It happens here: Consumer-centric Innovation in Charlotte and beyond » mindmap

2-minute mindmap – My love/hate relationship with Starbucks

Nheeda Enriquez — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:03:16 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted a mindmap, and although this doesn’t really count as one, I did take a little coffee break today and documented it. Starbucks is one of those places we all love to hate, yet hate to admit we love.

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2-minute mindmap – Charlotte Mission Possible edition

Nheeda Enriquez — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:21:19 +0000

I just realized I missed the deadline for entries after I got around to creating a mindmap for the Mission Possible project, so I guess I’ll post it here. Maybe there’s a nugget of an idea in there somewhere for the folks who didn’t procrastinate like I unfortunately did.

In my original conversation with Steve Gunn, we talked about how framing a problem in a specific way makes it easier to solve. In this case, a smaller, yet very real problem in the area of charitable needs is not actually getting more volunteers, but rather, how might we get them to commit their time consistently?

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2-minute mindmap: Consumption Smoothing

Nheeda Enriquez — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:11:17 +0000

I’m just now catching up on some back podcasts on Business Week, and I caught a curious phrase from an cover story from a few weeks ago that I hadn’t heard in a while: Consumption Smoothing. It’s a strategy rooted in retirement planning, where you try to balance saving and spending behaviors over a lifetime so that when retirement comes, you can enjoy a lifestyle that’s on par with what you’ve averaged over the majority of your working years.

In the spirit of the 2 minute mindmap, I played with the notion of how this concept could apply in lots of different places that we consume.

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2-minute mindmap: Charlotte Restaurant Week

Nheeda Enriquez — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:15:47 +0000

In honor of Charlotte’s Queen’s Feast restaurant week, I decided to create a 2-minute mindmap to have fun with the concept.

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This topic probably could have gone on for much longer than 2 minutes and covered many walls. I started to see 3 patterns of ideas emerge:

Feature improvements Ways to enhance the consumer experience of Restaurant Week via scheduling and restaurant selection tools, engaging marketing campaigns, etc.
Extended partnerships Mutually beneficial business partnerships with local institutions to bring additional revenue and visibility to other areas of the city.
Other “weeks” Applying the restaurant week concept to other industries, collectives, or social movements to celebrate and bring greater focus to them.

On a more tactical level, one of my favorite writers/economists Tyler Cowen offered a few strategies for Restuarant week in an old article in the Washington Post.