> Brainstorming is often used to solve a problem now; you don't always have time to wait for something genius to emerge (which might not even be related to your problem). Brainstorming tries to emulate that situation by having people interact more.
That's not what I got out of it at all. In the U.C. Berkeley experiment, simply giving the same number of people the suggestion to "debate" caused them to have far more ideas, in the same amount of time. Brainstorming doesn't have people interact more -- it has people interact in a specific way (no criticism), even though that has since been shown to actually be harmful to developing ideas. It's not to save time.
That's not what I got out of it at all. In the U.C. Berkeley experiment, simply giving the same number of people the suggestion to "debate" caused them to have far more ideas, in the same amount of time. Brainstorming doesn't have people interact more -- it has people interact in a specific way (no criticism), even though that has since been shown to actually be harmful to developing ideas. It's not to save time.