Question: Suppose you work in a museum in your town and you want to promote your next exhibit by finding ways to help your community. First pick a type of museum and exhibit you think would show at this museum. Next, think about the concepts behind a dating service. A dating service for singles (any type!) is remote from a museum. List the attributes of a dating service, and try to connect those attributes with something that can help the museum. Keep in mind, we're not looking for a dating event to be held at the museum, while this would be fun that's not the point of this exercise. Think about the attributes of a dating service (this may require some research) and then let your creative mind take over. How could those attributes be applied to help you promote your next exhibit and help your community?
For example: A speed dating service is a place for like minded individuals to meet quickly and learn a bit about each other. How can this concept be used to promote an exhibit? If the exhibit is for local artists, these artists could sit with their artwork and museum guests could have 2 minutes to talk with them about their piece. Once the buzzer goes off guests move onto the next work of art and have the chance to learn about it. On this night all local members can attend for free. After this evening the hope is that word of mouth will help to further promote the exhibit. And so on... (You may be tempted to go with an idea similar to this now that you've read it, but see if you can go further or in a different direction.)
Use the list of concepts you create to come up with a specific plan to promote the next exhibit at the museum. (Hint-use conceptual blending to come up with a solution!)
After completing the activity please answer the following questions to further explore your experience:
1. What was most helpful about this exercise?
2. What was most challenging?
3. Could you apply this type of activity in another area of your life? Could this exercise be helpful in the future?
4. How would you rate the value of this exercise on a scale of 1-10? Why?
5. In one sentence-what did you learn?
6. Building upon your thoughts in number 5, what ideas were generated and which ones were most interesting? Why?
7. Would you prefer this activity to last weeks?