What do tins and KMI Master Mind™ Facilitators have in common?

Everyone has tins in their home – some antique, some just old. They lurk in the pantry, garage, workshop, and closet. That round tin that held cookies as they snuggled together among frilly paper cups now houses spools of thread or letters or, well, more cookies. The coffee can full of stalwart stray screws and nails patiently waiting to come to your rescue. Or my tall, colorful Amaretti cookie tins that are the perfect size for a pound of linguine and nest comfortably with the tin of ziti or farfalle. Or the old coffee can my mother had from her father’s grocery store, almost 100 years old, full of years of buttons from old clothes, sewing projects, or spare buttons for dad’s dress shirts. 
 
Mary McDowall and I were playing with ways to describe a KMI Master Mind™ and the role of the facilitator. So we decided to use one of the tools we use in our master mind and that we teach facilitators to use. Muse Popcorn is a brainstorming tool that takes a random object and asks what it has to do with the question or issue at hand. Ideas spontaneously pop out and generate other ideas that bounce off each other. Its fun, can be silly and takes you places that will surprise and delight you.
 
We asked “what does an antique tin have in common with a KMI Master Mind™?”
 
Ideas filled the air space like popcorn in a pot. Unique, multi-purposed, appealing, have stories, creative, colorful, a container to hold different things.
 
It was the container part that stuck with me. Those tins are strong, last a long time and keep things safe, fresh and intact.

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