Flip-flop Directed-association

About this post

Type of technique: free association

Technique in a nutshell: choose two from this list: Has/Is/Does/Thing/Person/Time/Place/Activity/Specify/Utterance/^
Say, for example, you choose 'person' and 'place'. Name a person and then name a place associated with that person. Repeat the cycle.

Example: Person = The Queen, Place = Buckingham Palace, Person = Prince Charles, Place = Wales, Person = Tom Jones

Flip-flop Directed-association

Someone commented that the Directed-association technique was complicated and time consuming. In the directed-association post I attempted to cover all the aspects of the technique in one post. There is a flip-flop way to use the technique.

Flip-flop Directed-Association

At the top of a sheet of paper I will write the guide-words:

Has/Is/Does/Thing/Person/Time/Place/Activity/Specify/Utterance/^

Then choose any two of the guide-words. For example:

Person/Has

and 'flip-flop' between them. So, for the 'person' part I will answer the directive "Name a person" and I could write:

Person = Clint Eastwood

and 'Clint Eastwood' becomes the focus-word. Then for the 'has' part I will answer the directive "Name something Clint Eastwood has" which could give:

Clint Eastwood has gun

Then 'gun' becomes the focus word. Now for the person part I state a directive "Name a gun person" which could give:

gun person = Lee Harvey Oswald

and Lee Harvey Oswald becomes the focus-word and the directive "Name something that Lee Harvey Oswald has" is answered.

This flip-flop cycle continues between the 'person' and the 'has'. Eventually I could end up with something like this:

Clint Eastwood: gun: Lee Harvey Oswald: conspiracy theory: James Randi: website: Bill Gates: fortune: Sultan of Brunei: escalator* : Otis: lifts: Bruce Willis: Planet Hollywood: Sylvester Stallone: career: Donald Trump: The Apprentice

*apparently the Sutlan of Brunei has an escalator with just two steps in his garden!

Changing the flip-flop words

I can choose two different words from the guide-words for the flip-flopping.

Example:

Thing: ^

and continue on from 'The Apprentice' with the directive "Name an Apprentice thing". Which could give:

The Apprentice: competition

and 'competition' becomes the focus-word and the directive "What IS the focus-word? (Step up to concept level)" is set. I try to represent the concept in two or three words, which could give:

competition = dog-eat -dog

With 'dog-eat-dog' as the focus-word (or concept in this case) I form the directive "Name a dog-eat-dog thing" which could give:

Dog-eat-dog thing = evolution

and then continue the flip-flopping between 'thing' and '^' which could give:

Evolution: Darwinian concept: survival of the fittest: characterisitic of life: breathing: lung activity: expanding: increase: exponent: graph