Creativity tip: Laughter equals ideas equals laughter

In every group I've worked with, when people are having ideas there tends to be a lot of laughter around.

And conversely, when people are laughing and enjoying themselves, the ideas tend to flow.

If you think about it, humour is very like creativity.

There’s a set-up (two men walk into a pub…), and then a punch line. The punchline is an "answer" to the set up. It's something we don’t expect, but which makes some sort of sense.

Great ideas are similar – there’s a challenge (or problem, or brief). And then an "answer".

If the "answer" we come up with is the obvious one, the one that immediately makes sense, it’s like a punchline you’ve heard before. It’s boring, unimaginative, the same old same old.

A new idea - like an unexpected punchline - surprises us. It's new - but it makes sense when checked against the problem or brief.

And having a laugh helps us have ideas. The centres of the brain which process humour, and come up with ideas, are so close that one helps the other.

Bring humour into your ideas sessions, by putting up cartoons, sharing jokes, or turning the problem into a limerick.

Have a laugh, and have an idea!