Zoom +  =

100 Ideas on Zoom using MURAL

Author HeadshotMeg Bolger

Have everyone open up the MURAL board and tell the group you’ll be filling it with as many ideas as possible as fast as possible (or could set specific goal like 100!). Have everyone join the MURAL and find their own space. Provide the prompt for the group, and ask them to ideate around it. Then have everyone generate as many stickies as possible, one idea per sticky.

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. Explain how 100 Ideas works. Let the group know that you'll be generating ideas for a specific purpose, instead of trying to come up with quality ideas, explain the goal is quantity, any idea, no matter how feasible or reasonable a response, counted towards the number!
  2. Explain how MURAL works, how the group should add stickies, one idea per sticky note.
  3. Send the link in the chat and have everyone open up the MURAL. Instruct them to find their own place on the MURAL by zooming out and then zooming into a spot where no one else is.
  4. Remind them of the prompt and have them set off making ideas. If 1-2 minutes in they need extra prompting or nudging provide another way they might approach the prompt.
  5. After you decide the time is up or the group has enough ideas, wrap up the exercise.

Prep

Create blank MURAL board and have the link copied and ready to go.

Context

This is a great activity to help people get out of their heads of, "Brainstorming is coming up with the best ideas." The goal and the beauty here is to get out of our evaluative space and into a purely generative mindset. Quantity > quality every time. If the group is struggling to let go of quality, you might prompt them to write a specific number of bad ideas and then remind them that at any point they can simply add to their quantity of ideas with a bad, boring, or lackluster idea.

Substituting Apps

If you're using apps other than Zoom and MURAL, here are the specific things your software will need to be able to do:

The ability for participants to make sticky notes online and ideally be undistracted by other people's ideas in the process.

Additional Resources

For More Info:

Youtube Video Walkthrough

Author

Author HeadshotTacoma, WA

Activity by Meg Bolger

Co-developer of Facilitator Cards. Co-author of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation. Adamant believer that facilitation can change the world.

Facilitation Testers Needed

This activity by Meg Bolger would really benefit from other facilitators testing it, tweaking it, and reporting back. If you give it a try in your virtual facilitation, all we ask is that you tell us how it went.

The main things we're wondering are regarding the context you facilitated it in (with whom, and toward what goal), how well it worked (what worked and what didn't), and in what ways you altered the instructions to make it work for you.