Best Tool for an Online Ideation Session
Organise the most creative ideation session. Get started in minutes!
What is an ideation session?
Ideation is a meeting during which the team generates solutions and ideas through a number of ideation techniques. Those include brainstorming, prototyping, the worst possible idea, and visual collaboration. Within the Design Thinking framework, Ideation is the third stage happening after the Emphasise and Define phase. The goal of an effective ideation meeting is to generate ideas and think outside of the box, generate new potential solutions to the problem and stretch the limits of thinking that might be currently keeping the team from moving forward.
Virtual Ideation Session
With more people working remotely than ever, most of our daily communication has moved to the online world. From daily stand-ups to brainstorming sessions, remote teams use virtual conferencing and white-boarding tools to stay productive as distributed workers. Organizing an an online ideation session means that you will need to account for different dynamics of communication.
A team having an ideation session in a dedicated physical room can move around and collaborate easier with the use of tools like white-board and sticky notes. Remote teams don’t have this luxury and need to get creative with the software tools that they use.
Best Tool for Online Ideation Session: flat.social
Ideation sessions are meetings that involve a lot of collaboration and communication between those who participate. While classic video conferencing tools like ZOOM or Microsoft Teams can be useful for brainstorming, they do not cover all the of the functionalities that might make your team more creative.
What’s a perfect functionality set for an online ideation?
Virtual Breakout Rooms
One of the big drawbacks of using classic video conferencing tools for organizing brainstorming and ideation is the lack of ability to group participants into breakout rooms easily. Online ideation sessions usually involve a lot of group activities where attendees collaborate in smaller groups and then gather to present their solutions to the entire team.
With flat.social, participants of your virtual meeting will be able to move around the online meeting space just like around a physical office. With spatial audio & videotechnology, they will be able to hear only others in their proximity. Creating group activities is also a breeze - simply add a couple of workshop rooms that the participants will be able to join for activities that involve splitting participants into groups.
Online White-Board
Brainstorms that happen in physical space are equipped with a number of old-school collaboration tools - from whiteboards to sticky notes, we’ve been using them for a long time. Participants who attend a workshop organized in flat.social will be able to use real-time collaborative features which resemble the ones that one can find in a physical office. The workshop space can be decorated with sticky notes, drawings, videos, images, stickers, and much more!
Infinite Collaboration Canvas
Each creative space in flat.social acts as an infinite real-time canvas. Meeting attendees can move around it and use white-boarding features to collaborate. Don’t let a physical whiteboard limit your results!
Organiser Functionalities
The larger the meeting, the harder it is to manage all of the attendees. As an admin of your workshop space in flat.social you will be able to select who is able to join it an how the meeting will play out.
You can also select which guests are the moderators if you need any help and assign the organiser functionalities to them.
Movement and Interaction
With flat.social participants are not chained to a grid of tiny squares like they would in a classic videoconference. Instead, they can move around the rooms like they would in any multiplayer game.
Learn more about movement & interaction
Rooms & Activities
Your new virtual spaces can consist of multiple different types of rooms. Each room can be different - a mini-game, activity or something special for your team.
Dependently on the type of room, you will be able to host from 10 to 100 simultaneous guests.
See rooms & activities available
Spatial Media
By default each guest can only hear & see others around. Spatial audio and video allows for more natural and spontaneous conversations that are based on proximity, not on the loudest guests.
Want to speak with someone? Simply fly up!
Learn more about spatial audio & video
Collaborative, real-time whiteboard
Add colorful drawings, images, stickers, sticky notes and much more. Whichever room or activity type you choose, you can use it as a real-time collaborative whiteboard.
Build your own space
Build your own virtual space for your team or event by selecting from many of the available rooms and activities.
Each room is special and can be placed in whichever position you want. Fancy a quick retreat on the beach? Simply add the beach elements into your space :)
Physics 💫
Expression
It's so much more than just a plain video-chat. Guests in a flat.social meeting can express themselves through a variety of virtual gestures and customizations on how they present themselves.
From becoming a godzilla to doing a frog dance, it's all built to be playful and interactive.
Presentations and Screensharing
Engage your guests with interactive presentations and talks by using the spatial screen sharing and broadcasting features! Whether you're giving a talk or want to present something with a real-time video stream, sharing the live screenshare will be an experience that seamlessly integrates into the virtual space.
Frequently asked questions
What are the fun features of flat.social?
From flying around to playing football and doing a frog dance, there is plenty! We built those features to make flat.social the most fun place to organise an event online. Read more features that we built.
Is there a need to install anything?
No need to install anything new. It all runs in the web browser both on desktop and mobile. Safari and Chrome are doing great, Firefox is catching up!
Do you support simultaneous screensharing?
Yep, a number of participants can screenshare at the same time. Those can be positioned next to each other or distributed in various locations around the virtual space.
How much does it cost?
Check out thepricing page to see free and pro plans available.
Can I use it as an alternative to ZOOM or Microsoft Teams?
Sure, if all you do is fun and creative meetings! (we sincerly hope so:)
Over the past 3 years we learned that while ZOOM and Microsoft teams are amazing tools to keep you productive, they're not optimized to to keep a group of people connected, engaged and happy.
Hence, flat.social was created. It does not aim to be a complete replacement - it's an addition for when the priorities switch from productivity to human interaction. It's here to bring smile and show that spontanous creative moments and connections can happen without having to travel to an office or an event venue.
How do participants move in a flat.social meeting?
Meeting attendees can use WASD keys like in multi-player games or drag themselves around with a mouse.
How do I speak to all of the guests at once?
The experience is spatial by default - only ones around will hear you. You can however use the loudspeaker feature to speak to everyone at once. It's useful if you want to make an announcement or managing a larger workshop where attendees are distributed around the room.
