101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Free Association Activities: “Blue Skies” 203

Sense Making Ideas Handout

To illustrate this activity, consider a publisher ’s problem of how to increase book sales.

Here are some ideas that this technique might spark:

• Smell:Produce books that contain fragrances that reflect literary themes.


• Sight:Include a page of slides to illustrate topics.


• Taste:Include free stamps to encourage book buyers to mail in coupons redeemable
  for discounts on future book purchases.


• Touch:Make book covers with different textures that invite people to touch them.
  Once people pick up a book, they will be more likely to buy it.


• Hearing:Put audio-digital computer chips (like those in greeting cards) in the inside
  covers of books. When someone opens the front cover, the book says, “Buy me,
  please!” or mentions some benefit of the book’s contents.

101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &

Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. http://www.pfeiffer.com

07 VG 167-216 10/6/04 12:17 PM Page 203