Pg 48 of “What It Is” by Lynda Barry

The image I chose is page 48 of “What It Is”. I believe it represents firestorming because of the content discusses the wandering mind. In order to properly brainstorm/firestorm, you need to be able to allow your mind to wander into possibly unfamiliar places.  One word is repeated four times; “go.”  When it comes to firestorming, you can’t hesitate, you just need to go.  Often people are worried about bad or stupid ideas.  The word “go” means just go for it, even if it fails.  I remember watching a documentary where a team was firestorming ideas on redesigning shopping carts. They said they put every idea on the wall, no matter how ridiculous because that idea might inspire another idea that could solve their problems.

On the image, there’s a sentence “Don’t do this unless you are prepared to be scared.” This is important because in firestorming, you may come across ideas that are out of your comfort zone and challenge social norms.  This is scary to many people, because challenging social norms might get them ostracized or damage a reputation.  However, if you can handle the fear of being different, you can make real changes and create new ideas.

In the image there are also different types of birds; there’s one that looks like it was drawn by a child, there’s several that are simple outline drawings, there’s a photo-realistic bird, and there’s one that looks like it came from a renaissance-era tapestry. Each image is a bird but shown in a different style.  Firestorming is all about creating the same idea in different ways.