As most agencies do, MindBlossom is composed of a variety of departments who collectively ensure the jobs get done. However, at MindBlossom creative ideas are not limited to the creative department; everyone is encouraged to contribute their creative ideas. A recent in-office competition is an excellent example.

The goal was to develop an iPhone application for an existing client that would utilize unexploited opportunities. Employees were allowed to form their own groups of threes that could consist of any department. Teams brainstormed ideas and assembled a preliminary pitch deck that included initial design compositions. Later each group presented their concept and final designs to the MindBlossom Senior Leadership Team. The competition inspired some truly original great ideas.

The winner’s concept will be polished and pitched to the client. They also won a new iPod Touch, not too shabby for a friendly in-office competition. The winning team consisted of Cassie McDaniel, design, Mark Kosokovits, development and Oila Krivtchoun, information architecture. Their outstanding idea may have never been realized if MindBlossom only encouraged creatives to think creatively.

Without naming clients I’ll just briefly describe two of the ideas MindBlossom teams came up with.

Pizzeria- This team created an iPhone application that offered ordering capabilities, locate the nearest restaurant and games. The game allowed users to create their own pizza by adding topping and putting it into the oven.

Airline- This team created an application that offered tools and information to use to both plan and experience a vacation. The application would continuously provide travelers with upcoming and ongoing vacation deals. Once booked, the application would help with the planning of itinerary and other details.

When clients work with MindBlossom they get the creativity of the entire company not just one department. This approach allows MindBlossom to successfully create original and ingenious concepts that achieve results.

The New York Times launched a very interesting product today called ‘Times Widgets’. It’s still in Beta, but I believe the concept is somewhat of a game changer - especially considering the industry on whole is in flux and the future is somewhat uncertain.

In my opinion, this adds rocket fuel to the NYT’s content distribution strategy. This comes off the heels of an excellent and well coordinated acquisition campaign from the publication blending celebrities with other NYC personalities and Times writers alike. Here are a couple of the videos (the entire campaign can be seen at: nytimes.com/conversations

At Mindblossom, we get asked almost daily about widgets, widget strategies, successful widgets, monetization, engagement, an so on. We have been fortunate to have built a one or two somewhat successful ones in the past, but I would argue that the maturity of these digital assets had not peaked until this year. I am quite bullish on the future of widgets and believe this will be something we push much more heavily into especially with iPhone and other devices coming to market. For the most part, these devices have the widget concept at their core.

If any one can share more real world examples in the same vein (and calibre) shown within the NYT strategy outlined above, I would really appreciate it.

Cheers!

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