Watermelon
Credo wins

I AM CONSTANTLY proving to myself how important it is to be positive in spite of the negative conditions or opinions of others. My latest book, Watermelon Credo: The Book, which is available through my website, might be the best confirmation yet. The sequence of events is as follows.

In July 2009, The Costco Connection ran one of my columns, which used my Watermelon Credo. The response was very positive. One reader’s daughter and son-in-law, both teachers, used it to inspire their students, and another daughter shared it with her co-workers in a financial office. We offered copies of the credo to anyone who e-mailed me. More than 600 readers responded.

Earlier this year I had an upcoming lecture to the International Reading Association, a network of literacy professionals. I decided to convert the

Wally Amos is the founder of Uncle Wally’s Muffin Company. You can reach him at www.wallyamos.com.

Watermelon Credo into a book to sell at their conference. The book was written with my co-author and friend, Stu Glauberman. No publishers were interested. Using ideas in the credo, I decided to self-publish in four months.

Believing it could be done, I contacted the publisher of my Chip & Cookie book, who gave me a favorable deal. Through previous contacts, I found a manager for the project, and she found an editor and illustrator. Everyone worked together as a team with great enthusiasm, and we had books for the conference two weeks ahead of schedule.

We did what many said couldn’t be done, and proved the message of the Watermelon Credo works. Everyone had a positive attitude. We were an exceptionally friendly and cohesive team. Collectively we made a commitment to complete the book. We respected each other and had fun. We loved what we were doing and did our best one day at a time, always focused on answers and solutions. Obviously, we never gave up or became victims.

If it works for me, it can work for everyone. The message is: “It works, if you work it.” You cannot be too positive. Prove me right. Use it! C

Group
therapy

More in archives
On Costco.com, enter
“Connection.”At Online Edition,
search “Wally Amos.”

BRAINSTORMING IS OFTEN needed in any business—struggling or thriving—to jump-start processes, product or service creation, or sales.

But how can you be sure your participation in that process will lead to a storm and not a drizzle?

Schaumburg, Illinois, Costco member Hazel Wagner is a brainstorming expert and facilitator, and author of the book Power Brainstorming: Great Ideas at Lightning Speed (b9d, inc., 2009). She offers these tips.

1. Write it down, right away! We think we will easily remember the great idea we just had, but most of us forget if we don’t write it down or record it.

Ideas that come to us in the middle of the night (dreams are often the way the brain continues to figure out unresolved problems) need to be jotted down. And get everyone’s ideas written down before there is any sharing.

2. Fast and furious, timed lightning
rounds. Time yourself. Require a number of
ideas to be written down in a short amount of
time—for example, 10 ideas in three minutes or
25 ideas in eight minutes. Forcing yourself to
work with the pressure of a limited amount of
time keeps that censor in your brain from inter-
rupting. Items you might have
thought wouldn’t work might turn
out to be the essence of a fantastic
idea —yours or a trigger for some-
one else’s.

3. No judgment comments. Saying someone’s idea is a bad one or won’t work will put the brakes on a brainstorming session.

Positive comments can do the same. If someone says, “That is a great idea!” everyone else in the room subconsciously compares it to what they were about to offer and may choose not to mention it. 4. Organize and reorganize after the lightning rounds. After any lightning rounds of fast-paced idea generation, organize the ideas into clusters that fit together.

For more information on Power Brainstorming, go to www.brainstorming-that-works. com. C

Forecast: brainstorms

IMAGEZOO

WE WORK in groups in all aspects of our lives, but it seems that, most of the time, the group dynamic hinders rather than stimulates productivity. This makes it that much more important to understand group dynamics and how to get the most out of them.

In their book Extra-
ordinary Groups: How
Ordinary Teams Achieve
Amazing Results (Jossey-
Bass, 2009), business consul-
tants Geoffrey Bellman and
Kathleen Ryan studied
groups ranging from two
participants to around 20 and
shared their observations
with more than 600 execu-
tives, managers and consul-
tants. Their conclusion:
“Exceptional experiences can
be thoughtfully nurtured and
intentionally encouraged.”
The book outlines their
study and provides valuable
tips and exercises to create
extraordinary groups, which
exhibit, among other traits: