Top 6 Collaboration Tools for Virtual Brainstorming

What is virtual brainstorming？

Virtual brainstorming is a method of brainstorming using a virtual platform, where team members exchange and discuss ideas and thoughts virtually through online meetings, instant messaging, email or other collaboration tools. It can help teams engage in extensive idea generation in an open and non-judgmental environment. Through virtual brainstorming, teams can utilize different ways of thinking and perspectives to stimulate creativity, solve problems, and drive innovation.

Three usage scenarios of virtual brainstorming

1. Cross-geographic and time-zone teams

Traditional face-to-face brainstorming can be difficult to achieve when team members are spread across different geographic locations or time zones. Virtual brainstorming, on the other hand, allows team members to communicate and discuss ideas in different locations and at the most appropriate time through online collaboration tools, regardless of geographic and time zone differences.

2. Large Teams

When teams are large, traditional brainstorming can lead to confusion and inefficiency. Instead, virtual brainstorming can be conducted through an online platform that allows team members to exchange ideas and discuss on their own computers, avoiding the problem of meeting rooms that can't accommodate them.

3. Team members with longer individual thinking time

Some team members need more time to think and organize their ideas, and traditional brainstorming may limit their expression. Virtual brainstorming allows team members to think and express their ideas in their own time and in their own environment, more fully utilizing their individual creative abilities.

Virtual brainstorming is applicable to the three major occasions mentioned above, and it can improve the creativity and innovation of the team. Team members can think and express their ideas at their own best time and in their own environment without the time constraints and shyness of traditional brainstorming, which can stimulate more creativity and ideas and promote team innovation. Not only that, but it can also be more efficient and cost-effective for the team. Traditional brainstorming often requires a lot of time and resources, such as meeting rooms and travel expenses. Virtual brainstorming, on the other hand, can be conducted through an online platform, saving time and costs, and allowing team members to participate in discussions and decision-making in a more flexible manner.

No effective brainstorming without good tools

However, the lack of appropriate brainstorming tools can become a troubling issue when having a virtual brainstorming. First, the lack of appropriate tools may lead to difficulties in communication and collaboration. In traditional brainstorming, team members usually use whiteboards, sticky notes, or pen and paper to record and share ideas. However, in a virtual environment, these traditional tools are not directly usable and rely on online collaboration platforms or software.

Some brainstorming tools have rich features, such as drawing, annotation, and multimedia support, to support team members to better present and share their ideas; some tools even have automation and intelligence features to help team members generate and organize ideas more quickly and improve the efficiency of brainstorming. However, without such tools, team members may be restricted from fully utilizing their creativity and expression skills, leading to a decrease in the quality of brainstorming.

6 Best Collaboration Tools For Virtual Brainstorming

In light of this dilemma, here are six of the more popular virtual brainstorming tools recommended, along with the strengths and weaknesses found in real-life use situations.

1. Miro ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Miro is the most powerful and mature collaboration tool in online collaborative whiteboarding in terms of features and ecology, supporting multi-person real-time collaboration for teams to think, plan and visualize projects.

Pros:

Team Collaboration: Miro allows multiple people to work on the same canvas at the same time, viewing each other's edits and annotations in real time, sharing ideas and perspectives quickly and efficiently, and promoting better collaboration and innovation.
Rich template library: Miro provides a large number of pre-built templates, including mind maps, user journey maps, SWOT analysis, scrum panels, and more. These templates help teams quickly build various types of content and increase productivity.
Focus on visualization: Miro focuses on visualization, providing a rich selection of graphic symbols, colors and styles that make the content more lively and interesting. Team members can present and communicate ideas through rich visual elements.
Third-party integrations: Miro can integrate with other tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Jira. This allows teams to collaborate on one platform and work seamlessly with other project management tools.

Cons：

Dependence on network connection: Since Miro is a cloud-based tool, a stable network connection is required for use. If the network connection is unstable or interrupted, it may affect the user's collaboration and usage experience.
Higher price and application limitations: Miro is free to use, but you can create up to 3 whiteboards, after which some of the whiteboards become view-only and cannot be edited, and the built-in audio/video calls, polls, and timers are not available to free users. These advanced features and team collaboration tools require payment. Especially for individual users or small teams, this may be a financial strain.
Limited number of users: The free version of Miro has a limit on the number of users, while the paid version has more features and a larger user capacity.

2. Mural ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mural is a graph-based online whiteboard application that is infinitely scalable for GC design, collaboration, Brainstorming and otherwise organizing information, groups or workshops.

Pros

User Friendly: Mural has an excellent UI design with a clean and intuitive interface that is easy to use and get started with. It also provides a series of tutorials and guides to help users quickly understand and apply the tool.
Multimedia support: Mural supports a wide variety of multimedia elements, such as images, videos, links, etc. Team members can add a variety of materials and references directly into Mural for better brainstorming and idea sharing.
Powerful toolbox: Mural provides a variety of tools, such as sticky notes, charts, canvases, etc., to help team members better organize and present their ideas, and real-time records of each step of the operation, where the deletion of the operation to support the restore.Mural especially supports adding round sticky notes.
Separate whiteboard space: Mural has a built-in private mode that, when turned on, displays only the elements or content you have created.

Cons

High price: Mural is a commercial tool with a relatively high paid subscription fee, which may not be very affordable for some small teams or individual users.
Unsuitable for text-only presentations: Mural emphasizes the presentation of images, so it may seem a bit unprofessional when it needs to present a lot of text-only presentations, such as explaining product documentation.
Limited integration with other tools: Although Mural can be integrated with other tools, such as Slack and Google Drive, the integration with other tools is relatively limited and may not be able to meet the needs of some users.
Limited audio function: Mural does not support audio and video calls, which require a third-party application.
Poor security: Files created by users outside of the private mural file are visible to everyone in the workspace, and there is no way to ensure that files are private or secure.

3. Stormboard ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Stormboard is a feature-rich online whiteboard software designed for team collaboration and creative thinking. It offers a wide range of tools and features to help users with brainstorming, project management and team collaboration.

Pros:

In addition to the same whiteboard functionality as Miro and Mural, Stormboard has a greater focus on data security and privacy protection, and also supports integrated collaboration across more platforms.

Third-party integration: Stormboard supports integration with other tools such as Slack, Jira and Microsoft Teams. This allows users to collaborate on a single platform, seamlessly connecting and sharing content from other tools to improve productivity and synergy.
Data Security and Privacy Protection: Stormboard emphasizes the security and privacy protection of user data and has adopted strict security measures and encryption technologies to ensure that user data is protected.

Cons：

Limited free functions: For free users, Stormboard does not support editing the officially provided templates which are more like a framework, you can only add elements to the template, you can't change the content or size of the template.

Support for creating 5 free public Storm whiteboards
Each Storm whiteboard can support up to 5 people to collaborate online.
Only the basic export options can be used
Only 260+ of the pre-built templates can be used.

4. Conceptboard ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Conceptboard, an online digital collaboration whiteboard that complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and user-created data is hosted under German jurisdiction, Conceptboard has full confidence in the security of its data.

Pros:

Extremely Secure: One of the very few online digital collaborative whiteboards that complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), user-created data is hosted under German jurisdiction, so user privacy is well protected.
Easy to use: Conceptboard allows you to zoom in and out of the canvas by simply scrolling the mouse wheel, unlike other software that requires you to hold down the Ctrl or Command key when zooming.
Web Drive Import Support: The bottom left corner also provides an option to import files from web drives, which are currently integrated with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and OneDrive.

Cons：

Free version limited: free users can't view the whiteboard editing history, and can't use the project function to manage the whiteboard, as well as use the conference (audio/video call) and timer functions.
Limited additions: By default, free users can only add 100 objects to a whiteboard, after which they will need to place the content on another whiteboard or upgrade to a paid account.
Different operation: Conceptboard and other whiteboards have different gestures, which makes switching between whiteboards not smooth and requires repeated memorization.

5. Zoom⭐⭐⭐

While Zoom is primarily a video conferencing tool, it can also be used for virtual brainstorming. Team members can discuss and collaborate in real time via video conferencing, and can also use Zoom's shared screen feature to present ideas and mind maps.

Pros:

Global Collaboration: Zoom allows team members around the world to participate in virtual brainstorming, no matter where they are or when they are.
Real-time Collaboration: Zoom's live video and screen-sharing features allow team members to collaborate and edit ideas instantly.
Easy to use: Zoom is a popular and easy-to-use video conferencing tool that is quick and easy for most people to get started with.

Cons：

Limited drawing tools: The whiteboard tools that come with Zoom are relatively simple and may not be sufficient for complex brainstorming needs.
Screen-sharing limitations: Virtual brainstorming in Zoom may be limited by screen-sharing limitations such as screen lag or degraded image quality.
Dependence on internet connection: Virtual brainstorming in Zoom requires a stable internet connection, which may affect the meeting if the network is unstable.

6. FigJam ⭐⭐⭐⭐

FigJam, an online whiteboard tool integrated into the design software Figma, is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Pros:

Same basic functionality as other whiteboards, but FigJam's UI is more beautifully designed with better visualization.

Getting Started Quickly: The toolbar at the bottom of FigJam offers tools such as brushes, shapes, sticky notes, text, connecting lines and stickers, so even first-timers can get started quickly.
High interactivity：The options on the far right of the toolbar integrate components, stickers, templates, and plug-ins. The components are more playable; add them to the whiteboard and click on them to interact with them, kind of like playing a game.

Cons：

Using restrictions：Since FigJam is a whiteboard tool integrated in Figma, its subscription plan is tied to Figma and is divided into 3 versions.
Limited free functions：The free version allows you to create 3 whiteboard files, unlimited number of collaborators, and ready-made templates, but if you want to use features such as open meetings, audio communication, voting, etc., you will need to upgrade to the Pro or Organizational version.

Conclusion

Overall, if you look at all the whiteboard software presented in this article only from a free or paid point of view, all of these free versions have limitations, but it doesn't negate the value of these whiteboard software.

If you use whiteboard software for recording, collecting inspiration and other personal use, use any of the above whiteboard software can be, in the choice of the main focus on the product's storage space, the number of whiteboards can be created, the number of whiteboard elements/objects; and if you want to use the whiteboard for multi-people collaborative scenarios, it is necessary to pay attention to multi-people collaborative high-frequency use of some of the features, such as audio/video Calls, timers, polls, etc. All choices are determined by your needs.

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