On this week's show, I will be demonstrating a private ideation session that you can do on your own. A virtual brainstorm session helps in generating key ideas and solutions to the various problems you may be facing. There are numerous tools you can use for this, but today I will be using Jamboard from Google.

With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, there are a lot of unknowns. You currently have two choices. You can freak out and go into hibernation, or you can sit down and brainstorm ideas that will allow you to not only survive but thrive during the crisis. On this virtual brainstorm, we will look at two questions from the Killer Questions Card Deck as they relate to COVID-19. These questions have been edited to focus the ideation specifically around COVID-19 because better focus increases the quantity and quality of the ideas. Our first question asks what customer segments will no longer exist or will be significantly impacted as a result of COVID-19. Our second question asks what customer segments could emerge as a result of COVID-19.

Let's get into ideas for our first question. What segments will no longer exist or will be significantly impacted as a result of COVID-19? One idea I thought about would be sports and concert fans. These people love going to social activities and are going to be significantly impacted by COVID-19. The other segment that I thought of was travel influencers— people who travel to review different places will be affected as a whole. Similarly, businesses that are dependent on tourism, such as hotels, tour guides, and national parks are going to be challenged going forward with this crisis.

Let's move on to our second question. What segments could emerge as a result of COVID-19? The first one I came up with is the social distancing butler. This role is assigned to a family member or friend who helps with errands such as grocery shopping and picking up various needed items. This person helps reduce the risk for someone who might be more affected by the virus. Another idea is what I call the COVID gig. These are people who have become contractors to essential businesses such as restockers or delivery drivers. These might be those who have been furloughed from their jobs and are filling the gap somewhere else.

My next idea is what I call the virtual babysitter. Being a grandparent, I often babysit my grandkids for our kids that live in the area. With COVID-19, things are a little different as they cannot drop the kids off and go on a date anymore. Two to three times a week, my wife and I will virtually read bedtime stories to our grandkids via Facebook. Virtual babysitting gives the parents a bit of a break from the kids and provides us with some quality time with our loved ones. The final idea I thought of is what I call a virtual background creator. As a result of COVID-19, our sponsor Zoom has seen an astounding amount of new users. With this growth in video calls, virtual backgrounds are going to become very important going forward, and I think the demand for the software will see an increase.

Let me know what you think of the virtual brainstorming and feel free to propose a topic and killer question for a future “virtual brainstorm.” Check out the brainstorming session I did on Jamboard here. Watch the brainstorming session on YouTube here.

To know more about ideation and doing a virtual brainstorming session during a pandemic, listen to this week's show: Virtual Brainstorm – Changes To Your Customer Segments From COVID-19.