Einstein and his colleagues spent years freely corresponding and brainstorming with each other. They exchanged and dialogued about ideas. They did this without trying to change the other’s mind and without argument. They always paid attention to each other’s views and established an extraordinary professional fellowship.

They were using a set of ancient Greek principles of intrapersonal communication developed by Socrates called Koinonia:

• Establish dialog
• Exchange ideas
• Don’t argue
• Don’t interrupt
• Listen carefully
• Clarify your thinking
• Be honest

Most people naturally like to interact. When a spirit of Koinonia prevails, people are less likely to withhold information. As a result, intragroup communications are enhanced and ideas flow more freely within a group.

(Adapted from : Michael Michalko, author of Creative Thinking book: Thinkertoys.)

In the spirit of Koinonia, join me for a sharing of ideas on Twitter. (or read last issue’s article about ‘What is Twitter‘)

It takes words you enter directly or words from your blog. Here’s the Wordle for this blog – the bigger words show you the things I mention most often. (click it to see the bigger, original version at the Wordle site).

What’s the coolest web tool you’ve seen lately?

Andrew Horabin, celebrated & awarded & very clever comedian took us through his Top 5 tips for injecting your presentations with humour last night. Andrew is the inventor of Mick the De-Motivational Speaker. More at www.horabin.com

My summary (if you were there, please add your comment/summary below too):

1. INTERACTION - Get your audience interacting with each other in a fun way and they will make each other laugh. It gives you a chance to read the room and the energy before you launch into your presentation. If you’re not someone who is ‘a natural’ at comedy, continue to find ways to make your audience crack each other up.

Your presentation is a combination of ‘rope’ and ‘risk’. Rope = the tried and true material you know works, every time. Risk = the stuff you try out or fall upon. If Risk works consistently, it becomes rope.

2. ANALOGIES - Humour comes when you put two things together that don’t naturally fit, then you show how they DO fit. For example – how is LOVE like WATER? Audience: ‘it flows’, ‘there are moments of wetness’. Presenter: ‘yeah.. and long times of drought’ (laughter!!)

You will get fresh ideas if you find a way to connect two things that don’t seem to go together.

3. CHARACTERS - Use your voice and your body to take on the character you’re talking about. When you are telling a story, don’t just use your own voice when quoting someone in the story. BE THAT person.

4. STORIES – If you can tell your career/life story in 3 minutes, you’ll keep audience attention. Don’t feel the need to reel off your achievements and resume. Lots of that will have been done in the introduction by the MC. You can pepper your presentation with various ‘trophies’ by bringing them up during your stories.

5. REINCORPORATION – Loop back to previous spots in your presentation where there were laughs. But be careful.. do this too often, without much of a gap since the last time and the audience will not like it.

Other tips – if you try some ‘risk’ material and it doesn’t work, just move on – don’t point it out. The audience won’t mind if YOU don’t mind.

TRACK for humour – look for funny things all the time. consider journaling things you find funny. During the presentation, things will happen that could be used for humour – use them.. and refer back to them.

Short and simple – Twitter is a micro blogging service. Fact: there are people around the world who would be interested in what has your attention at any give time. And vice versa. Well, you get 140 characters to tell each other. As many times a day as you like. These little ‘status updates’ (called tweets) include the sorts of things you’re doing in between emails and blog posts. They can be insignificant: ‘first cup of coffee for the day, finally’ through to your on-the-ground report on a natural disaster: ‘the entire town has been evacuated and we’re awaiting further instructions’. Unlike email, you do not have to read every message.

Sure, there is a place for the social side of it – I have been able to help out a mate or two with recipes or info on kids playgrounds or gift ideas and I’ve recently had a debate about fruit-less hot cross buns BUT as a small business owner, I see the power of Twitter as being far more business-oriented…

Business owners are using Twitter as a conversational tool with other businesses and amongst their existing and potential customers. The way I use it is as a virtual office full of people I’m inspired by and interested in. When I have a new idea or a roadblock, I’ll tweet about it and get instant feedback and solutions. If I’m putting together an event in Sydney, I can tweet for venue suggestions. When I was ready to find a designer for a new brochure, I tweeted for recommendations.

At first, you visit www.twitter.com, sign up for free, create your profile page (personal, business, community – whatever you decide) then do a search for people or topics you’d like to connect with.

Once you’re following a few people, post a few comments and you’ll find people will start following you. To reply to someone specifically type an @ symbol directly before their Twitter name. eg: @IdeasCulture (your followers will see the reply too). To reply to someone privately, type the letter D (for direct) then a space, then their Twitter name.

I will leave you with 2 bits of advice:

1. Do NOT use Twitter JUST to promote your products, blog, services. You must first establish a conversation with your followers – tweet about interesting things you’re reading, seeing, doing. And ONLY tweet about promotional things if they are relevant and valuable.
   
2. Visit Chris Brogan’s page for 50 ideas on using Twitter for business.

Find me, follow me and ask for help if you need it : www.twitter.com/IdeasCulture

Divergent thinking = the process of brainstorming – applying creative thinking techniques to get fresh ideas. There are tons and tons of techniques out there and it is possible to make one up on the spot. Simply choose a way of generating a list of random words or phrases on a page, then connect those random words/phrases one at a time with the challenge you are facing in order to find ideas.

Convergent thinking = the idea selection process. Once the idea generation phase is complete, how do you find your top idea or three? You use a convergent thinking technique. There are only a handful of those and it is not so easy to make up a new one.

This site has a great list of creativity techniques: http://mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques