Creating specialized card decks seems to be a trendy way to support design brainstorming. Earlier this year I discussed nForm's user experience trading cards, which like IDEO's Method Cards, provide inspiration or guidance for the user-centered design process.
This year, the Art Center College of Design won two IDEA awards for the Mobility Vision Integration Process. This is a set of cards specifically designed to "support rapid future scenario development on the topic of sustainable mobility so that groups and individuals can quickly enter a dialog and brainstorm about possible outcomes, solutions and strategies". I'm not entirely sure about the definition of "sustainable mobility", but it seems to be centered around developing mobile technology solutions (e.g. cell phones) in diverse contexts.
The site provides detailed instructions, but the basic concept seems to be to randomly select cards from a range of categories (e.g. customer, ecology, technology) that serve as requirements and constraints for driving brainstorming and concept generation exercises.
A printed deck of cards may be purchased, or even better (in terms of sustainability), a free online Flash version is available.
