Yesterday, Monday, march 30 I organized a brainstorm session. The idea was to find a right target group and concept for my case study. I already got a client but there was no real client wish or problem to tackle, accept that they want to do a mobile variant of there new website. Next to inviting the right people form within Mirabeau the assignment was to lead the whole brainstorm. Something I didn't do before on a company level. And of course it was a blast to do. I filmed the hole session and hope to publish it on-line if that's allowed, need to check that.

I made a selection of people that where involved in a other project for the same client. Project manager, creative-consultant, art-director, designer, information analyst. How hard could it be to get these people together you may ask? Well pretty hard, everybody is real busy here at Mirabeau. To find 2 hours that are free for everybody you need to plan way ahead. That's why the brainstorm session is a bit late in my process, no worries, I'll just need to work a bit harder to finish the concept before the deadline.

The session was nicely planned in the afternoon, after the lunch, so everybody would be relaxed. I started the brainstorm session with a small introduction. Not everybody knew me so I introduced myself who I was and what I am doing in at Mirabeau. Explained the problem of the client and which solutions already exists from competitors or as open-source. Categorized them in native applications and web applications.

I finished the presentation by explaining how the brainstorm session would work. First we had a green light, in this timespan all idea's where good. None of the partitioner could crack down on the idea of others.After the green light there was a red light timespan. All the Idea's should be examined and if there where any remarks you are allowed to say them in this timespan. At the end there would be a white light timespan. In here we should select the best ideas and try to expand them to high-level concepts. First we would try to find a target group, where would we like to the user to use the mobile solution, in Holland or abroad? And after that we would try to find a concept that was able to concept with the target group. There was a small discussion on what was the best approach. If you start with a target group you creativeness could be limited for the concepts. A smart step would be not to define the exact target group but split them up in to time spans. Before you start and when you are busy.

One of the partitioner would write everything on the whiteboard, I leaded the conversation if there where silences or would answer questions. I explained some of the techniques possible with mobile web apps and native apps. What kind of mobile users there are. "Bored now", "Repetitive now", "Urgent now" see Opera Dev Blog The brainstorm went fast and easy.

We soon discovered that the target groups where as general as people owning a mobile phone with internet connection and in 2 years this would be a wide range of users. Th conclusion was made not to do select 1 target group but to examen there needs. The whole concept would drive on what kind of need the user can have. All information presented to the user could be handled by a few outlining needs. "Time", "Money", "Mood", "Company" and most importantly "Location". If you have 1 of the first four and the location you can make an easy selection on what possibilities users have in the area they are in if it's abroad or somewhere in Holland.

The concept will have the idea's we came up with in the brainstorm session. I will now work out 3 concepts and we will discuss them later on in the week or next week.