7 Strategies to Come up With a Fresh Idea:

1. Walk, especially a different route;
2. Scribble: pencil on paper;
3. Talk, especially to someone who is outside the main topic;
4. Read something at random to spark the synapses;
5. Summarise the challenge, again, in just 100 words;
6. Imagine you had no budget, twice the budget, the competitor's budget;
7. Give a deadline: 5 great ideas in 25 minutes.

But above all; break the pattern of staring at your screen, vaguely 'batting' e-mail and hoping for inspiration.Or sitting in yet another PowerPoint heavy meeting with little to consider except curling BLT sandwiches. Screens and e-mail are dulling not enlivening. Poorly run meetings are trance-inducing. Break the pattern.