Tue, Jul 5 2011
Last week was the first time we ever attempted to include the community in QDS’ weekly brainstorm, and it was a learning experience for all. This week we’ve made some changes.
From 12:00 – (approx.) 12:45, the Quirky Community, will have the opportunity to participate in this week’s brainstorm through our kind of new Quirky Design Staff + Quirky Community Brainstorm Livestream channel on Ustream.
Instead of jumping right in to the brainstorm, one of the QDS participants will give a brief overview of how the brainstorm works and the topics they’re going to be covering.
We got a lot of community suggestions to use a digital whiteboard to capture and digitize information as it’s written, but that’s not a possibility at this point. Instead, we’re going to set up some more lights and move the camera closer to the page so it’s easier to see (and hear) what’s being written (and spoken). Behind the scenes we’re also playing around with a Flash codec thing that Ustream claims will increase the quality of the broadcast.
We’re also doing away with the moderator. Some Quirky staff members will be monitoring the stream, but the chat comments are going to be displayed on a screen for the QDS participants to read off of as they pop up. QDS tried this with the bonus brainstorm that took place last Thursday and felt that it helped eliminate the lag between a comment being made, received and announced and kept the flow moving along nicely.
While we’re on the topic of the chat, it has come to my attention that there are two ways to submit comments, via the chat, and the Social Stream. We can only display one of those at a time, so if you want to participate, make sure that you are sending your comments through the Ustream channel chat, not through the Social Stream.
So that’s what’s changed for this week. As previously mentioned, this is something that is going to evolve from week to week, so if you have any suggestions, add them to the brainstorm thread on our support forum.
Now, without further adieu, this week’s brainstorm topics are:
1) The suction brief winner: Suction Cup Fridge Shelves/Containers
2) The retractable whisk
To try and maximize the amount of community participation in the conversation, we’re going to start it right here, in the comments of this blog post. Think about all of the different aspects that go into mindmapping, i.e. exploring all opportunities in terms of design, market, end user, user scenarios, modes/habits, current/future cleaning trends, materials etc. Start throwing out ideas and remember, this is a brainstorm so anything goes.
