Workday #4 - Lastenklinikoiden kummit

The fourth workday was held at the Mauno conference center in Biocity, Turku. First off Saara-Sofia Sirén held a presentation of the organization Lastenklinikoiden Kummit ry, which she works for. The organization is twenty years old and funds the children’s hospitals in Finland.

The task at hand was to come up with new ways in which Saara-Sofia could raise more money to the organization. The organization gives companies the right to use its Teemu-logo (which is very well known in Finland) to indicate their goodwill donations, to the price of 10 000 €.

We faced the challenge head on by just sharing our ideas. All the viable ideas were taken into consideration and basically we used an affinity diagram-tool, without any post-it notes. As we got stuck much on the details, we took a break in order to check our focus. The break was very refreshing and we were able to get some perspective on the ideas we had. After the break we started mind-mapping. The previous ideas formed the basis of the map and we went on to specify which parts were related and also continued with specifying the core traits of the ideas we had come up with.

By the end we suggested that Kummit try to make a similar phenomenon as there was around the fundraising to the children’s hospital in Helsinki. A part of this suggestion was that core representatives (voluntary) from different age and social groups would be active on social media and in their networks to spread the word about the cause. We also suggested that there be a different logo to brand this local fundraising campaign. Another idea was to arrange a pre-Christmas party for companies to network, have fun and most importantly raise money for the cause. We also wanted to highlight the importance of setting a goal for the fundraising as to show the donors that “this is what we need” and to help show how every contribution actually matters. Most of the ideas we presented were already taken care of or being thought of, so although they were good ideas they were not new ideas.

We thought we had good ideas, but the feedback gave us valuable insights – the first ideas you come up with, someone else probably already thought of. Also we did not consider it specifically that Saara-Sofia was already working half-time and that her biggest challenge was that there was no more time at her disposal. We realized we did not consider the actual problem in our solutions.

The lessons learned were very valuable and we look forward to applying everything we have learned so far at Kunstenniemi. 

The art of innovation

A funny man with great thoughts on innovation. Guy Kawasaki is a popular author, speaker and evangelist who has worked for companies such as Apple, Google, Nike and Microsoft. In this TedX keynote speech he presents his "top 10 of the art of innovation".

Enjoy!

Preparations for workday #4

Some serious thinking...

Hi!

Today we all met up to discuss about the upcoming task on Thursday. We don't have any given structure for the fourth workday so we had to plan how we are going to divide the tasks in order to be as efficient as possible. We came up with following schedule:

1. 8:30 - 9:30 In group: Figuring out what the challenge is, uncovering the real question

2. 9:30 - 10:00 Individual tasks:

Mikaela - collecting information about the company
Youma & Jonas - defining the need of the customer
Micaela & Ha - deciding which innovation tools should be used for the task

3. 10:00 - 11: 00 In group: Presenting the results of individual work and application of the selected innovation tools

4. 11:00 - 11:45 In group: Preparing the report

5. 11:45 Report ready

Let's see how it works! This is a really interesting way to measure how well we can work under pressure and how quickly we can adapt our plan in case it is not working.

Workday #3 - Reverse thinking

The morning started in Hanken in the same lecture room in Åbo Akademi that we had for workday 1. As first we were divided into new random groups and got as a task to think of how the future is going to look in year 2040. All of the six groups got a different theme to focus around. Our SuperVision group members were placed into two groups: one with the focus on future ways of moving and the other one on future ways of working.

The main ideas that came up with the topic “ways of moving from place to place” where that future transportation is going to be more automated, more sustainable, more secure and faster than today. And that there is probably going to be some kind of common fee for all the public transport taking place in one city.

Both of the groups had some difficulties, as most of the people were new to us. The other group had a slow start whereas the other started of very quickly, without a common ground to stand on. Most of us didn't feel that comfortable in the new working environment, which caused that the contribution wasn't at the same level as in a task with our own group.

After finishing the first task we went around in groups and discussed about the other topics with the aspect of what needs to be done in 2020 to reach what was presented for 2040. One person out of every group stayed at their place and explained the ideas they’ve had with their group. The so called ”collaboration” didn’t work well all the time as we sometimes couldn’t give any additional ideas for a new group or couldn’t develop the idea flows further due to ineffective time management or disagreement among us. It was also pretty overwhelming to hear all the previous ideas in the beginning because it felt like we didn’t have anything to add. Nevertheless, we still kept the atmosphere positive and fun.

Finally we got back with our own team, SuperVision. It was really nice and comfortable to be back with people you know and share common dynamics with. Our group was tasked to destroy the industry of spatial design, which is the focus for us in this course and suggest 40 things that would destroy it. As we already knew each other it was easy to decide which tool to use and how to proceed with the task. We used our own modified version of the affinity diagram with post-its. We came up with a lot of ideas and the best was that everyone contributed. The next task was to “build up the industry” in other words taking the destruction threats into consideration and counter them with actions that would boost the industry. We did.

We found the ideas provided by the destroy-rebuild-tool really useful. The ideas could be used both to protect the industry and also promote it. We think that this tool also is useful in order to take into consideration the risks of the surrounding. In overall, the workday reminded us that we don’t always need to follow the traditional flow of ideas when trying to find the solutions. Instead of thinking about the consequences of the issue from this moment to the future, from near future to the further time, we can also play a trick with our brain and release our imagination by making a reversed flow from the far future back to this day or the near future. And though most of us didn’t get into an innovation mood with the first task it was nice to meet and talk with new people.