When Triggers launched a fast-growing line of ideation card decks to support brainstorming, innovation and design thinking, I was thrilled to see their level of commitment to this type of thinking tools.
Creative thinking prompts are a fantastic way to stimulate your brain to consider new possibilities, and card decks are one of the most popular ways to present them to you randomly. They amplify your ability to think divergently and approach creative thinking challenges and opportunities from a variety of perspectives.
Simply put, they leverage the vast associative power of your brain.
But I was completely blown away when the developer of these popular ideation tools made the bold decision to launch online versions of them, on a website called Triggers Go. These digital versions open them up to a much larger audience of people who need creative inspiration. This digital platform also enables you to access them on an on-demand basis – any time, anywhere!
What does Triggers Go offer?
Triggers Go gives you instant access to 26 card decks, covering everything from Designing the Future of Your Brand and Business Model Improvement to Exploring Narrative Structures and New Business Opportunities.
They’re displayed with the colorful, playful graphics that have become Triggers’ signature “look.” Simple, clear instructions remind users to capture all of their ideas now, no matter how outrageous, and filter them later.
Each virtual card consists of a thought-provoking question, which is followed by a one-sentence “think about” statement. I think this approach is very helpful to new users of brainstorming prompts.
For some people, the question itself will spur dozens of ideas. For others. not so much. For this latter group, the “think about” statement represents a second idea trigger, another guided thinking prompt that can help them to jump-start their thinking.
The thinking behind Triggers Go
For now, these online brainstorming prompts only consist of 9-12 creative prompts. Why only a subset of the cards that come with a physical deck? I asked the developer, Alejandro Masferrer, and here’s how he explained the company’s thinking behind its new ideation platform:
“The main idea is to offer bite-sized packs that are more focused and niche than our physical decks,” he explains. “We believe no one will have time to go through 60 questions (the number of questions the physical decks have) in a digital brainstorming session.
“When you are doing a remote workshop you want to get quicker to results to avoid fatigue and distractions. So we decided to break our decks into tiny packages with straight-forward themes,” he adds.
Over time, Triggers Go will gradually incorporate more cards and more packs. Eventually, they may even contain more prompts than their physical counterparts.
What’s next for Triggers Go?
According to Alejandro, the future of Triggers Go is quite bright:
“We have loads of plans for it. The way we go forward will depend on the feedback that we get from our early users,” he points out.
He and his team are thinking about building integrations with popular visual collaboration tools Mural and Miro, creating seasonal packs that will be only available temporary (for example, Halloween) and asking expert thinkers to curate their favorite creative questions.
“We also want to coordinate the physical and digital experience so they don’t compete but coexist. We’ll soon offer a voucher for one month free access to Triggers Go every time you purchase a physical deck,” he reveals. “We can create experimental packs, expand to new languages and even create special editions. The opportunities are huge.”
What excites me the most about Triggers Go is the opportunity to carry ideation prompts with me wherever I go.
“Users of Triggers Go can carry hundreds of ‘cards’ in their pocket, no matter where they go,” Alejandro concludes.
A subscription to Triggers Go is reasonable: only 12,99 € (approximately US$15.00) per month, plus a one-week free trial. If you plan to use it for individual brainstorming, I think it’s an excellent investment. It gives you any time, anywhere access to creative stimuli (and we all know that our best ideas usually come to use AWAY from the office!) that can help you generate ideas that are worth far more than its reasonable cost.
If you plan to use Triggers Go for team brainstorming, it’s a no-brainer. You can easily use its virtual decks to add spark and energy to your group brainstorming sessions by projecting their cards on a screen at the front of the room.
I’m excited with what I’ve seen so far, and the developer’s future plans to expand Triggers Go!