Innovation Labs

...and now, the end is near

This is it, the last lab for 2007/8 - Wales & the West Midlands.

The teams here are really great, there's a real sense of 'team' that I've not had at any other Lab so far, and a really feeling that something great is going to happen... I'll keep you posted. For now, I'll just let you see where we are... courtesy of Mr Frank Boyds flickr stream.

Tue 29 Apr 2008 10:04am, permalink, leave a comment

Swinton Park, zero distractions

It hardly seems that we've been here for four days. By Thursday I'm normally ready to hear the pitches and make some calls, but the teams here at Swinton Park are still coming up with new ideas and concepts, and I'm sure that will continue right into the night and right up to the presentation tomorrow.

Noam from Mint Digital is keeping his blog up to date with what we're up to:

The mentors run a series of workshops. The workshops are designed to push the ideas to the limits. All the techniques are user-centered. This is a very important part of the development process at the BBC.

Whilst one of the commissioners from Audio & Music is singing the praises of the process:

Every time I start to contemplate leaving the BBC (its 5 and a half years and counting) I get the opportunity to participate in something which I I probably wouldn't get the chance to elsewhere.

(thanks Chris! ;-)

The North East and Yorkshire region is incredibly strong, Labs always has a mix of ideas, some good, some not so great - but there's not one here that's beneath the contempt of the commissioners.

I've really enjoyed this week and I'm sure that tomorrow we'll see some truly innovative ideas commissioned for further development.

Thu 17 Apr 2008 10:04am, permalink, leave a comment

Lake Windermere - Inspiration Distilled

The great thing about Labs is that we take people away from the office. You may think it's very easy to get people to think outside their normal head space - but actually working with people to help them get away from the office is quite difficult.

One of the tools we use to do this is getting people as physically far away from their office as is sensible. This has two advantages. Firstly it allows people to have an excuse as to why they can't run back to the office to solve the latest crisis, secondly it's massively cheaper for us. Booking in-city conference venues is horrendous - there's no 'out of season' in a city - but up here in the Lake District, it's amazing how many hotels and conference venues are willing to do us a fantastic deal when they're otherwise only inhabited by a couple of lost American Tourists.

The Low Wood hotel we're at this week is wonderful - perfectly balanced between a modern conference venue and a quaint hotel - it somehow manages to pull off 'small country hotel' whilst also being bigger than most of the larger venues in London.

We're well into the second day now, and the teams are all working on their user profiles. Much conversation about users in the bar last night - it's amazing how simply putting yourself in someone else's shoes for just one day can make you see where the problems are with your idea.

Tue 1 Apr 2008 10:04am, permalink, leave a comment

Bringing it all together

Scotland went really well. Five of the 11 companies involved got a commission, or at the very least a further meeting with the commissioner.

We were really impressed with the way the people involved took hold of the process and engaged in such a complete way - I often find with these things that the more someone suspends their cynicism the better results everyone sees.

Everyone pulled together and was happy to share their knowledge - I sometimes feel that's the greatest achievement of the labs process.

Paul Sergeant wrote:

The lab itself was excellent. One of my stated goals was to learn eight times more than I did at the BBC Innovation Labs open day.

Over on his blog at Calico Jack

Two Worlds were also blogging away over at Two Worlds

The denouement comes at the end of the week, as the teams all gather in supplication to the Conclave of Commissioners, who perform their ancient Reithian rites (the local goat population is already looking decidedly nervous), before sending up either the white smoke of success or the black smoke of burning pitch documents. We've just had our introductory, "I want to be a tree" loosen-up-and-feel-foolish session, so where else can the week go save onwards and upwards?

So thanks to everyone that took part - it was a cracking week - and I'm looking forward to reading more about how people thought the process went on the various blogs over the next few weeks.

Tue 1 Apr 2008 10:04am, permalink, leave a comment

Off to a great start

We're really off to a good start here at the Forest Hills hotel. Yesterday was as fascinating as ever, with the initial 'good cop, bad cop' assessments of the ideas by other teams.

It always amazes me how an idea changes just through the process of telling others about it - then to hear your idea read back to you in detail, alters in many respects what you thought you were pitching.

We're already seeing the blog entries coming in from the team, Fearghas from Forthview Research Networks wrote:

Our first pitch went ok - we need to focus on the compelling content, a quick session at the end produced a few ideas. We are now talking about being an Ambient Media device - feedback was generally good, but we need to find the absolutely compelling content.

He's also kindly starting publishing his images to a pool over at flickr, which is well worth a look.

Tue 11 Mar 2008 8:03am, permalink, leave a comment