Conversation Starters

1,000 Creative Ways to Talk to Anyone about Anything

Kim Chamberlain

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781629149080
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Comunicar y hablar en público

Like an onion, a conversation is often made up of layers. On its face it may appear to be on one level, but peel away a layer or two, and you will find other issues lying beneath the surface.Providing techniques to analyse conversations, Conversation Starters will enable you to develop creativity by taking your brain to a space where originality can flourish, by enhancing problem-solving skills, and by improving conversation and listening skills. Even if you wouldn't describe yourself as "creative, " this book will give you the chance to think and express yourself in innovative and productive ways.The book's one thousand conversation-starting topics offer easy ways to move away from traditional discussion themes as well as the opportunity to develop and enhance speaking and listening skills. They provide the opportunity to approach and explore issues and then to formulate and express your thoughts and responses in innovative and challenging ways. You'll discover new ways way to connect with others, avenues to help you learn new things and connect with other people in stimulating and satisfying ways. In addition to the conversation starters are tips and quotes relating to discovering and enhancing creativity while initiating and maintaining conversations.

1,000 QUESTIONS AND CONVERSATION STARTERS

This chapter contains one hundred different topic sections, each containing ten questions or conversation starters. The topic sections are in alphabetical order.

Adverts

Age

Alternative Living

Alternative Reactions

Alternative Uses

An Innovative Way To . . .

Art

Beach Balls

Being Creative

Being Rude

Big and Small

Body Parts

Books

Career Choice

Claims

Clubs

Combination Businesses

Countries

Create a Story

Creative Solutions

Dance

Dating

Dear Doreen

Describing People

Devil’s Advocate

Devise an Ending

Different Dwellings

Different Endings

Dreams

Easier, Better, or Alternative

Education

Eight Hours

Expertise

Explanations

Fast and Slow

Female and Male

Five Hundred

Food

For Hire

Health

Homes

How To

How Would You Use . . .

If You Were . . .

In Common

In the Style Of

. . . In the World

Interviews

Inventions and Innovations

Judging a Book by Its Title

Language

Life Would Be Fun If . . .

Marriage

Men and Women

Minimalism

Mixed Bag

Money

Music

Name Something or Someone

Neighbors

New Products

New Skills

New Year

Nothing

Odd One Out

Older People

One Hundred Years

Only One

Ordinary Situations

People and Situations

Pets and Animals

Photography

Physical Appearance

Post-nominal Letters

Quotes

Relationships and Romance

Semantic Fields

Stand in a Line

Stories with Messages

Tall Tales

The Body

Think Think Think

This and That

Time and Speed

Time Travel

TV

Unusual Concepts

Unusual Events

What Can We Learn From . . .

What Could Be the Benefits Of . . .

What Would You Do If . . .

Who Is This?

Why?

Words of One Syllable

Work

Writing

You

You Can Do Anything!

You Walk into a Room And . . .

Your Call!

Plus . . . Your Favorites & Your Starters

Adverts

• Which celebrity would you use to advertise a campaign to bring back the use of typewriters?

• If you had to advertise a new type of denim jeans only via the medium of the radio, how would you do it?

• How could you entice people over the age of seventy to join the smartphone revolution?

• How would you advertise a “manly” form of dental floss to males in their twenties?

• How could slippers be advertised so they seem sexy?

(CO) “Weird people don’t care if they’re weird. They are the most entertaining to converse with because nothing is off limits.” Donna Lynn Hope, author

• What’s a good way to advertise a self-help DVD to a teenage audience?

• Is it possible to advertise hair-care products using non-glamorous, ordinary-looking women in ordinary situations?

• How could you advertise the benefits of a bag that doubled as a sun hat?

• You have an old worn-out tractor sitting on your land that you need to dispose of. Even though it’s rusty and doesn’t work very well you don’t want to give it away for free. How could you advertise it so that someone would buy it?

• How could tea cozies be advertised to make them seem a trendy, must-have item?

(TD) “From now on, I’ll connect the dots my own way.” Bill Watterson, author

Age

• What age do you, on the inside, truly feel you are?

• Which year of your life would you like to relive?

• Why do children like getting older while adults generally prefer not to?

• Why are babies born at an age when they are helpless? Why aren’t they born at an age when they can walk or talk, for example?

• Why is it usually seen as a good thing to reach the age of one hundred?

(CR) “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” Steve Jobs, entrepreneur

• Is it easier in society to be an old man or an old woman?

• When does middle age start and how long does it last?

• Medical advances have meant that we are living longer. Is there any point to this?

• Is there any benefit to retiring?

• At what age does a person become an adult?

(PS) “Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping-stones to greater experience. . . . When one door closes, another always opens; as a natural law it has to, to balance.” Brian Adams, author

Alternative Living

There are many ways to gain fulfillment by doing something alternative. Can you explain the benefits of:

• Having no fixed abode and living a nomadic lifestyle.

• Not having a job or career.

• Making your own toiletries.

• Never going to the shops and instead ordering everything online.

• Taking a vow of silence for a month.

(CO) “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Oscar Wilde, author

• Spending a year without buying anything new, apart from food.

• Living without a cell phone, computer, or TV.

• Having a husband or wife part-time.

• Not attending school during childhood.

• Working toward having little money, a non-busy lifestyle, and few possessions.

(TD) “Free thinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.” Leo Tolstoy, author

Alternative Reactions

Give the usual reaction the average person may have in these situations and then give an alternative, but acceptable, reaction.

• A young woman with a small child approaches you in the street and asks for money to buy food for herself and her daughter.

• You are in a café and order a meal. You also ask for a glass of tap water and are charged the same price as for a cup of tea.

• You go home and find your house or apartment has been burgled.

• You check your lottery ticket and find you have won $100,000.

• A Jehovah’s Witness comes to the door to discuss religion.

(CR) “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” Edward de Bono, physician

• You are running late for an important meeting. When you get to your car you discover you have a flat tire.

• It’s Saturday morning, you have had a busy week and want to have a sleep in. At 7 a.m. the neighbors start doing very noisy DIY.

• You lose your cell phone and haven’t backed up any of your contacts.

• You wait for two hours in a line to buy tickets for a concert that your twelve-year-old daughter is desperate to go to. The person in front of you buys the last tickets.

• Your employer is a week late paying your salary, the mortgage is due to be paid tomorrow, and you need the money.

(PS) “The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.” Peter Drucker, author

Alternative Uses

These items have traditional uses, but could they be used another way?

• What else could you use a guitar for?

• What else could you use a sewing machine for?

• What else could you use a paintbrush for?

• What else could you use a waterme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Using the book
• Developing conversation skills
• Developing creative thinking and problem-solving skills
• 1,000 Questions and Conversation Starters