I didn’t know what an Idea Sprint was, but I went last night anyway. I had a good time, but I’m still not sure I could tell you what an idea sprint is. I can tell you a little about what we did, though.

There were 11 of us (eventually), led by Matt Paulin. There were two activities, rather like party games, each about an hour long. In the first, we settled on a few topics of interest and then wrote some keywords relevant to those topics on index cards. Then everyone took a turn drawing cards and then spitballing ideas based on whatever random keywords turned up.

The second activity was a variation of the Telephone game. Everyone except Matt sat in a circle (he had to sit out because this game requires an even number of players). Everyone came up with an idea and then every other participant conveyed their idea orally to their right-hand neighbor, while the others told their ideas to their left-hand neighbor. Then everyone transmitted their incoming idea to their other neighbor. And repeat. Once we finally figured out what we were doing, five ideas were traveling clockwise around the circle and five were traveling counterclockwise. Of course, ideas were being modified and embellished at each retelling.

Unfortunately, I had to leave before hearing the final results, but it was a fun and interesting experience. I must add that going in, I somehow had the impression that all the ideas were going to be about starting up tech businesses, but I was pleasantly surprised that the ideas covered a wide range of topics.

Here’s the distilled result of the Seattle Thinktank Idea Night July 7, 2011.

More and better photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55232733@N06/5930942176/in/pool-jigsawrenaissance

Feel free to browse ideas at The Seattle Thinktank site.