Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with brainstorm

Don't get me wrong, clotheslines are great, but help me make one AWESOME!

variella — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:10:27 -0800

Items weighing less than 1lb that make you think "WOW that's cool!" or "GOT to buy that!" on first glance? Catch: items already in your home or could do a bang-up job of creating in two weeks. The bartering comm I belong to (which also uses local alternative 'currency') is having a community centre sale. Theme: anything you can hang up on a clothesline (celebrating National Clothesline Day). I have to book a table ASAP for June 10- time to create but not much to decide if I have enough ideas or not. Food is the only forbidden item.

I'd love to participate because the theme sounds fun. I have a half dozen brand new blouses (with tags on), knitting patterns, and sheet music that I could have up. I'm willing to trade/sell these and anything else I have up for token amounts just to participate. All profits/exchanges go to me, the group considers my mere participation to be their return on giving me the space :)

Any ideas for other hangable things I could sell? Token items are fine, not looking for a huge return, just a full display of useful/fun items. I've got tons of used books but they aren't clothesline friendly.

Skills: sew, knit/crochet, papermaking, calligraphy, photography, etc., generally crafty and creative but help me brainstorm some basic and/or crazy out-of-the-box ideas!

It's like Banksy meets candid camera.

Bobby Bittman — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:29:20 -0800

Some friends and I want to take a series of staged pictures of pedestrians standing in front of street art to comic effect, and I need your help brainstorming, hive mind. For example, imagine drawing an arm on a wall holding a pistol towards an imaginary head, and then a businessman stands in front of it so the arm looks like its coming out of his shoulder. Comedy gold.

Other ideas I've come up with:

- a real cop standing sideways in front of a drawing of a protester's placard saying "Fuck The Police"

- anyone standing under a falling safe

- a giant vice squeezing someone's head

- a giant face shushing a real person talking on a cell phone

They don't all have to be this violent or offensive. Cute is fine. It just has to be funny or visually striking.

What else ya got for me?

What Would Spielberg Do?

np312 — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:45:34 -0800

Please help me come up with a story twist! I need an idea for a highly valuable, secret cargo smuggled on-board an oil tanker. Difficulty: no warheads or drugs. So an oil tanker sinks, perhaps purposefully scuttled. Industrial salvagers go in to try and rescue the ship. In the process they find that instead of oil, something else is was on that boat, something that was in the process of being smuggled or trying to be hidden forever on the bottom of the ocean. Now someone is trying to kill them before they bring up the ship. Question: what is the secret cargo?

Whatever it is, it has to be super valuable, super dangerous, or super important to the health/prosperity of millions of people. It has to be something worth a lot, seeing how the nefarious dudes were trying to destroy it by scuttling a damn oil tanker, or risk smuggling it across the oceans.

And it has to be tangible and sizable, measured in the tons or gallons, so that it justified the use of an oil tanker as opposed to a yacht. Which nixes anything in the idea-realm you could put on a disk or jump-drive.

I'm interested also in the idea that it was something "good" as opposed to "evil," such as gallons of a vaccine or medicine that an evil pharmaceutical company would want to destroy. But then, someone could always make more of it, I suppose.

Any ideas or brainstorms? It doesn't necessarily have to be something that really exists at this moment in time, but the more realistic it is, the better. (So no cancer-curing alien blood, please.)

Brainstorm a blog name for me

srlbraintree — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:22:47 -0800

Help me name my blog. I am a cog in the software division of "a large technology company."

Starting a new blog, intended to empower people to get their company to adopt a certain combination of our software products which (we argue) enhances productivity and foster innovation and which brings the world of Web 2.0 to business.

The blog isn't about the software, rather, how to convince others. The intended reader (typically called an evangelist) is likely already "sold" on our wares, but needs to convince others that (A) social software has benefits and is ready for the needs of a business and (B) of course the stuff from my "large technology company" is the best.

Software capabilities include web conferences, instant messaging, team collaboration, document libraries, blogs, wikis, user profiles, shared calendars, communities, and other shit along those lines.

Despite its google appeal, "TheLotusEvangelist," although extremely descriptive is too boring and already used elsewhere.

The name I'm after would be catchy, easy to remember, embody the idea of evangelism (while avoiding any religious implications) and sounds sort of cool and "Web 2.0ish." The readers of the blog (like its author) are closer to age 50 than 30, and consequently desperate to convince people they are still cool and relevant. As such they might get the joke of a name that plays off of something like "brb" but might now know what a meme is. They are technically literate, but likely belong to the email generation vs. the text message generation.

Extra points for alliteration, rhyming, and I love the word "misoneism." And, of course, cool if the name is unique enough that I have a reasonable shot at the domain name. Extra points as well for slight irreverence, but I do have to get the name by some bigshots, so it can't be unbelievably smartass.

other themes
yellow
blue
adoption
driving adoption
encouraging
being the flag waver
let me help you help them
fostering innovation
I'm so smart
social software, web 2.0, collaboration 2.0
leader (not as in we make the leading software thing, rather as in leading the way to web 2.0 nirvana)

disclaimer: the ideas and opinions will be ostensibly mine, but no question that I am undertaking this blog on behalf of my employer, the aforementioned "large technology company."

Rock my meeting Like a Hurricane!

doorsfan — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:44:14 -0800

Help me open a week long sales meeting with a BANG! New guy at work and on Friday we have a brainstorming session to come up with ideas on how we (marketing) should open our national sales meeting. I work for a medical device company.

Help me be the superstar and come up with some good ideas. Here is the direction we received:

"During Friday’s meeting, we will be having an important brainstorming session concerning the opening of the national sales meeting. This opening will be about 10 minutes long. It usually consists of a video and/or loud music.

The goal of the video is to get them pumped up for a long weekend of learning."

Just b/c we normally have done the video/music thing doesn't mean I'm tied to that option.

Thx!

Bored? Help name my blog.

pantheON — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:41:12 -0800

Bored? Help name my blog. I've run several blogs in the past, but this new venture aims to be something of a more serious and more, hopefully, long-term venture. The impetus for this project is my frustration with the dumbing down of politics, media, and culture and the lack of focus in all three spheres on actually bettering the human condition. It will be based in Canada, but not deal exclusively with Canadian subject matter. It may share some of the same themes as a blog like Crooks and Liars, but not be exclusively political or focused on current events. It will explore the dysfunction in... well, everything and eventually search for solutions. It may, after some time, serve as a tool to inspire a movement.

It would also help if the domain name was available, at least in the '.ca' domain. I'm interested to see what you all come up with.

What should I build for my final project (in a technical Master's program)?

k7lim — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:32:00 -0800

What should I do for my technology-related Master's final project? -How can I better brainstorm my own ideas? -Do you have a dream app you want me to implement? -Are there areas or problems that you feel are underserved by technology? I have a few ideas that I'm kinda excited about, but none that's pure gold. My program is pretty technical, but has close ties with econ, sociology, law, et others. Pretty loose requirements. Hive minds are of interest to me, so I thought this would be a cool place to hear people's suggestions. I like to approach brainstorming by identifying either 1) problems or 2) things that people naturally like to do. Subsequently, I come up with solutions to alleviate the issues or facilitate the natural pre-existing behaviours in a novel way. I've been told to narrow the scope by focusing on one type of people.

I would love for this project to capture my passion, and subsequently my time, and then possibly some money. I'm not raring to get back to work for big tech companies. I'm ready to collaborate with some cool people on cool things, and to look for many "thousand-dollar ideas" that pique me (and feed me), instead of one big idea that may never hit.

Calling all GIS-experts in da house

Rabarberofficer — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:23:11 -0800

Brain storm-fodder: What's the most innovative idea you've got for an thesis on GIS (Geological Information Systems) and archeology? An old friend is having trouble to find a suitable idea for an undergrad-thesis on GIS (geological information system) and archeology. We're holding an brain storm-session in a while and I'd like to be able to throw him some meat-bones to chew on (mentally speaking).

So, calling all GIS-experts, archeologist and who ever would like to chip in: What's the most innovative idea you have for using GIS and archeology that's suitable to explore in an under-grad thesis?

(The googling reveals several master thesis about archeo-GIS, but they're on a too high level - academical and resource-speaking). I'm looking for something somewhat "lighter". My apologies if the question is to broad.)

Kick-start my brain!

Happy Dave — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 03:30:01 -0800

How do you kick-start creative brainstorming? I have a little time on my hands at the moment, and I want to get brainstorming on short-story and novel ideas. I've never been all that good at this part of the creative process, my stories normally arise from random stimuli like magazine articles, MeFi etc. But a lot of writers I've read and/or worked with say to me that the imagination is a muscle, and the more you exercise it, the more you'll come up with.

So what techniques, skills, habits, software or other methods do you use to get on a creative roll? I'm not looking for a magic creative bullet here that'll give me a hundred great ideas for a book, just something that'll help me do some mental 'reps' and spark off a few ideas.

One thing, I'd rather avoid those cheesy idea generator websites, where you auto-generate a person/situation/outcome and have to come up with a story. Anything else is cool though...

Help me brainstorm a name for my recurring open house

lalalana — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 10:14:40 -0800

Help me brainstorm a catchy name for a recurring open house at a GLBT-oriented counseling center. We're going to be hosting monthly open houses for anyone interested in learning more about our services, and we'd like to come up with a catchy name for the event.

Examples from other groups-
A woman's clinic- "We're More Than You Think"
A faith-based children's home - "Circle of Faith Gathering"

We're a gay-orientated behavioral health clinic with a wide variety of services that range from couples counseling to chemical dependency treatment to youth services to HIV case management. We're in Houston, TX in the historically gay part of town (a la SF's Castro).

We want something fun that also emphasizes the work we do.
Any ideas?

Brainstorming software?

NekulturnY — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 03:45:10 -0800

Via a FPP, I found this: a "Mindjet brainstorming tool" that can be integrated in Word. It seems like a good way of structuring your thoughts , even better than paper (I always seem to mess up the structure). The only downside is the price: is there any freeware that does something similar, that is easy to use and integrate in Word? Thanks.

Barter Websites

benjh — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 06:07:33 -0800

Suggestions for swapping-goods web site? I've done the eBay thing, but looking for swapping goods for goods. I have a notebook computer, and I am trying to change it to a different platform than what I have. Anywhere where I can post such a thing on the web, specialized sites?