Creative Whack Pack
ISBN: 0880795433 The Creative Whack Pack was developed by RogerVonOech, the author of A WhackOnTheSideOfTheHead.
It is a deck of cards with little thinking strategies on each. The pack is used as a creativity tool. You will either love it or hate it.
-- ToddCoram
As quoted in an Amazon review:
Some examples of cards:
Card #27 - CHANGE ITS NAME - If a architect looks at an opening between two rooms and thinks "door" that's what she will design. But if she thinks "passageway", she may design something much different like a "hallway", "air curtain", "tunnel", or perhaps a "courtyard". Different words bring in different assumptions and lead your thinking in different directions. What else can you call your idea?
Card #9 - USE A RANDOM IDEA - Open your mind up to things that have nothing to do with the idea you're developing. Pick out the third word on p.134 of your dictionary - "broom". How does it relate to what you are doing? What similiarities does it have with your idea? Can you use it as a metaphor? Look out your window and find the first thing that has blue in it - "mailbox". How does it shed light on your idea? What random idea can you use to stimulate your thinking?
I demo'd the dictionary trick to a class of Computer Scientists, many years ago. The random word was something like aardvark. And a student cried out: I've just seen why my program is not working!
A very similar concept to Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's ObliqueStrategies used for creative composition (most usually music).