Before the pandemic, a big part of my job was to facilitate group workshops and ideation sessions in person.
I love the energy and the fun you can have when people are relaxed and are enjoying being creative. I was happiest running group collaboration or co-design sessions with the community, who in my case are citizens trying to navigate the Australian government online resources.
However, unsurprisingly, this does not translate very well in the new, remote and online world. You can’t get people together in a room, and it's very difficult to create the energy required for problem-solving. However, crises can also lead to new inventions.
Many companies such as Miro and Mural have created tools that try to replicate the real world in the digital space. What they don’t do, unfortunately, is re-examine how we can perform these tasks online, which previously took place face-to-face. As a result, ideation, brainstorming and idea generation exercises have simply migrated online to electronic whiteboards and video conference meetings that are often long, boring and stilted.