The Battle of Big Thinking

Graham Fink receives the Mexican wrestling belt as winner of the 2008 Battle of Big Thinking from Malcolm White yesterday afternoon. Graham's idea was big and brilliant. Driven by the belief that we need to put different, or opposite, thinking in the same place to create ideas, he proposed a way to put people in touch with their 'opposite brains' by meeting people from a different walk of life. These people would meet for an hour and see what happens. Any ideas would be submitted to a website. He called it the bigthinkingclub.

His master strokes were twofold. Firstly, that he was going to make it happen, not just talk about it. And by pledging to launch the club if he won, he pulled that one off. Secondly, he seduced us by recognising us as founder members! How flattering is that.

The other outstanding piece was Nigel Newton, CEO of Bloomsbury publishing, who spoke about trusting our instincts rather than the analysis whilst we watched a seemingly random series of data slides about the minutia of Lloyd's life pass by.