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Brainstorming @ Inventables
Last week, a small group from FeedBurner stopped by Inventables for a quick visit and tour. They’re a neat company — they find unexpected materials and technologies, then think up applications and produce a quarterly “inspiration package” (my words, not theirs) for their customers (who include Motorola, New Balance and Herman Miller).
So when they invited Eric and me to come back for one of their weekly brainstorming sessions, we jumped at the opportunity!
I’m not sure how much of the session is bloggable (they didn’t say and I didn’t ask; my bad), so I’ll give you an overview of what happened:
Osman (the head of their research division) showed us some interesting materials and technologies — things we’d never seen and generally hadn’t heard of.
After a short introduction to each material, we made a list of unexpected or unique properties. This analytical stage was a good way to warm our creative muscles.
We devoted most of our time to brainstorming potential uses for each material or technology. The group was just the right size (about 7 people) and we quickly became comfortable bouncing ideas off each other.
After brainstorming, we let off some steam with a good ol’ Nerf battle. The crew at Inventables has a killer collection of Nerf weapons — and I must say, the skills to match.
It was a total blast. The whole team (so far, I’ve had the pleasure to meet Zach, Osman, Grace, and Ryan) is highly creative and thinking way ahead of the curve. They’re not only technology visionaries — but business visionaries as well. What a cool company.