#9. Learning Method: The Lateral Thinking Mind Blowing Bootcamp

Introduction

Today, we’re going to give your brain a workout that would make even Einstein break a sweat.

We’ve cooked up a smorgasbord of AI-powered prompts to turn your thinking sideways, upside down, and inside out.

Whether you’re a marketing maestro, a business bigwig, a creative genius, a content wizard, a daring entrepreneur, or a product guru, prepare to have your mental muscles stretched in ways you never thought possible.

We’re about to take your lateral thinking skills from “meh” to “mind-blowing” faster than you can say “artificial intelligence.”

Let the cerebral gymnastics begin!

How to use the prompts here

1. Copy the prompts directly into your chatbot: Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, etc. Ask the chatbot to expand/ solve the prompt. Savour the results.
2. Modify the prompts to your context. Play with them. Relish the possibilities.
3. Reflect on how you can use prompts to find answers to urgent, pressing questions using Chatbots and get into the habit of research.

Prompts For Marketing

In the crowded marketplace of ideas, how can your brand cut through the noise and capture attention?

It’s time to embrace lateral thinking – the catalyst that can lift your marketing from forgettable to phenomenal.

1. The Unexpected Collab: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand partnered with an unlikely ally from a completely different industry. How could you create a product or campaign that fuses your strengths in a surprising way? Consider how this unconventional collaboration could attract new audiences and generate buzz around your brand.
2. The Sensory Switcheroo: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand could only engage one sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell) to convey its message. How would you create a multi-sensory experience using just that one sense? Think about how you could leverage this limitation to create a unique and memorable marketing campaign.
3. The Storytelling Twist: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand’s origin story was a fairy tale or a mythological epic. How would you weave your brand’s values and unique selling points into a captivating narrative? Consider how this storytelling approach could emotionally engage your target audience and differentiate your brand from competitors.
4. The Customer Role Reversal: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your customers became your brand ambassadors for a day. What kind of user-generated content would they create, and how could you leverage it in your marketing? Think about how this role reversal could foster brand loyalty and create authentic, relatable content for your campaigns.
5. The Unconventional Medium: As a Marketing Manager, imagine you had to promote your brand using only unconventional mediums like sidewalk chalk, sky writing, or even carrier pigeons. How would you adapt your message to fit the medium? Consider how these unexpected channels could grab attention and create a viral marketing effect.
6. The Emoji Enigma: As a Marketing Manager, imagine you could only use emojis to describe your brand’s personality and offerings. Which emojis would you choose, and how would you arrange them to tell your brand story? Think about how this visual language could transcend cultural barriers and appeal to a global audience.
7. The Time Travel Twist: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand existed in a different era – the roaring 20s, the groovy 60s, or the futuristic 2100s. How would you adapt your marketing strategies to fit the zeitgeist of that time? Consider how this temporal shift could inspire fresh ideas and help you connect with different generations of consumers.
8. The Gamification Gambit: As a Marketing Manager, imagine turning your brand experience into a game. What challenges would customers overcome, what rewards would they earn, and how would you keep them hooked? Think about how gamification could drive engagement, encourage repeat purchases, and create a sense of community around your brand.
9. The Sustainability Switcheroo: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand had to go 100% eco-friendly overnight. How would you redesign your products, packaging, and marketing to be sustainable and appealing? Consider how this green transformation could attract environmentally conscious consumers and position your brand as a leader in sustainability.
10. The Meme Machine: As a Marketing Manager, imagine your brand could only communicate through memes. What kind of memes would you create, and how would you ensure they resonate with your target audience while staying true to your brand voice? Think about how this viral marketing approach could make your brand more relatable and shareable on social media.

Let’s test Prompt 3, The Storytelling Twist in ChatGPT 4 Omni.

Prompts for Business Leaders

As a business leader, you’re the visionary steering your organization through turbulent times.

But what if the conventional roadmap no longer leads to success?

Try these prompts for a change.

1. The Reverse Brainstorm: As a business leader, instead of focusing on how to solve a problem, ask your team to brainstorm ways to make it worse. Then, flip those ideas on their head to find innovative solutions. This unconventional approach can help you break free from traditional thinking patterns and uncover groundbreaking ideas.
2. The Random Word Challenge: As a company executive, pick a random word from the dictionary and challenge your team to find connections between that word and your current business challenges. You’ll be surprised at the creative ideas that emerge! This exercise will encourage your team to think laterally and draw inspiration from unexpected sources.
3. The Alternate Universe Scenario: As a business owner, imagine your company exists in a parallel universe where the rules of your industry are completely different. How would you adapt and innovate in this new reality? This thought experiment will push you to question assumptions and explore novel strategies that could give you a competitive edge in the real world.
4. The Customer Swap: As a corporate leader, ask your team to put themselves in the shoes of a customer from a completely different demographic. How would they perceive your products or services, and what new insights can you gain? This role-playing activity will help you develop empathy for diverse customer segments and identify untapped opportunities for growth.
5. The Impossible Dream: As a business visionary, encourage your team to dream up the most outrageous, seemingly impossible solutions to your business problems. Then, work backwards to find practical elements that can be implemented. This bold approach will inspire your team to push past self-imposed limitations and embrace audacious ideas that could transform your industry.
6. The Time Travel Twist: As a company leader, imagine your organization has been transported 50 years into the future. What would your industry look like, and how would your company have evolved to stay relevant? This futuristic scenario will challenge you to anticipate disruptive trends and envision long-term strategies for success.
7. The Sensory Shift: As a business innovator, challenge your team to describe your products or services using only one sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell). How can you enhance the sensory experience for your customers? This sensory focus will help you create more immersive and memorable experiences that differentiate your brand from competitors.
8. The Metaphor Mania: As a corporate strategist, ask your team to compare your business challenges to a completely unrelated object or concept, like a tree or a symphony. What new perspectives can you gain from this metaphorical thinking? This creative comparison will help you reframe problems and discover novel solutions that you might have overlooked otherwise.
9. The Constraint Catalyst: As a business trailblazer, impose an arbitrary constraint on your problem-solving process, such as a limited budget or a tight deadline. How can you work within these limitations to find creative solutions? This constrained creativity will force you to be resourceful and find innovative ways to maximize your impact with minimal resources.
10. The Failure Celebration: As a company pioneer, encourage your team to share their biggest failures and what they learned from them. Celebrate these failures as stepping stones towards innovation and growth. This positive reframing of failure will create a culture of experimentation and continuous learning that drives your organization forward.

Prompts for Creative Folks

You’re an artistic alchemist, blending imagination and skill to craft mesmerizing experiences.

Yet even the most brilliant creators can find their wellspring of ideas running dry.

That’s when these prompts will come in handy.

1. The Sensory Swap (Graphic Design/UX/UI): As a graphic designer or UX/UI professional, imagine your design project could only engage one sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell). How would you create a multi-sensory experience using just that one sense? Push the boundaries of your chosen sense to evoke the essence of the others, crafting a design that transcends sensory limitations.
2. The Genre Fusion (Performing Arts): As a performing artist, what if you combined two vastly different performance genres, like classical ballet and street dance? How would you blend their unique elements to create a groundbreaking piece that challenges conventions and captivates audiences? Explore the possibilities that arise when you merge disparate styles into a harmonious whole.
3. The Unconventional Canvas (Painting): As a painter, choose an unconventional surface to create your next masterpiece, like a vintage map or a piece of driftwood. How can you adapt your technique to work with the texture, shape, and history of your chosen canvas? Embrace the challenges and opportunities presented by your unusual substrate to create a painting that tells a story beyond the brushstrokes.
4. The Invisible Emotion (Photography): As a photographer, challenge yourself to capture a complex emotion, like nostalgia or anticipation, without using any human subjects. How can you evoke that feeling through abstract shapes, play of light and shadow, or symbolic objects? Push yourself to create images that speak to the heart without relying on facial expressions or body language.
5. The Sonic Sculptor (Sculpture): As a sculptor, create a piece that interacts with sound, either by producing it or altering it. How can you design the form and materials of your sculpture to create an immersive auditory experience for your audience? Consider how the sculpture’s shape, texture, and movement can influence the way sound travels and resonates around it.
6. The Anachronistic Designer (Graphic Design/UX/UI): As a graphic designer or UX/UI professional, imagine you’re creating a design project for a specific historical era, like the Victorian age or the Space Race of the 1960s. How would you adapt your visual language, typography, and user experience to fit the aesthetics, values, and technology of that time? Create a design that feels authentic to the period while still offering a fresh, modern perspective.
7. The Wordless Narrator (Performing Arts): As a performing artist, create a performance piece that tells a powerful story using only non-verbal elements like music, dance, and visual projections. How can you structure your narrative and convey complex emotions and ideas without relying on spoken language? Explore the expressive potential of your chosen media to create a performance that transcends words.
8. The Scent Composer (Painting): As a painter, create a series of works inspired by different scents, like fresh rain, burning wood, or blooming flowers. How can you translate these olfactory sensations into visual compositions using color, texture, and form? Challenge yourself to create paintings that evoke the essence of your chosen scents, inviting viewers to engage their imaginations and memories.
9. The Micro Explorer (Photography): As a photographer, embark on a visual journey into the microscopic world, capturing the hidden beauty of everyday objects and materials. How can you use macro photography techniques to reveal the intricate patterns, textures, and colors that often go unnoticed? Create a series of images that invite viewers to see the familiar in a new, awe-inspiring light.
10. The Kinetic Storyteller (Sculpture): As a sculptor, create a piece that incorporates movement, either through mechanical means or by inviting audience interaction. How can you use the dynamic elements of your sculpture to tell a story or convey an emotion? Consider how the changing forms and positions of your piece can guide the viewer’s experience and interpretation over time.

Prompts for Content Creators

As a content virtuoso, you orchestrate words, images and sounds into compelling narratives that resonate.

But how do you keep your creative spark alive when inspiration seems elusive?

Take a look at these.

1. The Genre Alchemist (Podcasting): As a podcaster, choose two vastly different content genres (e.g., a history lecture and a stand-up comedy routine) and brainstorm ways to combine them into a unique and engaging audio format. Experiment with blending seemingly disparate elements to create a fresh, captivating listening experience that defies conventional expectations.
2. The Sensory Storyteller (Writing): As a writer, challenge yourself to create a piece of content that engages a sense other than sight. How could you use vivid descriptions of sounds, textures, scents, or flavors to immerse your readers in a multi-sensory narrative? Push the boundaries of your craft by evoking the richness of human perception through the power of words alone.
3. The Perspective Pioneer (Vlogging): As a vlogger, take a topic you’ve covered before and approach it from a completely different perspective. If you usually present your own views, try exploring the subject through the lens of a historical figure, a fictional character, or even an animal. Use this shift in viewpoint to uncover new insights and engage your audience in a novel way.
4. The Constraint Composer (Music Production): As a music producer, set arbitrary constraints for your next composition, such as using only a single instrument, incorporating a specific time signature, or limiting yourself to a narrow frequency range. Embrace these limitations as a catalyst for innovation, pushing yourself to create something truly original within the boundaries you’ve set.
5. The Collaboration Chemist (Graphic Design): As a graphic designer, reach out to a content creator from a different niche or medium, like a poet or a dancer, and brainstorm ways to collaborate on a unique visual project that combines your strengths and aesthetics. Explore how the fusion of diverse creative energies can yield striking, unconventional designs that resonate with a wide audience.
6. The Failure Philosopher (Blogging): As a blogger, reflect on a past content “failure” and brainstorm ways to repurpose or reframe it into a valuable learning experience for your readers. Share your insights on how setbacks can be transformed into opportunities for growth, resilience, and self-discovery. Inspire your audience to embrace their own failures as stepping stones to success.
7. The Audience Architect (Social Media): As a social media influencer, create a detailed profile of your ideal follower and imagine a day in their life. Use this exercise to generate content ideas that speak directly to their aspirations, challenges, and passions. Craft posts, stories, and interactions that forge deep, authentic connections with your audience by demonstrating genuine understanding and empathy.
8. The Trend Trailblazer (YouTube): As a YouTuber, identify a popular trend in your niche and brainstorm ways to put a unique spin on it or even challenge its assumptions. Don’t be afraid to take a contrarian stance or explore unconventional angles that spark meaningful discussions. Use your platform to lead your viewers towards new perspectives and original ideas.
9. The Format Fusion Chef (Infographic Design): As an infographic designer, experiment with combining different content formats, such as turning a data-heavy report into an interactive game or transforming a series of tips into a visually striking comic strip. Push the boundaries of information design by exploring innovative ways to present complex ideas in engaging, memorable formats.
10. The “What If” Wizard (Streaming): As a streamer, ask yourself a series of “what if” questions related to your niche, such as “What if I could transport my viewers to any fictional world?” or “What if I had to teach my subject to an alien civilization?” Use these hypothetical scenarios as springboards for creative content ideas that captivate your audience’s imagination and spark lively discussions in your chat.

Prompts for Entrepreneurs

Imagine unlocking game-changing innovations not by doubling down on conventional wisdom, but by completely reframing your approach.

Welcome to lateral thinking – the mindset shift that can propel your venture from struggle to success.

1. The Unexpected Mashup (SaaS): As a SaaS entrepreneur, what if you combined your software product with a seemingly unrelated industry, like fitness or pet care? How could you create a unique offering that solves problems in both domains? Stretch your imagination to envision cross-sector synergies that could revolutionize the way users interact with your platform.
2. The Robotic Reimagining (Robotics): As a robotics entrepreneur, imagine a world where robots are not just tools, but collaborators in creative problem-solving. How could you design a robot that enhances human lateral thinking capabilities? Consider how machine learning, natural language processing, and adaptive algorithms could be harnessed to spark innovative ideas and solutions.
3. The Customer Role Reversal (Services): As a service-based entrepreneur, what if your clients became your service providers for a day? What insights could you gain from walking in their shoes, and how could you use that knowledge to innovate your offerings? Immerse yourself in your customers’ perspectives to uncover hidden pain points and opportunities for differentiation.
4. The Sustainability Switcheroo (Manufacturing): As a manufacturing entrepreneur, imagine you had to create a product using only materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. How could you repurpose waste to design something innovative and eco-friendly? Challenge yourself to think beyond traditional manufacturing processes and explore the potential of circular economy principles.
5. The Failure Flip (Tech): As a tech entrepreneur, think back to a project or product that didn’t quite meet expectations. Now, imagine a parallel universe where that failure was actually a resounding success. What did you do differently, and how can you apply those lessons to future endeavors? Reframe setbacks as valuable learning experiences that can fuel your next breakthrough.
6. The Sensory Shift (Robotics): As a robotics entrepreneur, what if your robot could only interact with the world through one sense, like touch or sound? How would you design its capabilities to compensate for the missing senses and still achieve its goals? Push the boundaries of sensory technology to create robots that can navigate and perform tasks in novel ways.
7. The Time Travel Twist (SaaS): As a SaaS entrepreneur, imagine your software product existed 100 years ago. What would it look like, and how would it solve the problems of that era? Now, fast forward 100 years into the future and ask the same questions. Let your mind wander through different temporal contexts to gain fresh perspectives on your product’s core value proposition.
8. The Unconventional Partnership (Services): As a service-based entrepreneur, what if you partnered with an organization that seems completely unrelated to your services, like a museum or a sports team? How could you combine your expertise to create something truly groundbreaking? Seek out unlikely collaborations that could lead to innovative, cross-disciplinary solutions.
9. The Constraint Catalyst (Manufacturing): As a manufacturing entrepreneur, imagine you had to manufacture your product under extreme constraints, like in a desert or on a mountaintop. How would you adapt your processes and materials to overcome these challenges? Embrace limitations as a source of creativity, driving you to find unconventional ways to bring your product to life.
10. The Impossible Ideal (Tech): As a tech entrepreneur, what if you could create a piece of technology that seems impossible today, like a mind-reading device or a universal translator? How would it work, and what problems would it solve? Allow yourself to dream big and explore the far reaches of technological possibility, then work backwards to identify the steps needed to turn that vision into reality.

Prompts for Product Managers

In the lightning-fast world of tech and digital products, staying ahead requires more than just keeping pace.

What if the key to breakthrough innovation isn’t working harder, but thinking differently? Lateral thinking could be your secret weapon for transforming challenges into opportunities.

1. The Unexpected Mashup (SaaS): As a SaaS product manager, what if you combined your software offering with a seemingly unrelated industry, like education or fitness? How could you create a unique solution that solves problems in both domains? Stretch your imagination to envision cross-sector synergies that could revolutionize the way users interact with your platform and unlock new market opportunities.
2. The Customer Role Reversal (Apps): As an app product manager, imagine your users became your development team for a day. What insights could you gain from walking in their shoes, and how could you use that knowledge to innovate your app? Immerse yourself in your customers’ perspectives to uncover hidden pain points, identify new features, and craft a more user-centric experience.
3. The Sustainability Switcheroo (Tech): As a tech product manager, what if you had to create a product using only eco-friendly materials and processes? How could you innovate to make your offering sustainable without compromising functionality? Challenge yourself to think beyond traditional product development practices and explore the potential of green technology and circular design principles.
4. The Failure Flip (Digital Services): As a digital service product manager, think back to a project that didn’t quite meet expectations. Now, imagine a parallel universe where that failure was a resounding success. What did you do differently, and how can you apply those lessons to future endeavors? Reframe setbacks as valuable learning experiences that can fuel your next breakthrough and inform your product roadmap.
5. The Sensory Shift (Apps): As an app product manager, imagine your app could only engage one sense, like touch or sound. How would you design an immersive user experience using just that sense? Push the boundaries of sensory technology to create apps that can captivate users in novel ways, making your product stand out in a crowded market.
6. The Time Travel Twist (SaaS): As a SaaS product manager, what if your software product existed 100 years ago? What would it look like, and how would it solve the problems of that era? Now, fast forward 100 years into the future and ask the same questions. Let your mind wander through different temporal contexts to gain fresh perspectives on your product’s core value proposition and identify potential future trends.
7. The Unconventional Partnership (Tech): As a tech product manager, what if you partnered with an organization that seems completely unrelated to your tech offering, like a museum or a sports team? How could you combine your expertise to create something truly groundbreaking? Seek out unlikely collaborations that could lead to innovative, cross-disciplinary solutions and open up new market segments for your product.
8. The Constraint Catalyst (Digital Services): As a digital service product manager, imagine you had to deliver your service under extreme constraints, like a $500 budget or a 48-hour deadline. How would you innovate to make it happen? Embrace limitations as a source of creativity, driving you to find unconventional ways to bring your service to life and deliver value to your customers.
9. The Gamification Gambit (Apps): As an app product manager, what if you turned your app into a game? What elements would you gamify, and how would you keep users engaged while still delivering value? Explore the psychology of game design to create addictive, rewarding experiences that keep users coming back to your app and sharing it with others.
10. The Impossible Ideal (SaaS): As a SaaS product manager, imagine you could create a software product that seems impossible today, like a mind-reading tool or a teleportation platform. How would it work, and what problems would it solve? Allow yourself to dream big and explore the far reaches of technological possibility, then work backwards to identify the steps needed to turn that vision into a reality and shape your product strategy.

Let’s test Prompt 9, The Gamification Gambit, on Perplexity.

Conclusion

So, stretch your mind, bend your perspective, and leap into the unknown.

Embrace the absurd, mash up the mundane, and alchemize the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Lateral thinking is your ticket to a world where octopuses host tea parties, shadows become sculptures, and cyberpunk geishas serve synthwave sake.

So, let your creativity run amok, and remember: when you think sideways, the impossible becomes just another prompt waiting to be explored.

AI Tools that you can use

The prompts on Phewture are AI tool agnostic.

They should work on GeminiPro, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Even on free tools such as llama3 by Meta which you can install on your desktop.

• ChatGPT and Gemini Pro can read Google Files by way of attachment
• Claude can read PDFs.
• Perplexity can read text files and PDFs.

Use these capabilities to upload your prompts and get the best out of these tools.

Next Steps

1. To help you find your way around Phewture, I have put together a set of articles under Wayfinding. Do go through these and you’ll navigate like a pro through this stream of consciousness. 😄
2. The Learning Methods are exercises that I’d recommend if you wish to wrap your head around the possibilities of AI at work, or play.
3. Don’t forget to leave your comments below and share your joy with your friends on social media. Use the share icons below this post to gain some good karma.

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