Introducing the two-storm.

Group brainstorms are inefficient and produce low-value ideas.

You may think this heretical, but in this article I hope to convince you on why I think a “two-storm” approach is more efficient, sustainable, and produces better ideas.

I’ll also give you some tips for how to do a two-storm, including an agenda you can lift.

Brainstorms don’t work

First off, a few words on why group brainstorms are not fit for purpose — at least, when the purpose is idea generation.

• Three is a crowd. Put more than two people in a room and a pack mentality forms. The underlying motivation becomes less about generating ideas, and more about social acceptance.
• Brainstorms are biased towards the talents of extroverts. An energising activity for one person is an exhausting activity for another. More introverted team members’ ideas often aren’t heard.
• Group brainstorms tend to come up with low-hanging-fruit ideas which earn broad acceptance from the group. They do not make space for the complex idea development which is needed for tackling complex problems.

Most group brainstorms are one of two things: a ceremonious discussion or a clandestine team-building exercise.

Both activities have their uses. It’s just that their merit is not the generation and development of ideas.

Introducing the two-storm

In teams of two, you avoid the problems of big group brainstorms and instead optimize the working style for idea generation.

The core idea of a “two-storm” is that you work with a creative partner to ideate around a problem or question in a focused and sustainable way.

I decided to call this technique two-storming, but you can call it creative duos, idea sprints, or whatever floats your boat.

Who to two-storm with

The perfect pairing for a two-storm is two people who trust each other, have different perspectives and agree on the problem.

• They need to trust each other so that energy is not spent on relationship building or conflict avoidance.
• They need different perspectives to avoid the idea generation taking place in an echo chamber.
• They need to agree on the problem that needs to be solved, so agendas do not clash.

A designer and an accountant absolutely can and should two-storm together, given they agree on the problem that needs solving and feel safe with each other.

The two-storm agenda

Schedule 60 minutes in the calendar for the two-storm:

• 5 minutes are for checking in and synching up.
• 10 minutes are for framing the problem.
• 20 minutes are for idea generation.
• 15 minutes are for prioritising your ideas.
• 10 minutes are for taking a break.

Book a room for it and make sure you’ve got all of the creative supplies you need — whiteboard, Post-its etc.

Managing creative energy smartly creates efficiencies. The active idea generation part of the two-storm lasts just 20 minutes, at which point, people tire from intensive creative work. By being strict on the timing, one pair can manage several two-storms in a day, tackling a series of problems.

During the two-storm

Here’s how to run two-storm:

1. Check-in. Make sure you are both in the right mindset for the two-storm. That means not stressed, hungry, or over-tired. Ban technology for the next hour, and remove smartphones from the room.
2. Synch up. A useful way to start the brainstorms is taking three deep breaths together, synching up brains and bodies onto the same wavelength. A ritual like this kicks off the deep work mindset.
3. Framing the problem. You want to agree on the critical question or problem statement, as well as the standards you would apply to prioritise ideas. If you haven’t agreed on what you are solving, take a step back — you are not ready to two-storm this yet.
4. Idea generation. You will bounce ideas off each other and positively build on each other’s thoughts (e.g use the “Yes, and” rule). It’s good to set a limit as to how many ideas you want to collect to prevent getting stuck on one route.
5. Idea prioritisation. Take 2 silent minutes to write down, as individuals, which ideas you think are the strongest. Share, compare and select ideas.
6. Taking a break. Taking a walk together can be a good way of cooling down and a chance to discuss what to do with the strongest ideas.

Breaking the brainstorm hegemony

Sadly, ineffective group brainstorms are still the go-to technique for idea generation by all kinds of organisations. This is true of clunky old companies and trendy creative agencies alike.

To end on a simple hack, even when your upcoming workshop has been planned as a traditional brainstorm, you can still sneak in a two-storm. You can suggest that during brainstorm phase of the activity, the group splits into pairs for twenty-minutes of focused idea generation. The pairs then return to the wider group to share, discuss and prioritise ideas.

By challenging the existing practise like this, hopefully we can break the brainstorm hegemony, and move towards creative methods which actually respond to the needs of human brains and bodies.

Next time you hear “let’s brainstorm this,” instead, try a two-storm.

Never Brainstorm Ever Again was originally published in The Sustainable Innovator on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve started learning German. Right now, I have just about enough German to say that ich spreche kein Deutsch. That is, I’m a total beginner. But I’m already gathering a list of poems in the language, poems which I plan to understand and even memorise.

With this secret geeky weekend ritual, through Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and now German, I’ve found that poetry is my most useful tool in learning a language. So, fellow language learners, allow me to make a case for poetry.

Apps and textbooks are mind-numbing

Apps like DuoLingo and Memrise are great for cramming vocabulary. But damn, they butcher the language. I’ve slavishly used DuoLingo in the past, and become frustrated by endless repetition of “The penguin eats four lions” and sentences of that ilk.

Language textbooks are equally mind-numbing. We probably share dull memories of Spanish textbooks asking inane questions like ¿Donde están los zapatos de Miguel? Who cares where Miguel left his shoes? Textbooks are useful for learning grammar, but they are weak on engaging content.

For me, the same is true of reading children’s books. Yes, to get comfortable in a language you need to be ready to infantilise yourself a bit at the beginning. I hate compromising on my appetite for depth, complexity and meaning. Poetry offers the perfect solution.

Poetry is digestible

First up, poetry is bite-sized and digestible. In any of the languages I’m learning, I’d struggle with a classic or contemporary novel harder than the Harry Potter series. But it’s easier to handle difficulty in small doses.

And because poems are digestibly sized, it is easier to form habits and goals around them. For me, one poem a week is manageable. Each time, it feels like a mindful treat and a deliciously analogue break from the screen.

Contemporary poems are best. Poems with short lines and particularly ones with some element of repetition are even better. I just discovered the perfect first poem for losing my German language virginity, Es Ist Was Est Ist by Eric Fried. Clear, repetitive, meaningful and with a smattering of useful vocabulary.

Poetry gives insight into the language

Poetry offers a feel for the sounds of its language. For example, it’s easier to guess the pronunciation of a word in a poem because any rhythm or rhyming give context. Reading Portuguese poetry out loud forces my tongue to make rolling vowel sounds, and Danish poetry requires my mouth to make mashed potato out of consonants. Great practice.

Then, poetry gives unique access to the culture behind the language. Lots of Spanish poetry is fiery, bright, emotionally charged. Danish poetry celebrates the is down-to-earth and often quite cosy. Portuguese poetry is often nostalgic, melancholy.

Poetry anchors the language

Language learning is messy, and it can often feel like you are not making progress. There are days when I’m sure my Danish never even existed. My Spanish works like a rusty but reliable car. In Portuguese though, my favourite language, I can barely form a sentence these days.

Of course, the poems slip out of your head too. But the poems you get familiar with go on to provide a secure anchor back to the language. A reminder that it is there, hiding away in grey matter, waiting to come out again when it’s needed.

When I pick up Fernando Pessoas’ Mensagem and turn to his tantalising poem Horizonte, Portuguese rolls off my tongue again. After, I feel like a trip to Portugal or Brazil would be enough to jump-start this language.

Poetry empowers

Learning Danish has been an uphill battle, full of cultural obstacles and impossible sounds.

One poem in Danish, Livets Hastighed by Michael Strunge, gave me a fundamental breakthrough. I connected with the poem and managed to learn it, painstakingly line by line. That one poem somehow allowed me to prove to myself that, yes, I do have a handle on this language.

It’s a vacuous point, but language learning is so much about confidence. I’m not advising you recite a poem next time you order a cappuccino in a second language. Simply, I think that arming yourself with a few poems in the language at hand will help you have the confidence to order said cappuccino.

Learn a poem a week

True, engaging with any media in the language you are trying to learn will help. Simply, I believe poetry provides an effective and overlooked tool in language learning.

Poems are digestibly-sized, meaningful, train pronunciation and give a key to the culture. They also help you become more confident in and stay connected to the language. Choosing poetry which is clear and contemporary is the best starting point.

Language-learners, try this: Once a week, familiarise yourself with a poem from the language you are trying to learn. You don’t need to learn it completely flawlessly by heart. Just enough to be able to read it with occasional prompts. Perhaps choose a favourite new word from the poem, and cherish it.

Then, come back to the poem, ten years later, when the language has faded from your mind, and it’ll still be there waiting for you.

I’ve been putting some thought into the relationship between mood and technology, particularly looking at digital experiences which build in mood-orientated features. Previously, I’ve discussed why I think Spotify offers an interesting example of the digital world reacting to mood. To explore this idea, I ran a small qualitative study looking at how mood comes into play in users’ experience of Spotify. Here I’ll offer my findings as food for thought for those involved in creating digital experiences where moods might matter.

I’ll skip most of the theory but offer a bit of context. Spotify is an interesting example of mood and digital coming together, in part because of the music streaming platform’s mood playlists and mood selection features. But also because of the platform’s core features: unlimited streaming, curation, customisation, playlist creation and discovery features, all drawing on a enormous pool of music, allowing users to tailor their music listening to their tastes like never before.

Meanwhile, Spotify themselves are clearly very aware of the importance of mood in their experience. Whilst there is a wealth of research around the relationship between music and moods (which I won’t go into here), none of this research appears to have zoomed in on the role of mood in music listening mediated through digital streaming platforms.

So, what role does mood play in users’ experience of Spotify? In what ways do Spotify’s mood navigation features contribute to this experience?

I ran a small but deep qualitative study to find out. Small because of just 5 participants, all Spotify subscribers in their twenties. Deep because I employed a phenomenological interviewing technique, which involves helping participants to describe fuzzy aspects of their experience for which they don’t have the words for first-hand. So, straight to the findings.

Here’s what I found out

Spotify played an important role in the lives of participants as their primary source of music. Participants described using the full range of features of Spotify, such as the discovery playlists to seek new music, recommendations personalised to their taste, playlists that they have curated themselves or shared playlists curated with friends and followed playlists and artists. Subscription, rather than the free experience, allows for uninterrupted use of Spotify resulting in a richer experience.

“I started subscribing to Spotify a year and a half ago. Originally I would only use it on the shuffle play and look up regular artists that I already knew. Now that I am a subscriber I use it more to find new music or new artists. I also use Spotify every day. Listening to mixes I’ve already created and also with new music. I’m following “Discover Weekly” and every week I get new updates. I have Spotify on my phone and my laptop.” — Jane

All of the participants in this study described mood being involved in their motivations for using Spotify. Participants described listening to music through Spotify in order to either to alter or to react to their moods. There was a fuzzy distinction between the mood that one is in, the mood that one wants to be in, and the mood which is intrinsically imbued within a specific track or genre.

“I probably… usually I choose the playlist based on the mood I am in. But sometimes if I’m feeling sad or something, then I might choose something which is happier, so that I can try to change my mood.” — Emma

“…For example today I was listening to a singing Tibetan bowl sound track that was under the mood genre of relaxation. And I ended up becoming, really calm and centred. I feel like I was easily able to fall into a relaxed feeling which felt like my muscles were relaxing, only focusing on those few things. The music represented and evoked that feeling.” — Jane

That Spotify allows for mood regulation seems intuitive for participants, as music is inherently linked to mood and emotion.

“Music is emotion. That’s exactly what it is. It’s within me, of course. But it’s the sound and me.. kind of the sound and me working together… I’m not too sure what I’m trying to say right now. [long pause] … it’s the music working in me. I don’t know how to finish that sentence.” — Lars

“Music is like therapy… The only way I can calm my stress is through music.” — Jorge

Spotify is understood as providing access and navigation of mood-affecting musical content. That is, it is seen as the container, rather than the ingredients. So these mood-based affordances of Spotify are interpreted as being part of the music, rather than inherent to the platform.

“Spotify is a source of music. That you can use to tailor to yourself, so you can personalise it. And when it comes to emotions. I think really it gives you access to a lot of … a wide variety of music. It’s kind of this platform or source where you can access certain aspects or feelings that you have. If you are premium. It would ruin it if it hard commercials all the times, it would interrupt.” — Sara

For the participants, playlists were the default way of listening to music on Spotify, which means that they very rarely listen to a whole album. Sara notices this when she talks about listening to vinyl.

“It’s interesting when … when I lived in my sisters apartment last year, she has a record player. I put on the Edith Piathe album and I listened to it all in one. And I listened to it multiple times. So like, both sides, you could flip it. And that was interesting because I don’t usually listen to a full album, I listen to a couple of songs. Or, I’ll quickly go through their album and if a song sounds good I’ll add it to a playlist. I kinda sort through things quickly. But here I listen to to the full thing. That was a different experience.” — Sara

The mood playlists curated by Spotify are used occasionally by participants, offering a listening pathway where mood-based motivations are more explicit. Participants find them to be an intuitive way to cut across genres, artists and albums in order to gather tracks in a way which neatly delivers on the desired emotional state.

“Music is like mood-based. It fits well with music to have it categorised that way. There’s a lot of emotion in music. And you use it for different things, to relax you or to pump you up, or… so it kind of makes sense to do it in a mood category.” — Emma

“I feel that it’s a compartmentalised way of managing something unmanageable. Because there is so much music available. In the world. And on Spotify. Mood is a way of compartmentalising and identify a state of being that can be represented in music. I think Spotify is playing on a concept which is quite innately human.” — Jane

This avoids the interruption of tracks which do not fit with the desired mood of music they wish to experience, meaning the music can be listened to in a backgrounded or unconscious way.

“There’s something about about not having to think about what you are listening to. So having a playlist which is geared towards your mood and is also pre-made, so you don’t have to worry about changing the song. It’s in the background. You don’t have to think about what you are listening to.” — Emma

The playlists curated for focusing or studying deliver on this need. Focusing, for example, is understood as a blend between mood and activity needing an uninterrupted flow of the appropriate music. Other examples include working through a sad mood to attain a cathartic release, maintaining and reflecting a happy or positive mood, or relaxation.

“Yeh. Focusing… to be focused you need to be calm and kind of forget other things, kind of put things aside. I don’t know if being focused is an emotion but it definitely has emotions that go along with it.” — Sara

“I really like the mood playlists for relaxation and for dinner parties and more like relaxing or cozy music. And also I use the mood for meditation and for yoga.” — Jane

However, the mood playlists do not always deliver the desired effect for participants, as the music contained within the mood playlists does not necessarily deliver on participant’s own taste, or their expectation around the music’s appropriateness for the desired mood.

“Once in a while… you know you can pick a playlist based on your mood or activity… But they don’t always work for me. … I think they are made for a different audience. I don’t know how to say that without sounding snobby.” — Lars

“One time I had a few friends over and we were going to have dinner and the dinner party mood genre was way too up beat for the environment and the event. So it had techno music laced in. I wasn’t certain that that was the right placement for the mood.” — Jane

Nonetheless, the mood playlists do provide a route for discovering new music outside of what the participants usually listen to. Another benefit of the mood playlists is in a social situation, where the desired mood of the setting is easier to agree on than finding consensus on taste, either by artist or genre.

“Yeh, I think. I use them when I’ve been with a group of people and someone needs to put on some music. I sometimes get self conscious with the music that I choose so I’m like OK, I’ll just put on a mood that’s like “party” or “evening chill,” and I’ll scroll through it and see if there are songs that I know. And if there are then I’ll kind of be like, the rest that I don’t know it’ll be OK because it’s in that category” — Sara

Participants describe the sensation of finding the right music to suit their mood — or the sudden appearance of a track that doesn’t suit their mood — in highly embodied terms. For example, Lars chooses to use the metaphor of cooking and Emma screws up her face in disgust at the idea of the wrong music for her mood:

“When I find exactly the music I am looking for… You know when you are cooking, and… you taste the food and it’s not quite right. And then you put something in it and then… then it tastes right. You know what’s right… but you can’t describe it. It just feels right.” — Lars

“I’ll put on a playlist and I’m like eew… I guess it feels a bit gross, you can just tell it’s not right. Maybe in my chest. It’s like a physical feeling. That’s not the mood I’m in.” – Emma

Overall, mood is a vital aspect of participants’ behaviour on Spotify, and it seems that participants listen to music through the platform to manage or at least react to their moods. Yet the role of mood is normally implicit and unconscious in the participants’ listening.

Mood playlists represent an alternative listening pathway where moods are satisfied explicitly and consciously, happening in a more limited range of circumstances, such as focusing, exercising and relaxing.

To conclude

Spotify provides a neat, intuitive way of navigating the emotional effects which are inherent to the music itself, allowing that music to be accessed and consumed in a dynamic, personalised and unlimited fashion on-the-go.

Having an unlimited source of music in your pocket is like an on-demand remote control to your emotional life.

Spotify provide us with strategic cognitive and affective resources, available from a smartphone. In the same way as we outsource some of our cognitive load to the computer (e.g. notes and reminders, calculators etc.) perhaps some of our emotional state could also be seen as being “outsourced” to the machine.

For the music industry, this explicitly mood-based listening is an interesting, emerging consumption dynamic. Mood-motivated listening is at odds with music traditionally organised by musical genre, artist or album. A mood playlist cuts across these forms of organisation and instead structures music around an assumed affective state.

This trend contrasts with the reemergence vinyl and subsequent “long play” of albums. On the one hand, there is music streaming being structured by discovery algorithms, self or socially created playlists and playlists curated by concepts such as mood. On the other hand, there is vinyl where the listening experience is controlled by the artist or label and materially guides towards longplay.

Finally, this research highlights the difficulties involved in designing experiences for moods. Spotify’s mood playlists, for example, do not deliver perfectly on the mood-motivations held by participants of this study — rather it was the sum of Spotify’s features plus the listeners’ active engagement which resulted in music consumption satisfying moods.

Designing for human-computer interaction involving moods will require an understanding of deep and affective aspects of consumers’ experience, drawing on insights from both cognitive science and philosophy. Doing so may ultimately reveal opportunities in this space to make digital experiences feel more human.

This research was done as part of a Master’s in Cognition & Communication from Copenhagen University, back in 2017 — and eventually published on MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE.

Experiencing mood on Spotify was originally published in MUSIC x on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Read receipts, such as that familiar blue double-tick on WhatsApp or timestamp on iMessage, are the object of a lot of frustration. At least we know this anecdotally — and there are blogs and articles all over the net complaining about the feature. Yet my research parter Teis and I could not find any academic research on the feature. Intriguing. So we went on a mission to find out more.

We did 11 semi-structured interviews to initially find out the patterns of behaviour, feelings and attitudes surrounding Read Receipts. These findings were translated into a survey which was completed by 108 students at the University of Copenhagen. Not massive numbers, but big enough to say something interesting . (You are welcome to check out the survey results here.)

So yes, officially these results can’t be generalised too broadly. But its up to you if they reflect your own experience! Here’s what we found out:

1. Read Receipts spark anxiety for senders

Interview participants discussed an opened message symbol creating “social anxiety,” “speculation,” and even “fear” when they are waiting for a response. In our survey the largest number of respondents choose that feeling ignored (35%) as best representing how they feel when a message has been marked read and not responded too.

2. Read Receipts also stress out receivers

According to participants, Read Receipts increase a pressure to respond as a receiver, whereby they feel “overwhelmed,” and “stressed out” by the social commitments that they form — a finding that also came through with survey respondents.

3. Almost everyone has Read Receipt avoidance strategies

Respondents across the board employed strategies to avoid showing that they had read messages, such as marking messages as unread and reading snippets on lock screen in order to “pretend that I didn’t see it.” 82% of survey respondents reported avoiding opening messages so not to mark them as read.

4. Though they also make people check their phone more

The Read Receipt may cause participants to increasingly check their phone and cross check with the online status of the receiver, potentially even calling out the receiver for not responding. Senders “speculate”, “interpret” and “imagine” what is going on at the “other end.” Ultimately, the Read Receipt allows the sender to “assess the other person’s interest” in either the conversation, or them.

5. There is a group of people who blissfully ignore Read Receipts

Nevertheless, a sizeable chunk of respondents say they feel comfortable (24%) , don’t care (12%), or even feel intrigued (16%) when an opened message has gone without response. Good for them!

6. Nobody loves read receipts

Overall, interview participants reported at least disliking Read Receipts, though some noticed functional contexts where they might be considered useful (such as knowing a housemate had received your message asking you to grab milk from the shop.)

Highly negative attitudes include seeing the feature as “evidence against you,” which can be used as a “personal attack,” supplying “unwanted information.”

They are “intrusive” and influence behaviour in negative ways to the extent that “they are not good for you.” The survey confirmed that nobody loves Receipts Receipts, though results were more level-headed than in the interviews.

7. In a dating context, Read Receipts are particularly scary

Unsurprisingly, the social context which had the biggest effect was dating. Users simply hated Read Receipts in the early stages of romances, with respondents claiming they play a part in “mind games,” an endless source of insecurity and focus of interpretation. This played out in the quant, with respondents most commonly “more aware” of Read Receipts with a date, and slightly less so with a girlfriend/boyfriend.

Two key factors seem to determine the dynamics here, which are the amount participants value the relationship, and how certain they are in the relationship.

When people care a lot about an uncertain relationship, the impact of Read Receipts is at its strongest.

8. Women are more bothered by Read Receipts than men

Further analyses revealed that gender plays a role in the effects of Read Receipts. This was clearest in the effects of Read receipts on Receivers, where women 44% of women reported feeling pressured to respond when a message has been marked read, as opposed to 24% of men. As senders, women were more likely to report feeling ignored or intrigued by an open Read Receipt.

This could also be interpreted the other way around, simply that men are twice as likely, as both senders and receivers , to report that they don’t care — despite going on to report Read Receipt avoidance strategies.

9. We tried to link these effects to personality, but failed miserably

Gender wasn’t initially where we were headed — we wanted to look at personality. We did a short personality questionaire within the survey, but the data was stretched across too many variables. There’s definitely some kind of link between neuroticism and how much Read Receipts bother people (at least this was apparent in the qualitative research — and just common sense) but there simply weren’t enough respondents to prove this. You live and learn.

10. Overall, there was a sense of Read Receipts taking away control from users

Both the pressure to respond and the anxiety of waiting for a response can disturb attention or interrupt “trains of thought.” With messages to respond to and people to initiate conversation with, many keep a “mental list” of their various conversations’ statuses in order to “plan” communication. One participant felt like she was constantly “juggling conversations,” and part of a “horrible game of catch-up.” Due to these effects, some have deactivated Read Receipts (where that option is available.)

However, these strong feelings have not been reflected in the number of people who have turned them off where they can.

What’s it all about?

It seems Read Receipts are playing the role of feed-back in a normal face-to-face conversation, that is, social cues like nodding which indicate that we are listening. Including Read Receipts in applications like Whatsapp and Facebook chat brings the texting experience closer to a real-time conversation.

However, Read Receipts, especially in applications where they cannot be turned off such as Facebook messenger, do not give receivers a choice to show if they have listened or not. This goes some way to explaining why receivers can feel “forced to respond” and annoyed about the feature.

Read Receipts are a double-edged sword, subject to a lot of hatred — but a power people don’t like to give up.

Users dislike Read Receipts (together with online statuses) being able to communicate about their behaviour and let the world spy into their lives, but value being able to find out about other people. Read Receipts are a double-edged sword, subject to a lot of hatred — but a power people don’t like to give up.

This research was done as part of a Master’s in Cognition & Communication from Copenhagen University, back in 2016. The academic article can be found here.

The research ended up referenced in an Atlantic article, “How it became normal to ignore texts and emails” and remains my most read Medium post — so it must be still a relevant topic!