ABOUT THE BRAIN EXCHANGE
What is the Brain Exchange?
How Did We Get Started?
What is a Typical Meeting Like?
How Do We Stay Connected?
What is the Brain Exchange?
The Brain Exchange is a monthly, open-ended brainstorming group for women, re-introducedin 1995 by Anita Goldstein and Susan Goldstein. Affiliated brainstorming groupsare emerging all the time! People brainstorm about relationships, in-laws, children,quality of life questions, career questions, marketing strategies, entrepreneurial ideas, titles for the books they're writing and names for their babies.
Brainstorming is an opportunity to meet like-minded women, to give and receive support for work and personal issues, and to network. It's a process that encourages people to share their new projects, their concerns, their hopes and fears, and to explore transitions. We use a structured process and traditional brainstorming guidelines to generate answers to questions.
How Did We Get Started?
In 1995 Susan and Anita responded to the requests of some friends: would we lead a couple of brainstorming sessions to help them discover creative solutions to life-transition questions: retirement, new jobs, old relationships, new relationships, new careers - the stuff of life? We had experienced this brainstorming process in the '80s when Joy-Lily and Lee Glickstein did demonstration sessions in Berkeley and in Southern California. We remembered that it was a powerful and joyful way to discover creative ways of approaching almost any issue.
We started with the intention of meeting a few times to solve some specific problems. To date we've brainstormed with more than four hundred generous, wise, creative, lively women; some have attended meetings regularly, some sporadically and some just once because they had a burning question or wanted to check us out. We are now a community that meets in the San Francisco East Bay at 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month. To find out where this group meets, contact Anita at brainexchange@aol.com.
If you are interested in connecting with other women in your area who might want to start a Brain Exchange, send your name, email address and city/zip code to: brainexchange@aol.com. If there is anyone on our list in your area, I will notify you.
What is a Typical Meeting Like?
People start arriving at 6:30 for a half hour of socializing; we are committed to beginning the brainstorming process at 7:00. We take a fifteen-minute break, and finish at 9:30.
We start with a check-in: each person in the circle has one minute to say her name, and something about 'what's up' in her life right now.
During the check-in, you'll have a chance to think about:
Do I have a question I want brainstormed?
Do I want help formulating a question?
We typically brainstorm several questions in an evening (as many as eight).
Formulating the Question (up to five minutes per question)
If you have an idea for a question, the group will help you refine it into a question. You give us the basic information (no long stories) and we'll work until we create a question that feels right to you.
Brainstorming (five minutes per question)
You, the questioner, have only to sit back and let the group swing into action. Be receptive, no 'yes-butting' - and don't make faces!! We've noticed that the flow of ideas stops if the questioner is perceived to be judging them. Someone will take notes and you will receive them by email in the next day or so.
People will call out action ideas in brief sentences or phrases, following the brainstorming guidelines. Those brainstorms may suggest an action to take, someone to call, an organization to contact, a resource to read or some other way of moving closer to your goal.
How We Stay Connected
Each months' brainstorms are sent out to everyone who has ever attended a meeting (if they've chosen to be on the list). The brainstorming continues as women who were not at the meeting offer their suggestions via email.
In addition,The SF Bay Area Women's Brain Exchange and the Los Angeles Brain Exchange offer its members a fantastic email posting service that handles requests from participants and keeps people connected between meetings.
The posting service requires the use of specific posting guidelines.* Those emails go from you to a special email address and are then distributed to everyone on the email list. The suggestions in response to these postings go directly to the people who asked the questions ? so brainstorming can continue way beyond the meetings. Here is just a sample of the kinds of postings that have elicited email responses.
Please help me find a:
|
car |
upholsterer |
*We've developed a policy that "To the Network" postings are limited to events and activities that are for the benefit of a BE participant - in direct support of her business venture or professional enterprise; OR to help a BE participant or a close family member find a job or housing (since filling a job or renting a house will be to a member's benefit). Postings that offer housing or jobs are welcome, as well. This rules out announcements of your friends' events, promotion of their businesses or services and requests for general information on their behalf.
Because we are a group of women with diverse interests and passions and connections, it would be overwhelming to send emails promoting every service, cause, issue, event or project we care about. This also rules out political/social action emails that are best sent to your personal lists.
Site designed by Yellowbelly Web Design
Logo designed by Rhoda Grossman
Site development and support by Inter Web Data Concepts
Consulting and CSS by Anne Ricciardi Design
© 2003-2008 Brain Exchange. All rights reserved.