Thursday, February 08, 2007

A Netccentric Brainstorming Session

My partner Ming came down to Penang on Monday for a business trip mainly to meet up with the team at Netccentric and plan our overall marketing strategy (since our website is due for launching soon).

The little office I work in has gotten a little crowded since with me working at my usual desk but Ming taking up a position right beside me.
So once in a while out of anger and annoyance... I would shoot an angry look at him to remind him that he's taking my space!!!And he would then shoot back a rather confused look wondering what the heck I was staring at him for.... since obviously.. IT WAS HIS OFFICE TOO!!!

So before tensions got too high, we decided to call a marketing meeting to involve the technical team of the company to brainstorm for ideas on how to market our product.

Now Ming and I have always wanted Netccentric to be a "forward-looking" company.

So rather than having the typical brainstorming session that has people shout out ideas, Ming suggested we try something new.


Ming was the Chairperson of the meeting so he directed everyone on what to do.

First, everyone was to take a piece of paper and fold it to divide the paper into 9 parts.

Then in each part, everyone was to come up with 9 ideas of his/her own and write it in his/her own piece of paper without talking to anyone else about it.

After that, we took the piece of paper, tore it up to 9 pieces (one idea on each piece) and then spread it out on the floor in front of us.

Then of the 9 pieces in front of us, we each took out 3 ideas that we thought were crap

and chucked it into a basket.


Then of the remaining 6 pieces for each person, we separated it into two groups.

3 pieces from each person to go into a pile that was what the person thought was the BEST of his ideas and the remaining 3 pieces per person was to go into a pile for "Second Best" ideas.

So there you have it in this picture.

The CRAP ideas were in the basket.

The Best Ideas on the left.

And the Second Best on the right.

Then we wrote all the "BEST" ideas (15 of them) on the white board and discussed them altogether.
We expanded on each of those 15 BEST ideas and when we were done with those we moved on to the 15 SECOND BEST ideas and then on to the 15 CRAP ideas.

Mind you... the crap ideas are often good.

Just that it's sometimes so silly that people are too embarrassed to call it a great idea themselves :P

By the end of the meeting, we all came up with some very good marketing ideas and one revolutionary one (which I can't discuss here at the moment).

We prepared meeting minutes which stated exactly which person had to follow-up on each idea (Ming and I got the bulk of the work since the technical team was already buried in work).

So our brainstorming session turned out to be quite a success.

But of the sea of ideas we had, some turned out to be quite funny.

In my "CRAP" pile, one of the ideas I wrote was "Company Musical/Soundtrack".

WHAT WAS I HIGH ON?!?!

Either ways... we had some great ideas there... something that many of you will see in time to come.

So when our company has launched and you've seen its creative marketing campaign somewhere, remember that the idea probably came about in this boardroom meeting of a small dotcom company.



29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol someone just advertised

Anonymous said...

Shit.. spam comment took the 1st place...

eh, i wannna work in some company where all youngster works.. me work here, so demotivated.. and lazyyyyyyyyyyyy :(

Boss Stewie said...

anonymous/cely: hahaha ok i deleted the first spam comment!

cely: but remember.. it's more prestiges to work for a bigger old company :P

- PC - said...

i oso wana work in places where all youngsters la.. the company m working wid now, mostly malays and ladies. haih.. sadnya my life..

Unknown said...

i like the last paragraph.... gives a 'watch out world, something big's coming' kinda feel..
i support u whichever i can boss!

Anonymous said...

fuh canggih boss. that's what I call a successful meeting.. right now even my college project/assignment meetings are so sidetracked that we always deviated from the main thing. 'cause we don't really have a leader heh.

eh can I add you on MSN or something? there's something I'd like to ask.. and thought maybe you're experienced enough to know.. NOT SEX haha :p

Gwendolynne said...

I don't see any char kuey teow on the table!!!

Infectioner said...

damn poser -____-||

Anonymous said...

Hehe, nice way to get ideas / feedbacks.

Bila launching har?

Boss Stewie said...

pc: hahahhaha well the oldest in our leetle dotcom is 27

william: hahahah yes yes.. watch out world!!!

clem: ahahah sure... e-mail me ur msn and i'll add u...and PS: are u saying i'm not experienced enough to know about sex?

gwen: hahahaha! no beard papa either!

infectioner: LOL!!!

jason: end of this month or early march... depending on the feng shui hahaha

Anonymous said...

i want to work in a place with only leng chai, rich, single, yau ying guys. =P
anyone got job opening?

Anonymous said...

alright e-mailed to lengmouboss d.

lol I didn't imply that! :p

Anonymous said...

do i still get to intern when your company becomes big and huge and too good for me??? and your balls get too rich and high and rounded? not that i wanna intern for your balls. er. never mind. :p

*doopey eyes*

Boss Stewie said...

fei: aiyah.. that rules out my leetle dotcom haih.. sad sad

clem: alright shall add u

suicidal: hahaha... i'm sure we'll always be looking for interns to abuse :P

Gwendolynne said...

You hahahaha a lot in your comments :P

...

hahahaha

Anonymous said...

u call dat office small?

mae said...

hahaha i like the look on your face and ming's face in the office..

why very the blank one ur office? at least half ur office room must be unutilized?

aL said...

is it just me or your pics are really damn kecik?

Wingz said...

boss hire me pulezzzz!!! i want work in IT kompeni la!! pulez?

Boss Stewie said...

gwen: yes i do! i laugh a lot in real life too

gin: small lar ginnie :p it's a lot smaller than in the pictures

mae: small dotcoms don't have any furniture :P

al: hahaha it's kecik

wingz: ai cheh wingz.. perli me again!

MaN|acZ said...

so many balak, but 1 lui onli ar?!
how can?!... IMBALANCE!!

Boss Stewie said...

maniacz: HAHAHAHH!!!! what an observation

Anonymous said...

boss, look hensem with long shirt..

and ming look damn funny in the pic.. where got angry look.. kakaka

miszmilk said...

Too much High School Musical for you!

Mischique said...

that's an interesting idea...a company musical? if i were to be the boss..i'd kick your ass out from the meeting. LOL

Unknown said...

hahaha, mischique, too bad he's his own boss. we'd love to see him kick himself though, wouldnt we?
eh boss ur ofis pretty big wat....

Boss Stewie said...

cely: HEHEH

miszmilk: hahaha no no i don't watch high school musical

brenda: HAHA SNIFF

william: it's smaller than u think william

Anonymous said...

Atlanta, GA (PRWeb) February 5, 2007 -- Mamtha was an unassuming new bride when she moved to the USA. Although Mamtha A (short for Anantharaman) was marrying a software programmer, she had no aspirations to become an Internet entrepreneur and innovator. Launching an edgy Web 2.0 web application called AtlantaBestBargains.com was the farthest thing from her mind when she first arrived in the United States from India. She would probably have lived the life of a dutiful wife like so many traditional women from her country if the adage "necessity is the mother of invention" didn't still ring so true. The necessity she sees is the need for people in Atlanta to be able to obtain quality services from competent service providers and professionals. Mamtha was frustrated in her search for a reliable contractor to fix her leaky roof. Her calls for quotes often went unanswered, and therefore, she found the process demoralizing.

ADVERTISEMENT

Then, it occurred to her that if www.ebay.com can match buyers and sellers together efficiently for items, why couldn't she do the same thing for services in Atlanta? Mamtha and her husband's brain child www.iGanit.com (ganit is an Indian word for "calculate") was born by launching www.AtlantaBestBargains.com as a Web 2.0 marketplace for the city. Web 2.0 is the evolution of the Internet as a platform for software applications beyond the traditional website or blog.

Web 2.0 could be best described as the next generation of websites that are moving beyond static content towards providing rich interactive and social networking features. Myspace.com, YouTube.com, and Digg.com are examples of popular Web 2.0 websites which enable their users to network and share content, music, videos and opinions. The importance of Web 2.0 applications can be illustrated in the buyout of these popular web destinations by major corporations. It is common knowledge that News Corp shelled out 580 million dollars for MySpace.com and Google invested 1.65 billion in acquiring YouTube.com. These sites or web applications have become almost as popular as search engines, the mainstays of Web 1.0. But the ramifications of all of this would have been lost on Mamtha when she first arrived here.

Mrs. A, as she affectionately refers to herself, left the beautiful city of Bangalore with little more than great hopes and expectations about the US as the land of opportunity. Mamtha has very fond memories of her homeland but is happy about her decision to move here. Initially, she was a bit bored with her new life and began looking for work in Atlanta. Eventually, she found employment, but her next challenge was to learn to drive. In India, people, women in particular either find a bus or an auto rickshaw if they want to go somewhere, but here in Atlanta, this is not an option.

Ms. Anantharaman subsequently learned to drive because she needed to drive herself to her work place. It was so liberating, although she does admit that, initially, driving on I-285 was daunting. These are just some of the small victories she had in her new homeland.

Despite the sense of freedom driving gave her, Ms. Anantharaman tired of Atlanta's rueful daily commute. So Mamtha stayed at home and tried to find jobs that she could perform from home to avoid commuting daily. Finding gainful home-based employment is challenging at best. She tried working for companies by coordinating with people from other countries and ended up working early in the morning, late in the night, and in between as well. Above all, she was always exhausted and restless.

Mamtha reflects "the inner joy of doing a job and earning your own money was missing." Mamtha sees AtlantaBestBargains.com as a double win for her to work from home. She feels AtlantaBestBargains.com and iGanit.com will enable her "to do something on her own as an entrepreneur and also make a difference in people's lives." She especially sees it helping small business owners who offer great service at low cost. Ms. Anantharaman opines that "the big companies often win people's business with their huge brand name and then subcontract the work to someone else at a fraction of the price they charge their customers." In contrast, AtlantaBestBargains.com will enable people in the city to buy and sell services safely and securely. Her site features a rating system for service providers so buyers can feel secure knowing they are acquiring services from a reputable company or individual with a track record on their system. These types of rating systems tend to discourage fraud on Web 2.0 services or older sites like eBay.

While AtlantaBestBargains.com will lend itself to the selling of some products like cars, real estate, collectibles, used merchandise, and even employment listings, its primary focus will be on facilitating the service marketplace. Moreover, http://www.iGanit.com and http://www.AtlantaBestBargains.com will be one of the first service marketplaces to allow users to upload video promotions by service professions. It is inevitable that video content would emerge on the web beyond just entertainment and geared towards business promotion, and in this regard, Mamtha Anantharaman is giving Atlanta a vision of Web 2.0 to come.

pasha said...

This is a great move for you and a plus for StartUpNation. Congratulations to all!
This should be a huge success.
businessbrainstorming