If you had just one question…
August 14th, 2009 by Johanna Mischke
At our weekly brainstorming session yesterday we collected ideas about not so obvious questions to ask applicants to the Sandbox network. Here’s a sample of our sudden inspirations:
- What was your best holiday ever?
- What is the best dish you have ever eaten?
- What’s your favorite Cocktail?
- If you were a member of a circus troop – who would you be?
- What Simpsons character fits your personality best?
- What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?
- Who do you want to take out for dinner?
- What was your crappiest date ever?
- In what Hollywood movie would you like to play a role in and why?
- Tea or Coffee?
- If you had a punk band what would be its name?
- Run for 5 minutes – take your heart beat – type it in this box:
- Give us twenty ways to use an ashtray:
- Would you rather have 2 million $ or 2 million minutes of free time?
- If you could kill a word – what word would it be?
- If all Sandboxers would get a tattoo – what would it say?
- What was your worst holiday experience?
- What’s the internet?
- If there was ever built a statue of you where would it stand and what would it be?
- If you were a dictator what would be the 1st amendment of your constitution?
- What country would you invade?
- If you could change a famous brand name – which one would it be and what would be the new name?
- What would you ask Bill Gates if you met him on the toilet of a restaurant?
- What would be the title of your biography?
Which one do you like best? Do you have better ideas? Brainstorm with us and comment on this blog post or send me an email (
)! You can also reply to the questions if you like 
Johanna is currently interning with Sandbox, she assists the team in various areas and is focusing on community management. She always wanted to tell you: YOU LOOK REALLY GOOD TODAY! You can find her on facebook here.
Hi Johanna,
I agree with Andi the questions should be forward looking and even better when they have a hint of humour about them too.
More ideas
. If you were an underground station where would you be situated?
. Where would you build the next Hong Kong?
Mathieu
Since Sanbdox should look for the forward-thinking people, I personally don't like the backwards looking questions. Even if they are funny :)
An unusual question, that we had to answer at the very beginning or our Master's course was
"When you leave this world, what do you want to be remembered for?".
It forces you to put yourself into the current as well as projected context and really is another way of expressing your vision for life. We had to answer the question from 4-7 different perspectives, such as: as a person, as a colleague, as a boss, as a parent, as a son/daughter, etc.
I find that quite useful and interesting. Especially because it gives you room to answer in an ordinary way, thinking about the straight life on earth or in an "out-of-the-box" way, thinking about you as the person who enabled life outside of this planet.
From your suggestions, the following question is the closest one and I therefore really like it: "If there was ever built a statue of you where would it stand and what would it be?"
Besides that, I also generally remember an excercise from my undergrads, where we had to draft a constitution for the city of the future. Asking a Sandboxer for his vision of the city of the future and a quick draft of 10 rules with no more than 10 words each, could yield some interesting insights and wouldn't all that usual, right?
Looking forward to other suggestions.
I like the 2 million dollars vs two million minutes one - although perhaps in a different format, so it's not a 50-50 choice, but a more open-ended question.
I also think the statue question is a good one
The "If you could kill a word - what word would it be?" question is a great one too, I think - but that's the author in me coming out again.
(Again from a literary point of view, perhaps) I like the "What would the title of your biography be?"
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like