me at that age and time was very interesting.

There are a lot of help to thinking about starting a business.   For example:
http://startups.co.uk/tim-campbells-12-steps-to-running-a-business-part-1/

http://startups.co.uk/10-steps-to-starting-a-business/

https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/making-it-easier-to-set-up-and-grow-a-business--6/supporting-pages/helping-businesses-and-start-ups-get-advice-and-support

http://startups.co.uk/start-up-guides/

https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/youngpeople/Pages/BeOwnBoss/advice.aspx

In many libraries you can have access to COBRA and other market databases.  Cobra provides very useful business information.
http://cobra.cobwebinfo.com/


Thinking about starting a business can look as something risky, difficult, laborious, etc.  And even the legalities, paperwork, permissions, etc. can discourage somebody to start-up.  On the other side, encouraging new businesses can be a good way to reduce unemployment.  If young people try to start a business, the experience can be a very useful one, regardless of how much successful it is.

When thinking about doing complex business plans it can feel too complex to start it.  That is why I like thinking creatively about it.  How to start it easily? How to start small with possibility to escalate? How to "test the water" without committing too much time or money? 

A good starting point could be to use one of the best creative thinking tools: ASKING QUESTIONS.

Asking questions can be a very long process with many details to ask.  However, let´s think which are the simplest questions to ask that will help somebody to start a business?  How to encourage people to think about business in a engaging way?  SIMPLE!

1. What do you love doing?  What are you good at?


2. What problem in the world could be solved using that skill/activity?
What problems can you solve?


3. How can be money made out of it?


If we compare these questions with my experience at a young age as a private tutor, I started doing it because I wanted to help my brother and because I enjoyed doing it (without thinking whether I was good at it or not).

The problem I solved was that my brother needed help with maths (myself previously had private tutors previously).  And for my parents, the problem of having to look for somebody to do it.

This last question is a very interesting one, as when I started helping my brother I was not expecting obtaining money.  However, my parents were very happy to pay me (I did not ask for it) and later other parents of other children were very happy to pay me too.

Going back to other questions to be asked when thinking about starting a business, there are two very common questions:

What is your niche market?

What is your USP (Unique Selling Point), what make you different than other competitors?


When thinking about niche market, you could start thinking about providing a service or product to a specific niche market.  Other way of doing it is to start testing the business and learning which niche market seems more interested, so that you can focus your marketing efforts into that niche market.

About the USP, this is a very interesting question for me, as I believe that Creative Thinking can help a lot with doing something different.  It is not only about doing something different, but about something valuable that is different than the others.  Maybe there is an aspect of the business, such as costumer service that is specially looked after.  Or maybe there is a radical difference about the idea, the business model, the combination of services or/and products, the costumer experience.

Why linking simplicity with creativity, maths and business?
There is a concept that I learnt when doing maths, that was the concept of ELEGANCE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegance
about solving maths problems as simply as possible.

Related to this concept is OCCAM´S RAZOR 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
(the fewer assumptions that are made, the better)

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

https://www.plotr.co.uk/

For a very interesting FREE a free 12 week StartUp course that’s delivered to your inbox once a week with easy to follow steps and tips click the next link and follow "Register for StartUp course".
https://www.enterprisenation.com/blog/posts/4-free-ways-to-start-a-business-in-2015


To finish, I want to mention something that I never thought when I was a teenager.  I was not doing it to make money or to build a business.  If now I was thinking to making that activity as a business, I would think more about how to escalate it, how to increase the benefits.  When I was a private tutor and my parents started paying me money for it I felt a bit guilty, as I thought it was too much.  And the same used to happen with the other children.  I thought I was paid too much (but of course, I never complaint about it).  I just tried to do my best.

So, how could I have escalated the "hobby" and make it into a business?  Ideas that come to my mind are, for example:
 Using my clients to sell them other products or services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-selling

Thinking carefully at the pricing strategy and linking it with marketing initiatives 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing_strategies
When I was thinking that I was charging too much, I could have been more creative and thought about different ways of choosing my price, such as "Pay what you want" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want


With the use of the internet, I could develop a website where student can book and pay sessions online looking at the availability of my timetable using websites such as http://www.vcita.com/, or http://www.bookfresh.com/bookfresh 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-K02HYLvl4

I could have searched old past exam papers, do them and sell them from my website as downloads using something like http://www.e-junkie.com/

I could use some marketing idea such as giving a free session when introducing a new student or discounts according to the number of sessions per month.

Free ebook about low cost marketing tips can be found in http://www.smarta.com/media/3527460/final_ebook_smarta_printed_ebook_130213a.pdf

Other tips for low cost marketing can be found in:
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=low%20cost%20marketing

One pricing strategy that always has caught my attention is FREEMIUM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium  It reminded me when I was being taught maths and I was offered to attend a session for free at an academy where they were teaching physics.  I tried, I enjoyed and then I started paying to have physics classes, as they were very enjoyable and useful, making it easier to understand.

This freemium model suggests me that I could have done some volunteering (maybe once a month in a school) as a way of marketing so that if there were parents interested, they could book me for weekly sessions.

There was a time when I had just a few books and I new exactly where to find them, the name of the authors, the most interesting chapters, etc.  For some reason, my books were multiplied (the same as my clothes) and many other material possessions.

Suddenly you forget where are the most important books, the clothes you like and you find too many things around to think clearly.  Even when you know a lot of creative thinking techniques you can loose perspective of the ones that you really like because of trying new ones or the ones that other people use.

It can happen even with toys, when you have so many that you spend more time tidying than playing with them.

Then you find that one day you go away, just with a notebook, and you find yourself writing your own ideas, enjoying without having too many things around you, just a notebook where you write your thoughts, that become more appreciated that the most expensive of your products.

And then you wonder, how to go back to enjoy a simple life, a life where you can create without wasting time clearing your physical and mental space?

Simple living, simple thinking.   It is too easy to consume in our society.  How to go back to that simple living? There are very interesting tips in the blog http://zenhabits.net/ as well as in the website http://www.theminimalists.com/

On a practical note about how to spend less, there are the famous questions of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis: Do I need it? Can I afford it? Have I checked if it is cheaper anywhere else? Will I use it? Is it worthy? http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/stop-spending-budgeting-tool

An easy way of decluttering not only material possessions, but also anything in your life is to ask: Is this adding value to my life? It is the type of thing you do when you are looking at throwing or giving away clothes and you wonder "Will I use it?".

When thinking about creative thinking techniques, some of the best known are brainstorming, analogies, etc. and other different techniques that can be used for problem solving.  However, the same way that the topic can be made more complex and multiply the different techniques that can be used, making it something that looks very complex, there are ways to make it very simple, in the sense that with for example just using brainstorming, or brainwriting, you could develop steps for problem solving.

For example:
You could use a brainstorming to identify areas of improvement.  Once you have decided an area of improvement, you could do a brainstorming to find specific topics in the chosen area (this is like choosing a subject, and inside the subject, to choose a chapter).

You could do a brainstorming of ways to define the problem, for example writing a list of sentences that start with "How to..." that can address the problem identified previously, approaching it from different angles.

Brainstorming is well known as a way of generating ideas, as many as possible (quantity produces quality), without criticizing them, encouraging them, inviting wild ideas, using ideas mentioned to provoked new ones, etc.  But at the same time the brainstorming can be use as "antibrainstorming".  The idea is that when you are choosing ideas,  you take each of them and think about all the things that can be wrong if choosing that idea, all the negative aspects of that idea.

Etc., etc., etc.

So, the same way that a toolbox has many different tools for different purposes, there are some tools that can be used for many different purposes.  There is no need to have three tools if there could be a tool that can be used for three different purposes.

That is the way I found Creative thinking: after having found many useful books useful for personal and professional development, I wondered: Could there be just one book to help with everything?  Then, that was the beginning, when I started reading about creativity and problem solving and decided to write my first book about the topic.

How many times we find ourselves judging?
Many times we are comparing things, we are assessing, we are hoping, expecting, fearing, guessing, exaggerating, labeling, blaming, envying, jumping into conclusions, thinking radically (all or nothing), asking "what is in it for me?", "where is the catch?", looking for improvements, trying to be the best, competing, generalizing, thinking about the worst that could happen...

However, the attitude that helps more to create is to enjoy thinking.  To enjoy observing what you do or what other people do, what thoughts are around your mind and around people around you.  Enjoy thinking is a way of mixing with the enjoyment of the ideas, of the people, of the process, of the flow of life.  That is way I consider Brainstorming more as an attitude to maintain while thinking regardless of whatever type of activity we are doing.  An attitude in which we are not judging but playing, enjoying, observing what is going on, increasing awareness of the beauty of combining ideas and emotions.

The following videos are about enjoying, about enjoying thinking and about acting and playing.  The passion of thinking reminds me that quote that states:

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Henry David Thoreau


On the same way, when thinking I enjoy thinking regardless the topic of thinking.  Generally people think about problem solving and improvements or competing.  I like thinking more about creating, about inventing, about generating ideas that shows me that there is something else than just ideas but also emotions attached to the ideas, about thinking about thinking.

When I was a teenager I started enjoying to write my thoughts.  Basically I used to write whatever used to come to my mind about my situation at that time while I was thinking.  I found it incredibly engaging and inspirational, as the topics involved were my most interesting topics (including topics about thinking), so I used to write about the contents and the process of my thinking.

Now, on a practical note, which process do you follow when solving a problem or generating ideas for some specific purpose?

Usually we use some strategies and techniques we know without thinking about it too much.  It is not necessary to stop thinking about how you are going to do it, what is the best way for you to do it (the way with better outcomes or the way you enjoy it the most=.

On one side we can use different type of activities to generate ideas, such as brainstorming or analogies.  On the other side, we can follow a problem solving model that we are used to, consciously or unconsciously.

Imagine you are trying to solve a problem and you are thinking about some steps, such as analysing the present situation and the situation where we want to be, gathering the information, using creative techniques to generate, combine or improve ideas, using some decision making tools to choose what to do among the options and how to do it.  In each of the steps can be used different tools and different timing.  In fact, we can repeat each step independently till we feel satisfied.

We could just try to solve a problem and observe how much time we spend on each step and doing what.  There could be a timmer that every 5 minutes remind us to record what we are doing, thinking or feeling.  At the end we could have an idea about how much time we use in some of the steps and decided to change them.  For example, we can spend much more time thinking about the problem, about the situation, its causes and implications. 


 "A problem well defined is a problem nearly solved"
 Charles F. Kettering



When we read a book we can change the way we read according to the purpose of the reading.  Some times we can read it very fast, slowing down when there are things that are more interesting or complex.  We can decided to avoid some chapters or to underline and take notes in others.  When we listen, we can follow other steps such as feeling the sound coming, attaching some meaning to the sound, thinking about what to do according to the information perceived and do something about it.

When we think, we can think aloud, recording our process of thoughts.  When thinking about usability, people can be given some task to do and record their process of thought while using it. For example, they could be using some new website and at the same time they could mention the thoughts they are thinking, the difficulties, the objectives they are trying to achieve with this website, etc.

It is interesting how we can "guess" what other people are thinking by listening to what they are saying.  There is some more information about the "Think aloud protocol" and the "Talk aloud protocol" in the next links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_aloud_protocol

https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.proto.thnk.html

http://uncw.edu/ed/ncteach/documents/Blooms%20questioning.ppt

Example of Thinking aloud protocol

On Saturday I attended an event organised by Tutorfair and TeachFirst where I was taught the 4 stage Accelerated Learning Cycle that I mention below and it was brilliantly explained giving us the opportunity to practice it.

That cycle reminded me that for some reason I love cycles: What type of cycles come to your mind?
Economic cycles? Some other examples can be seen in the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycles

There are cycles such as the biological life cycle, product life cycle, project life cycle, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_cycle

The title of this post is related to the famous song that started in the Walt Disney movie "The Lion King", "Circle of Life".

Thinking about innovation in organisations, 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_life_cycle, it shows the stage of renewal, which encourages creativity and flexibility.

The Cycle of Change can be a useful tool to analyse in which stage we can find ourselves, where could be the next stage and how to pursue it
http://psychology.tools/stages-of-change.html

There are different variations of this model and the one I like is the one that divides the cycle in four parts: contemplation, action, maintenance and lapse.  There are links from outside the cycle: pre-contemplation to contemplation, maintenance to long term change and lapse to re-lapse.

One of my favourites cycles is the improvement cycle, known as Deming Cycle    
http://www.businessballs.com/dtiresources/quality_management_gurus_theories.pdf

I would like to link this with the GROW model used in coaching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GROW_model

Related to cycles, I would like to include the 5 stages of grief
http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_kubler_ross_five_stages_of_grief.htm

What about the team-development model?  http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm
The knowledge about this model can be very useful when trying to generate ideas and how to help teams working together.

A very useful cycle is the four-stage accelerated learning cycle (Connection-Activation-Demonstration-Consolidation)
http://www.boa-academy.co.uk/media/file/Teaching%20and%20Learning%20Policy.pdf
and you can find a template to prepare sessions in the following link:
http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/cycle
Also this can be related to Kolb´s learning cycle:
http://www.classtools.net/samples/cycle


And the circuit of knowledge? Very useful to write essays.
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/redman/2.1%20Circuit.pdf


With the scientific method
http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html

And to the stages of competence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence


What about sellng?  The famous book Spin selling (Situation-Problem-Implication-Need), shows a model of a cycle to help selling.  In the following link you can find some of the questions can be asked during the process:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/k/kelleyca/mgmt126/SPINQUESTIONS.pdf

And changing the topic special mention to Moriehei Ueshiba, the founder of the japanese martial art of Aikido. "As Ueshiba grew older, more skilled, and more spiritual in his outlook, his art also changed and became softer and more circular."
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba

Other cycles:

Fear of fear cycle
http://www.psychology-solution.com/anxiety/fear-of-fear

Cycle of abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_abuse

Virtuous and vicious circles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_circle_and_vicious_circle

Cycle of poverty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_poverty