How to Brainstorm Remotely with RemoteHQ

Great ideas emerge from team brainstorming & ideation sessions. There is no better feeling than stepping back and viewing the notes taken, scribbles jotted down, and ideas mapped out. But how do you do that remotely 🤔

Problems with Virtual Brainstorming

Online brainstorming is the process of hosting a brainstorming session online, typically using technologies like an online whiteboard, video conferencing, and file-sharing apps. Although leveraging all of these technologies can cause users to be left scrambled, lost, and confused.

Before the meeting

While there are a ton of tools out there, it’s easy for your team can feel scattered fast. While getting set up, you may catch yourself thinking, “Wait, was that on our Miro board, in Figma, or Google document?” It makes you think to have all three tools open just in case. Already, you’re juggling three web application windows open.

Not to mention that this setup process takes time. As a meeting approaches, it’s always a similar thought process of deciding whether to join the meeting early to set everything up or just try to wing it within the first few minutes. Both options have their pros and cons.

During the meeting

Assuming you were able to narrow down which tool you were using, it’s still cumbersome to switch between your web application tools and video conferencing app. All of a sudden you may find yourself looking at your email because during the transition between tools something else caught your eye as it’s easy to lose focus.

To avoid everyone having the same application open, teams may opt for one member to share their screen. There are a few problems with this:

1. You’re only able to see your team members’ screen but you’re not allowed to touch. That is a tease - especially in a brainstorming session that is meant to be interactive! If you want to do anything, you have to verbally direct where the cursor should be moved. “A little more to the right. No, not that post-it note, the yellow one. Okay, now can you hover arrow there?”
2. You may not even be able to clearly see the screen being shared. You’re always having to cross your fingers that the other person has strong bandwidth and good connection so their screen isn’t pixelated. If it is, well then you’re out of luck my friend.
3. It's always awkward to interject and ask to switch the screen being shared. Be prepared to hear many, “Hey, uh sorry for interrupting, can you stop screen sharing? I want to show something.” It’s almost like a game of hot potato where control of the screen is jumping back & forth between the team! The impact is disrupted conversations and time wasted in transitions.

After the meeting

It’s a struggle to ensure that every comment, question, or suggestion was captured. The pain of this only increases for recurring brainstorming sessions as there is no statefulness. With no automated record of previous interactions, more time is wasted remembering what was said when.

The next meeting

It’s simply a rinse and repeat of the tedious tasks and annoyances listed above. How can you get out of this seemingly endless cycle?!

Our Solution

Enter RemoteHQ. On top of our meeting rooms acting as virtual war rooms, we make it easier for teams to brainstorm in one place by integrating with all their favorite tools. No longer is it needed to jump between tabs or applications and risk losing focus. Brainstorm and ideate directly in RemoteHQ!

Before the meeting

Create a #brainstorming room and avoid the set-up time all together with our app persistence! Automatically carry over apps across recurring sessions. So the next time you join the meeting room, the persisted apps like Miro or Notes will open immediately. This way, it’s super easy to pick up right where you left off and no one has to spend time setting up the meeting 🙌

During the meeting

Screenshare? We’ve moved on from that. Have you heard of Shared Browser? It’s a web browser that lives in the cloud and gives individuals the opportunity to co-browse and co-edit together. Stop interrupting one another to ask for control, begin taking action yourself, and avoid any pixelation.

In addition to serving as the place your team talks, RemoteHQ can also be the place your team works too. With apps integrations such as Google Docs, Figma, and Miro, there’s no need to toggle between web browsers and applications. Bring everything into RemoteHQ and keep your focus by working & communicating in one place.

Team members can also drag and drop any file into the RemoteHQ session to share in real-time. Whether a team member wants to bring it into the work area or is encouraging attendees to download it right away, our file-sharing enables both!

After the meeting

On the room dashboard, workspace members can easily view who attended each meeting as their avatar will appear next to the session log. It’s another verification of who was present during the meeting in addition to the calendar rsvp.

For further detail, within our session history, RemoteHQ automatically captures meeting artifacts. These include the timeline of meeting attendees, any notes that were taken, chat messages sent, files uploaded, audio recordings, transcription, and more. By leveraging this feature instead of having someone manually gather and share takeaways, time will be saved and takeaways will be documented in an easily searchable archive.

The next meeting

Easily join again through the workspace or single meeting URL. It’s easy to remember where to go for what as room names follow the format: rooms.remotehq.com/workspace_name/room_name Also, if you persisted any applications in a previous session, they will immediately pop up so you can get right to work.

Forget the operational pre and post-meeting work 😅 Discuss and work in RemoteHQ - a platform that’ll bring focus to your team brainstorming sessions!