Amazing brainstorming day at FanBox

The folks at FanBox flew me down to San Diego for an intensive brainstorming session for the upcoming video Grumo is producing for them.

Who cares about the Bad Weather and Bumpy Flight

When I arrived in San Diego they were in the middle of a pretty big storm so the plane ride was quite bumpy.
The bad weather was quite ironic as before going I was promised blue skies and mild temperatures.

It turned out that on that Sunday San Diego had terrible weather and in contrast Vancouver, known for its bad weather, had one of the most splendid days of the year.

Luckily, I don’t mind bad weather or bumpy plane rides. Plus the thrill of being flown to meet an awesome startup made everything else unimportant.

San Diego and the US Navy

San Diego harbors a huge US Navy military base. I did not get to see much of it except the USS Midway museum on the way to my hotel in the Gaslamp District.
However, I did see lots of Marines at Henry’s Pub that night.

I highly recommend Henry’s Pub if you enjoy fish tacos and karaoke, I had plenty of both that night and both were really good.

Meeting with FanBox inside a Star Trek-like Control Room

I arrived at FanBox headquarters, located inside the heart of the Gaslamp district, at 9 am and left to go back to Vancouver at 4pm.

Seven hours of intensive brainstorming inside a boardroom that looked like a mix between a Minority report and a Star Trek movie set.
The boardroom was basically a portable table surrounded by four 12′ tall walls with over 200 19″ flat monitors displaying real time metrics of their site.

Basically, both Mike (FanBox CEO) and Brandie (President) picked my brain the entire day to come up with a cool script for a demo video explaining what FanBox is all about.

I have never developed a script in this brainstorming fashion but I can see why it can be very effective.
First I was explained what their site does and what are they trying to accomplish.
Then it was my time to digest all that information and help them come up with a script for a 1min demo video.

I am usually a night owl and my creative juices flow better when it is quiet at night. Being put on the spot to come up with great ideas early in the morning was quite a challenge for me.
However, I love challenges and Mike the CEO offered me some Red Bull to help me wake up and get my brain going.
I never drink caffeine but I said, “what the heck! let’s see what happens!”.

At the beginning ideas where not crystalizing into useful lines for a script, so they decided to leave me alone inside their Star Trek control room while they went to get some caffeine of their own at Starbucks.

Now with Red Bull flowing through my veins and the murmur of 300 monitors as my companion ideas started flowing. When they came back I shared a completely new approach to how to present FanBox to the world and they loved it!

From there we spent the next 6 hours going back and forth developing a 1 min script.
I really enjoyed the whole creative process, especially seeing the script taking form while being projected over a 10′ wide screen.

Mike and Brandie were extremely good hosts and very fun to work with. I think we came up with a great script and cannot wait to get an awesome demo video produced for them as well (UPDATE: Click HERE to watch the Finished video).

Thanks a lot for the cookies and bananas! And no, I have not become a Red Bull addict, thank God!