Beyond Brainstorming

Forget Book Clubs, Start a Brainstorming Club

Seth Godin had a great post a couple of weeks ago about his first year at the Stanford MBA program.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/09/random-acts-of-.html

He talked about a fellow student called Chip Conley that picked 4 other students to join a weekly brainstorming session where they brainstormed ideas for new entrepreneurial ventures. In 1 year they generated over 500 great ideas and learned a lot about business. Seth explains that he probably learned more in those brainstorming session than he did in the rest of his MBA program! Chip went on to run one of the largest independent hotel chains in California and Seth went on to start a number of companies and become a marketing guru.

Over my career I have formed many informal groups of friends where we brainstormed ideas for new businesses, games and other ideas. ThinkCube grew out of my desire to develop a tool that would not only help people come up with ideas, but also to spark a trend in brainstorming clubs. Forget book clubs; I know there are many people like me that would love to join a group to brainstorm ideas. I hear of these groups every now and again but I really want this to be as big as book clubs one day!

I realize most people don’t really know how to organize a brainstorming club and I was hoping having a tool like ThinkCube that provides a process, a library of ideas and creative techniques would allow these people to start their own groups. ThinkCube is a brainstorming club in a box (or cube), just add friends – laughter, ideas and companies will follow.

Do you belong to a brainstorming club? If not, go on, start a brainstorming (ThinkCubation) Club today!! Whether it’s at work or with a group of friends, brainstorming clubs can help generate lots of ideas. Perhaps you could come up with a great idea that could turn into a company or product; or maybe just allow you and your friends to have some brain stimulating fun.

If you already belong to a brainstorming club, write to me and tell me about it. I really believe that ‘Brainstorming Clubs’ could be as big as book clubs one day. Help me spread the word, let’s start an idea revolution!

Building Product Awareness

Sorry it’s been quiet around here for a while. ThinkCube and I have been pottering along and Kes has been swamped at his day job. Kes and I had a marketing strategy meeting over the weekend though that’s worth further pondering. We met to brainstorm new ways to keep our momentum going.

Kes’ insight was that the current problem we need to solve is “awareness”. How do we make our target audience aware of ThinkCube. Most people who become aware of ThinkCube are impressed and eventually buy. So how do we most efficiently get to our target audience?

None of our ideas so far have been revolutionary… continue sending review copies to influential bloggers, work at getting press in targeted magazines, speak at conferences, etc. We’ve tossed around a few more exciting, more financially risky ideas… but it’s so hard to know which one(s) will pay off.

If you have something that’s worked for you in your business, let us know about it!

5-Star Review for ThinkCube

Thomas “Duffbert” Duff is a self proclaimed, “techno-geek who reads excessively and is desperately trying to keep up with the onslaught of new technology...” He is also one of Amazon.com’s Top 100 Reviewers with over 1,100 book reviews published to date. Over the weekend he reviewed ThinkCube and gave it the highest possible 5-Star Rating! You can read the review on the ThinkCube product page or on Thomas’ website.   

Praise for ThinkCube

This month's issue of Package Design Magazine features a spotlight article on ThinkCube's innovative packaging. Check it out!

XO Create! Stretches Minds and Setup Box Limits with ThinkCube

We also received a kind nod from Jess McMullin on his blog bplusd. Jess is the Principal of nForm, a Canadian company that specializes in developing positive user experiences. He also co-founded the Information Architecture Institute and speaks to international audiences about his work. We're pleased he likes ThinkCube and even more excited that his team still plays Metamemes: Early Adoption Release (ThinkCube's predecessor) on their lunch hour!

ThinkCube Has Arrived!

Yes folks, you heard it right - ThinkCube has arrived! And we have the aching backs and sore muscles to prove it. We spent quite a few hours over the last week offloading delivery trucks, taking inventory of all the pieces, and setting up our own little ThinkCube assembly factory.

As of today, ThinkCube is available for purchase on Amazon.com. We expect to go live with the www.metamemes.com shopping cart early this week. Anyone who signed up for a release notification email will be receiving those this week, along with a special "thank you" coupon.

Where in the World is ThinkCube?

Waiting is not something Kes and I do well. Generally speaking, when we want something, we do whatever it takes to make it happen - now! With that in mind, you can imagine how hard it’s been for us to wait for ThinkCube to be designed and printed. So it is with great excitement that I announce the impending arrival of ThinkCube!!

In about 2 weeks, 25 pallets of ThinkCube bits are due to arrive at our feet. To save money, we’re doing the fulfillment (assembling the components in the boxes) so needless to say things will get busy around here very soon. It looks like we’ll be ready to start selling by mid- to late-June, a few weeks ahead of schedule.

I’ll keep you posted with pictures and updates as we get closer to June. Stay tuned!

Story of ThinkCube, Part 4

This final installment of the ThinkCube back story addresses one of our biggest challenges to-date: Marketing.

I know, I know. It’s a dreadful word. When I hear it I think of infomercials, junk mail, tv ads, and pop-ups; generally categorized as the intrusive, irritating crap we have become experts at tuning out, TiVo’ing past, and ushering straight to the recycle bin.

When I say marketing, I mean getting our message out to the people who want to hear it. ThinkCube was designed for a specific audience of people who love new ideas. Our goal and challenge is to find that audience (maybe someone like you) and speak in a way we’ll be heard; with permission and without being annoying.

Instead of doing things the traditional way, we poured 99% of our marketing budget into making a high-quality product. The first time you solve a problem or create a new idea using ThinkCube, you will want to tell people about it. You’ll be so proud that you’ll put it on your desk, just waiting for an opportunity to tell someone about how it changed the way you think about creativity. That’s our goal anyway!

Join me next week for a long overdue production update.

Story of ThinkCube, Part 3

There’s a lot of boring stuff that happens between writing a business plan and opening your doors for business. I’ll fast forward past the boring bits and spend these last 2 installments of the ThinkCube back-story talking about the 2 most interesting to date: designing and marketing ThinkCube.

Two years ago, Kes stumbled upon a professional design company called XO Create! (Alpharetta, GA). Although we weren’t really ready then to make ThinkCube a commercial product (we thought we were, but we weren’t), Kes was so impressed with this company’s previous work that he had to fly down and spend a day with them.

Kes left Atlanta knowing he found the eventual ThinkCube designers. Their design team embodies the same spirit of innovation that we hold near and dear to our hearts. We knew that the promise of a remarkable creativity and innovation tool couldn’t be delivered by any ordinary design firm, in any ordinary package. The product components and packaging that evolved from XO’s creativity are as unique, functional, and cool as our ideas inside it.

It’s always challenging to relinquish control over your idea, your “baby”. But Jim Stringer, Creative Director at XO Create!, managed us like the pro he is. He gently yanked our idea out of our hands with the implied promise to return it unharmed.

Just within the last month, we closed out the design phase and have moved on to production. It’s been a long time coming, but we are now just weeks away from holding the physical form of our ideas and it is truly exciting!

Story of ThinkCube, Part 2

What should be #1 on your to-do list when you want to turn an idea into a sustainable business? Last year when I asked myself that very question, I didn’t have a clue. I was an engineer with not so much as lemonade stand experience under my belt.

To my utter dismay, my business savvy husband and all of the good business books out there had the same answer: Write a business plan. The motivation behind the plan wasn’t to obtain outside investment, but simply because every business needs a plan.

My experience of writing a business plan was analogous to, and equally as painful as, my mom’s school of learning how to spell. “Mom, how do I spell the word…” I would ask. Her answer was always the same, “Go look it up in the dictionary.” Every time, my sarcastic but sincere retort was, “How do I look it up if I don’t know how to spell it?” She encouraged me to sound it out and start with the first syllable.

Breaking any daunting task into smaller chunks helps make it manageable, so that’s how I tackled the business plan. The funny thing about business plans is that the final product often only loosely resembles your original vision. You gain knowledge along the way that changes your perspective. For me, writing our plan was a process of discovery and an exercise in being flexible. It forced me master some level of understanding about all aspects of our business. I’m not sure those necessary lessons could have been learned any other way.

Welcome to the MetaMemes blog!

This blog is co-authored by Kes and Sue Sampanthar, the husband and wife founders of MetaMemes LLC and inventors of ThinkCube. As partners in a small innovation company, we are continually learning and thinking about new ideas. Our posts will be varied in topic, but will generally relate to creativity, innovation, technology, and business. We will also keep you up to date on the day-to-day happenings of our small and growing company. Thanks for stopping by!