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 SESSION B.1 : HANDOUT.
 
 LATERAL PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT
 
The potential of random words in brainstorming is that they can trigger unforeseen ideas in a particular mix of people, where a different group would devise something entirely different.  Community media can use the constant synergy of ideas available through this method to stimulate novel programming ideas or programming policy.

In such a co-operative atmosphere there is no either/or clash, but instead overlapping possibilities. This approach to dialogue is recommended by Edward De Bono, the originator of the phrase 'Lateral Thinking' which this session seeks to utilise. It attempts to give the participants a spectrum of possibilities rather than the dichotomy of ideas.

This approach is enriched if all in the group are encouraged to participate, each with their own unique contribution. It may just be the suggestion of the normally quiet person that triggers off a novel idea for the group.

Through the dynamic of laying out side by side a range of diverse possibilities you can design new programmes or new programming policies that may take the station into new territory. This approach seeks to avoid the usual adversarial situation, by allowing us to calmly explore new perceptions and new concepts, not currently considered as connected to the media, or programme development.

Instead of forcing our community programming into the imposed world of already existing mainstream media, we permit the participants to explore beyond these constraints.
 
This form of brainstorming requires most of us to shake off lifelong decision-making habits. For example, information alone won't create new programmes. Through non-judgemental, testing of concepts, we can arrive at valuable creative ideas, which will always seem logical in hindsight, but were not be so obvious in foresight. And probably would never have emerged if we had continued with the tried and trusted methods of programme development. The fundamental difference is to remember that judgement was not used to arrive at an outcome, but to evaluate the outcome of our random brainstorming session.

This lateral approach to programme formatting and development moves us away from the debilitating misconception that the shortest way from point A to point B is the best way and the solution to all problems. It also disabuses us of the notion that mainstream media has invented the wheel of programming and there is no need for us in community media to have another look at it.

We could, perhaps, paraphrase Bertrand Russell when he remarked in Sceptical Essays, "Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life (or media formats), it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism".

Sometimes subversion is the way to understanding, and the cure for the closed mind, as it has the potential to shake us out of the rut of established ways of doing things. Lateral thinking is a useful tool that can open up new areas of programming creativity.

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