I was pleasantly surprised throughout the presentation as it reiterated what I've been taught as a designer. The presenter, Jason Theodor (aka jted) did a brief intro about himself and a poem called Alligator pie by Dennis Lee. I was personally a bit lost at the beginning with the poem and his obesession with gonna, but as he got into the mechanics of brainstorming and creativity, the presentation gained some life.

The 9 dots puzzle was something that stumped me in the beginning a few years ago during my studies, though I had never thought about folding the paper and just drawing one continuous line through the dots. That was definitely thinking outside the box. However thinking outside the box requires the mind to be very open, start large and then narrow down. Its a long process but the mind is open to othe possibilities.

Some of the other things covered were how to go about brainstorming and that keeping a routine is essential. Brainstorming is producing an idea to
solve a problem and making connections that have meaning. I do agree, brainstorming should be an
inspiring thing not a like flowchart, not logical. Also one of the things that really struck me was that inspiration was "jumping the gap between 0 and 1". I would have never though how large that gap is, but thinking on it now as a designer, coming up with ideas without a start or a beginning or a target can make that gap very big, colossal.

The 700 Hobos project, I found that concept intriguing from the person coming up with 700 names to 700 drawings of hobos is the epitome of brainstorming, now I must research more on this. http://e-hobo.com/