Yesterday we ran a different type of innovation event. Called “Fastrack the Future”, the objective was to fill a room with leading innovators who might never otherwise get the chance to collaborate. We featured a number of innovative products, business models and institutions with 5 year+ visions driving their innovations. We captured the discussions on Google Wave and posted a bit to twitter under #fastfuture.
In this post you’ll find links to the public waves generated, some of the materials used during the event and a feel for who was there. It was a fun, energy filled day where people networked in a very different way, learned a few new techniques for collaboration and innovation and learned about some companies with very exciting visions. There were event a few ideas developed that we think will have some real potential going forward.
Link to the Public Waves
Each table had its own wave.
Google Table: Wave’s Killer App
Better Place: How to drive adoption
Horizon Power: Multi-Utility Model
Horizon Power: Sustainable and Profitable Small Community Engagement Models
UTS UrbanAid: Merging physical and digital media in urban environments
UTS Business School: What will business education look like in 2050
The Bionic Ear Institute: Developing a generalized medical bionics platform
The Future Table: What new business models will be possible in a world where all these innovations exist?
Twitter Feed
Hashtag: #fastfuture
Archive from the day: http://sonnenreich.com/ramble/2010/03/twitter-archive-for-fastfuture/
Wordle topic visualization:
Wordle cloud from #fastfuture twitter feed
Visualisation used at conference: http://www.tweetviz.com
Top Games Developed during Rapid Prototype Training
1) Coming soon…
2) Check back later!
3)
Conference Run Sheet
09:00: Introduction, Welcome
Warm-up Networking
This is a quick way for people at each table to get to know one another. Each person will turn to another at the table and discuss the following questions. After each round people will rotate around the table so they can talk with someone different.
09:05: Speed Innovating round 1: If you can fly like superman… but for only one hour what would you do?
09:10: Speed Innovating round 2: How would your life change if you could use 100x the amount of energy you use today at the same cost and environmental impact?
09:15: Speed Innovating round 3: If you could replace any part of your body with a bionic replacement that’s twice as good (faster, stronger, more flexible)… would you replace currently healthy parts of your body?
09:20: Speed Innovating round 4: What’s the best experience collaborating you’ve ever had, what made it stand out?
09:25: buffer
Innovation Introductions
Each innovator will spend 10 minutes explaining the essence of their innovation and the challenges they’re looking to solve.
09:30: Google presents
09:40: HP presents
09:50: Better Place presents
10:00: UTS B School presents
10:10: Bionic Ear presents
10:20: UTS Urban Aid presents
10:30: Future Table presents
10:35: Morning tea break – grab fast and get in for our cafe
Idea Generation
The idea generation session is a facilitated brainstorming session where the first few minutes are spent coming up with ideas seperately, then the ideas are collected and more ideas are generated as a group for a few minutes. Then a few of the ideas are expanded upon by the group. After 3 rounds of this (people rotate tables each round) a single idea is chosen and refined by the original table group for the prototyping round.
10:45: Innocafe explanation – goal is to first get lots of ideas, then explore best ones. Wave lets us do this differently. 1st take 2 minutes to come up with a few ideas on your own. If you’ve got a laptop, put them directly into the wave. Otherwise write them down and pass them to the wavelet. Use the mindmap if you can. While discussing people with laptops can put ideas into the wave
10:50: Innocafe warmup – refine warmup exercises
11:00: Innocafe round 1
11:20: Innocafe round 2
11:40: Innocafe round 3
12:00: Idea refinement (back to original table)
12:20: buffer
12:30: Lunch
Rapid Prototyping Training
Participants will create a board game based on the theme of their table. They will develop this game using a rapid prototyping technique that results in diverse input at early stages of the design process.
If you’d like a copy of our PPT deck and some of the game kits, please email me.
Key things to focus on:
- What are the skills/abilities of your team? How can you use this to best collaborate?
- Test as you go – constantly experiment, refine
- During playtest – who will explain, who will observe?
- Keep it simple till it works, then expand
- What can you learn from your “customers” and “competitors”?
- How will you advertise your game to attract players during the testing phase?
Voting: each person gets one poker chip. After the 2nd playtest round people go around the room and place their chips on the game they liked the best. Top three get to present their idea.
1:15: Instructions for Rapid Prototyping workshop
1:30: Rapid Prototype Game design round 1
1:45: Rapid Prototype Game playtest 1
2:00: Rapid Prototype Game design round 2
2:15: Rapid Prototype Game playtest 2
2:30: Rapid Prototype Game voting/top 3 preso
2:50: Afternoon tea
Rapid Prototyping Workshop
The same process of rapid prototyping will now be applied to the idea that was refined at the end of the morning session. The goal will be to come up with a 2 minute pitch that convinces the rest of the room of the value and feasibility of the idea. This is about creating the simplest prototype to validate the idea – not actually “implementing” the entire idea.
Key things to focus on:
- What is the critical part of this solution that must be demonstrated for a customer to believe?
- How can you test that critical part using the simplest test possible?
- What are the logistics of building and running that test?
- What type of team do you need to execute the test?
Pitch:
- Explain the problem that is being solved.
- Explain why solving this problem is valuable and who it’s valuable to
- Assume you’ve “solved” the critical part identified and talk about “how you solved it”
- Explain how someone could verify that the solution will give them value based on your prototype
3:10: Instructions for Prototype workshop
3:15: Prototype workshop design round 1
3:30: Prototype workshop pitch round 1
3:45: Prototype workshop design round 2
4:00: Prototype workshop pitch round 2
4:15: Table rotate workshop final design round 3
Wrap-up
4:30: Pitchfest + voting – done with chips like the earlier round
5:00: Closing, networking
Partial list of Attendees
| Wes Sonnenreich | Director of Innovation | Deloitte |
| Janet Nagly | Internal Communications Manager | Deloitte |
| Louise Denver | Director Corpoate Communications | Deloitte |
| Gerhard Vorster | Managing Director, Asia Pacific Consulting | Deloitte |
| Pete Williams | CEO Deloitte Digital | Deloitte |
| Allan Ryan | Executive Director, Hargraves Institute | Hargraves Institute |
| Guy Pross | GM Australia | Better Place |
| Daniel Clemens | GM Google Wave | |
| Mike Laughton Smith | GM Islanded Power | Horizon Power |
| Paul Hardisty | Executive Director, EcoNomics and Sustainability | WorleyParsons |
| Graeme Eley | Manager Business Development, Islanded Power | Horizon Power |
| Rod Hayes | Managing Director and CEO | Horizon Power |
| Martin Kornberger | Creative Industries CRC Lead Researcher | UTS |
| Tom Barker | Urban Aid Lead Researcher | UTS |
| Matthew Haigh | Head of Innovation | Deloitte New Zealand |
| Vivek Srinivasan | Innovation Program Manager | CSC |
| Bill Hill | Director, Product Innovation group | Invetech |
| Paul Wallbank | Manager, Creative Industries | NSW Dept of State & Regional Development |
| Simon Beckett | GM, Retail partners | GE Capital |
| Dan Atkins | Managing Director | The Shaper Group |
| Fred Chan | Assistant Director | Dept of Transport |
| Greg Harbridge | Owner | Rhythm Effect |
| Brett Kensett-Smith | Assistant Director, Patent Development | Intellectual Ventures |
| Cam Towt | CRM Lead | GE Capital |
| Karren Bathurst | Innovation Manager | National Foods |
| Ben Harvey | Partner | Skimming Stone |
| Sidney Shek | Snr Consultant – Innovations | CSC |
| Paul Kallenbach | Partner | Minter Ellison |
| John Gerrie | Founder | Kn3w Ideas |
| Allan Robinson | Group Manager – Letters | Australia Post |
| Jenni Rigby | Project Manager | Dept of Sustainability & Environment |
| David Klein | Strategy Consultant, NAB Technology | National Australia Bank |
| Kate O’Keeffe | Innovation Manager | South East Water |
| Sophie Goodman | formerly consultant on leadership to Nous Group | Anthropologist |
| Nuria Ruiperez | Innovation Manager | Citipower |
| Kara Wise | Innovation Manager | Australia Post |
| Tony Clement | Corporate IT Architect | South East Water |
| Krista Walter | Assistant Director | Intellectual Ventures |
| Angeline Achariya | Future Business Innovation Manager | Fonterra Brands |
| Christian Maul | Spatial Datamart | Dept of Sustainability & Environment |
| Greg Hall | Innovation Manager | Carlton United Breweries |
| Mark Gill | Head of Product (Credit Cards) | GE Capital |
| Leonie Newnham | Manager – Innovation | Dept of Sustainability & Environment |
| Bronte Price | Principal Policy Officer, Industry Development & Trade | SA Gvt – Dept of Trade |
| Andrew Maher | Innovation | Arup |
| Howard Frederick | Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship | Deakin |
| Stephen Woodhill | Director of Communications | IFSA |
| Andrew Wisdom | Regional Planning Leader | Arup |
| Julian Smith | Sustainable Settlements | Dept of Sustainability & Environment |
| Massimo Garbuio | Lecture in Strategy and Innovation | USYD |
| Beau Leese | Senior Manager Industry Engagement | CSIRO |
