In my passion for innovation, I’ve found myself in the position of leading product brainstorms both at work and here at ProtoDojo. During my research for brainstorm facilitation tools, I came across a simple concept called random stimulus. It is straight forward and simple to use during any creative thought process. When confronted with a mental block, simply pull up a random word or image and begin by thinking of how this stimulus relates to your core idea. What happens is in the process of discussing the relationship between the original idea and the stimulus, you will often find yourself exploring new avenues or new aspects of your original problem. It’s extremely powerful and fun during the various phases of product ideation.