Thinkpak [Cards]

I found the cards are too large and awkward to hold and deal. The questions on the cards are wonderful, and process itself is solid. There are sort of 9 suites around the themes "adapt", "eliminate" and these each have a different back side of the card design - letting you sort the cards by suite. Each of these suites has 5 cards for 45 questions cards. There are 2 other suites, an evaluation suite with 9 cards and instruction suite with 2 cards. 45+9+2= 56 cards in total.

On the detail side of the cards of the same suite all have the same title -- wouldn't it have been nicer if instead of just saying, "Eliminate", it was "Eliminate in sense of yyy", where yyy provide how this eliminate is different from that of other eliminates? Why not put the word eliminate on the back of the card with the design ( and use precious space on information side to provide more graphics.) Personally I would rather had less information on each card, and more cards in the deck. Many cards have a lot of questions on them, I'm thinking each card should be limited to 1 or 2 questions, instead of 5+ often found, by just create more cards. If suites could be expanded to 13 cards each then if one gave up on the problem one could probably play regular card games with them ... until the creative juices reappeared! With 9 suites bridge would be even more exciting! Also if one could break the deck, into two decks with the evaluation cards and instruction cards in a separate deck as I'm constantly finding the evaluation cards getting mixed up with the idea generation cards. Annoying!

The ThinkPak process reminded me a lot of TRIZ, with similar sort of thinking happening although the card format is truly inspired and fun to work with. I'm using this pack on a lots of things, from presentations to writing.

On a practical evaluation, the cardboard is thick and strong- but more plastic coating to make them food and drink spill resistant would be appreciated. I'm scared to use them anywhere around where we have food. While I liked the designs on back of the cards I thought been neat if these cards had individualized pictures portraying concepts on the information side. (I've seen these Tarot decks that are amazing with such great artwork --- an inspired artist could create fabulous pictures, and names for the cards). The thought that did occur to me, if one going to have different back designs, why not make them creative in some way, so one could form a morphing puzzle or pictures or something. I remember these children books where you can flip pages and drawing are cleverly designed to mess perfectly to create hundreds of pictures, couldn't these cards maybe do something similar on the back design. Let the cards create an amazing factory scenes or something.

For all of us who think creativity is only for the gifted...think again ! The THINKPAK allows anyone to jump start their creative mind using simple but very effective techniques. ANYONE can use this tool to alleviate the writer's blank page syndrome or to prepare a presentation, to propose a business plan or plan a birthday party. The nice package makes it an ideal gift too !

I purchased Thinkpac nearly 2 years ago, but have waited until now to write this review. One reason is the myriad uses I have discovered for these versatile cards. Thinkpac is tool for brainstorming, and is based on the author's wonderfully useful acronym SCAMPER. (See 'Thinkrtoys,' Ch. Nine.)A brief book summarizes the principles. The cards provide the means.

Traditionally, brainstorming is viewed as a technique for solving problems occurring in business and industry. However, I have become increasingly intrigued with other applications. When 2 or more people engage in creative discussion many options open. I have used Thinkpac to plan a family vacation. And a friend and his associates used the cards to strategize and assemble a fantasy football team for an entire season. The sky's the limit.