Ideas are often bits and pieces of unorganized thoughts or information which are invisible to the world unless they are given the ability to speak.
How does one go about in lending a voice to these little fragments of thoughts, observations? How does one bring ideas or concept to life and communicate in ways that people will understand or comprehend?
These are reasons why companies require people with different sets of talent and disciplines, in addition to their knowledge, skills and experience, to work together to put thoughts into words effectively. It really can be quite magical when ideas are allowed to speak. Imagine a sleeping toddler at a candy store who has finally woken up and see all the amazing treats!
Meeting of the Minds
After all, two minds, or three or five, are better than one.
So "What constitute a brainstorming session?" Wait - let me rephrase "What constitute an effective brainstorming session?"
Generally it starts with a clean slate.
A brainstorming session is similar to the more contemporary white boarding meeting that allows one or more people to quickly draw, modify and erase images and written content on a dry erase board. With the recent Covid-10 pandemic, we are seeing more and more tools available for teams to conduct virtual white boarding sessions.
Anyhow, such activity is an effective method to bring together scattered pieces of intel from different individuals to create a bigger picture. This is also how vision is translated to strategy. An effective session can be quite revealing and exhilarating ~ like opening the Pandora's Box!
So let's assume hypothetically that you are helping to develop new marketing content and strategy for a premiere dessert company that offers affordable French pastries, but needs more input to go on.
Here are some of the 'tried-and-true" methods for reaching the desired result. Also reference my page on The Creative Process.
Step 1: Define what the objective is for this exercise
Explain the importance of why people have been called together for the brainstorming session and what it is that you want to get out of them, as well as the desired outcome
In this example, I will tell the participating members that we are trying to come up with
the defined "Goal" usually start from the center of the drawing board and sometimes from the top and leads downwards.
Step 2: Ask more questions from the participants - What? How? Who? Why?
These generally apply to almost every situation and not just for baked goods. Assuming each person had already done their sue diligence and acquired some data from their research to substantiate claims during such exercise.
1. What are our objectives? What makes us unique? What are we trying to achieve, short-term and long-term? How much revenue can be generated based on the projected market demand or buying behavior.
Answers:
Figure out how we position ourselves in the market and how to market to our customers.
We are unique because, unlike our competition, we use only top quality ingredients and able to source them inexpensively and locally to create premiere baked goods at a fraction of what others offer.
We use only farm-fresh, non-GMO ingredients and also have gluten/nut free and vegan options.
Short term: Introducing eclairs in vanilla cream and chocolate under $4 each.
Long-term: As sales pick up, we will introduce more flavors and larger packages with quantity discount.
We expect to own 20% of the total local eclairs market share in 3 years time after the initial offering.
2. Who are our target consumers and why are we doing this?
Answers:
Seeing a growth in consumption 2a: from certain demographic such as women from age 18~55, 2b: for cost-effective French pastries 2c: especially eclairs
3. What is needed to kick-off this new marketing campaign?
Answers:
Come up with a new campaign slogan such as: "Amazingly delicious eclairs made with farm-fresh ingredients that won't put a dent in your wallet!"
Take beautiful photos of the pastries and create stunning, snazzy graphics supplementing new marketing material.
Develop content and messaging for PR and promotional material such as videos, sales presentations, and social media posting.
Create flyers, banners and graphics for stores and billboards.
Publicize the product using online marketing and attend industry events targeting potential buyers and resellers.
And So It Speaks!
So, with the development of messaging and content, we are finally able to effectively communicate to others by what is it that we are doing and giving "voice to ideas".
What makes this sharing of the minds exercise so effective is that it can be incredibly rewarding to everyone who is all working together toward a common goal, and that is to ensure a successful outcome.
As more ideas and thoughts emerge, they may not just be answers to the original questions but provide additional 'food-for-thought' (with pun intended) as more ideas emerge. For instance, eclairs may just be the start point but if the initial product is well-received, it can lead to more French or non-French-inspired baked goods and offerings. Ideas can be like tentacles growing out of an octopus that can branch out into more ideas and concepts for further analysis and content development.
And so back to the drawing board we go!
Comentários