Level Up Your Brainstorming Sessions With a ‘Hunch Hour’
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for a workshop on writing effective op-eds with a group of academics. Maybe we would all take turns standing at a podium, playing intellectual defense as people searched for holes in our arguments. But what ended up taking place was both gentler and more energizing — and it’s given me a powerful strategy for propelling ideas forward.
“We’re going to do something I call the ‘Hunch Hour,’” the workshop facilitator, Courtney Martin, told the group. The other participants and I looked at each other, confused. Martin explained the premise: We’d go around the table and each express a hunch we had about something, either in our personal lives or about the world around us.
Someone kicked us off. “New York is no longer a global creative center,” they said.
Another person shared: “We no longer care about the truth.”
Said another: “The creative capitals of the Americas are now Rio, Montreal, and New Orleans.”
My own hunch was “The rural/urban blur will save humanity.”
Once a hunch was on the table, Martin asked the group to either “confirm” or “complicate” it with…
