The document discusses techniques for generating and exploring bad ideas, including: 1) Thinking of silly or impractical ideas and analyzing what makes them bad to better understand design constraints. 2) "Critical transitions" involve identifying boundary cases between categories to define concepts more precisely. 3) Externalizing ideas through drawings, models, or other representations helps clarify, transform, and communicate thinking. 4) Considering multiple classifications of ideas can help identify gaps, trends, and abstract concepts in a literature search. 5) Personality prosthetics are tools that help researchers with their strengths and weaknesses to achieve goals.

1. bad ideas Geoff Ellis & Alan Dix Lancaster University & Talis & Lingards Cross Farm

5. why bad ideas?

10. critical transitions and generating examples

17. externalisation

20. informational passing on to others already formed ideas

21. formational ideas become clearer by the process of externalisation

22. transformational thinking using materials c.f. external/distributed cognition e.g. measure length on diagram

23. transcendental our thoughts and ideas become the object of thought

24. multiple classifications

32. personality prostheses

33. a researcher is …

35. imagine …

43. bad ideas prompts externalisation explicit design space critical transitions divergence convergence examples (multiple) classifications boundaries personality prosthesis breaking bounds commitment