As some of our members may be aware, two of our site members recently visited Munich (Rakey and Soggycornflakes), well it wasn’t just for the great German hospitality and the Oktoberfest.

The main reason for the visit was in invite from BMW/MINI to attend the first Lead User Workshop. They were selected, along with 12 other individuals from all over Europe, out of a group of 350 potential final candidates.

The attendees were from all different backgrounds with a wide range of experience in many fields, they were gathered to take part in the Lead User Workshop based on a number of search critiques having been met.

BMW/MINI had identified trends and search fields before looking for potential participants. The search field included online communities and internet-based communication & interaction obviously a connection with BMW and MINI in particular.

So BMW/MINI browsed the internet for corresponding communities and users…

Other selected search fields were design, web design & programming, marketing, ecommerce, media, mobile devices, input and output devices, online-configurators like MINI’s, virtual reality, services and gaming.

They then selected the participants with respect to their competencies, interests and connections to the search fields.

MINI/BMW/BMW-Motorcycles plan the improvement of their web presence in general with specific regards to the car configurator and internet, so wanted to gain the feedback and knowledge of those in attendance of the weekend.

Obviously the exact content of the workshop and the work that took place over the weekend cannot be fully disclosed, due to confidential information about possible future products. But it’s extremely exciting that a company such as BMW/MINI really do want to get the ideas and feedback from its customers, and individuals within these user groups.

As well as the work done for the workshop, there was of course some time given to in depth conversations with many senior people from BMW/MINI about many aspects of the business and its future, but they also had many questions for us too. It was interesting to find that so many had already heard of MINI2.com and visit us.

We must at this point give our thanks to the other attendees that we got to meet and work with over the course of the weekend, and the team from Hyve, and not forgetting BMW/MINI for their great hospitality – you may find some of them visiting MINI2.com in the future!