AssignMent 3
BRAINSTORMING TOOL
Future of Advertising / MCAD
Christof Flachsmann
April 2009

BRIEFING: ORIGINAL
“Create a poster that visualizes the brain-
storming process with it’s 4 steps. Size at least
DIN A2. Audience: students and professionals
in the creative field.”
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

BRIEFING: v2
“Create an online tool that supports the brain-
storming process by providing input. The tool
has to be easy to use. Audience: students and
professionals in the creative field.”
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BASIC IDEA
While the original project should provide an overview of the
brainstorming process with it’s 4 steps, the role of the new
version is to provide input for the idea finding part of the
brainstorming process.
• One user asks a question, describes the problem, briefing
• Other users from various fields respond with ideas
• integrated in an existing website/application that is
already in use by the audience and that already has a
huge amount of users
• saving the feedback in a searchable database that pro-
vides instant input for related inquiries
• Provide other inspiring data in different media based on
the search
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

PLATFORMS
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

PLATFORMS
COMPARISON: AGE
Facebook Twitter
The users on Twitter are slightly more corresponding to the target audience than the users on facebook.
source: http://www.quantcast.com
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

PLATFORMS
COMPARISON: MEMBERS AND GROwING RATE
Facebook Twitter
Feb 08 Feb 09 % growth Feb 08 Feb 09 % growth
20,043,000 65,704,000 228% 475,000 7,038,000 1382%
source: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-suc-
cess/
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

PLATFORMS
COMPARISON: MEMBERS AND GROwING RATE
Facebook Twitter
65 Million User 7 Million User
source: http://www.facebook.com
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

PLATFORMS
COMPARISON: FRIENDS/FOLLOwERS
Facebook Twitter
Average user has 120 friends About a third (35%) of twitter users have 10 or fewer follow-
ers, with the average number of followers for all users at 70.
The chance to get ideas from your friends / followers on facebook is almost twice as likely than on twitter.
As a conclusion, a brainstorming tool has a higher value for twitter users than for facebook users.
source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/twitters-new-users-drive-600-
source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statisticsm growth-7324/hubspot-twittersphere-average-followers-following-twittergrade-2008jpg/
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

TwITTER: RELATED SITES AND SEARCHES
Related SeaRcheS
Related SiteS
1. twitPic - twitpic.com
2. summize - www.summize.com
3. FriendFeed - friendfeed.com
4. techCrunch - www.techcrunch.com
5. tinyURL - tinyurl.com
6. Linkedin - www.linkedin.com
7. tweet scan - tweetscan.com
8. Flickr - www.flickr.com
9. brightkite.com - brightkite.com
10. netvibes - www.netvibes.com
twitter.com was found XX times using these keywords
source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.com source: http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com#lifestyle
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

TwITTER: RELATED SITES AND SEARCHES
techcRunch & linkedin
About 5% of the total visits to techcrunch.com and 4% of
Linkedin are preceded by twitter.com. same the other way
around. What means lot of twitter users are reading
techCrunch and using Linkedin.
the tool needs to be promoted on these sites.
FlickR
Our audience also uses flickr. Links and images to related
flickr content should therefore complement the given input.
source: http://www.alexa.com/
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
if a user wants to get some input for his problem, he follows the brainstorming tool on twitter: @ineedinput
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
Afterwards the follower sends a question directly to @ineedinput.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
the tool creates an individual hash tag for that question along with a website that will display all incoming answers with that
hash tag (e.g. www.ineedinput.com/#inq1234abcd).
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
After that, the tool forwards the question with that hashtag to 50 of its followers and a link to the answer page to the person who
asked the question.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
Participating followers reply with their input to @ineedinput with the hashtag (#inq1234ab).
their answers will automatically displayed on the personal site.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
Part of the tool is a “give and take ratio”. A user will need 3 points to start a brainstorming session.
if you provide input to another question you get 1 point. if you don’t want to wait until the tool sends you a request, you can pro-
vide answers to actual questions on the ineedinput website.
the receiver can mark helpful/unique answers and donate another 2 points by doing so.
What means: provide one really good idea to another person and you can start your own session right away.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
HOw IT wORkS
the answer page also includes imagery according to keywords mentioned in the questions and answers as an additional
inspiration source.
Questions and answers will be saved in a database. similar questions are featured on the answer page as well, to get some
already available inspiration right away.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof

THE BRAINSTORMING TOOL
ADvANTAGES
• get input from people of various fields with different
demographics.
• You don’t need a huge amount of followers yourself.
You can just draw from the @ineedinput community.
• it’s free and easy.
• no registration, all the data the tool needs are available
via twitter.
• Users are already familiar with the system.
no new learning process.
• Find people with interesting input, thoughts, visions, etc.
• Many applications already available, to use twitter (and
therefore the brainstorming tool too) on mobile devices or
as a desktop application.
Future of Advertising MCAD 2009 Flachsmann Christof