How to harness Co-creation
We’ve just had an article published in Entrepreneur magazine on the basic principals of co-creation.
“…co-creation can transform your business for the better–and there’s no better way to ensure a constant flow of new ideas than tapping into customers’ creativity. Moreover, it’s incredibly cost effective to get validation without having to pay for market research say Jeremy Brown and Brian Millar, respectively, CEO and director of strategy for Sense Worldwide. Go have a look.
Creative Mornings Launches at Sense Worldwide
On Friday July 8th Sense Worldwide played host to the long-anticipated opening of CreativeMornings London.
A free-to-attend morning lecture series founded by Tina Roth-Eisenberg a.k.a. SwissMiss in New York, CreativeMornings had spread to Chicago, L.A., San Francisco and Zurich. Naturally, Sense staffer Drew began to ask the same question as many other London creatives: where the hell is the London chapter?
Raj then cajoled Drew into crafting a cheesy video, landing Drew the job hosting of the London chapter in the process. The rest, as they say, is history.
The inaugural event opened with a tightly-controlled bang as 70 people piled into the loft to munch on Gelupo gelato burgers and down coffee from the Algerian coffee stores. More importantly, they got to hear graphic design legend Michael Johnson of Johnson Banks hold forth on where good ideas come from, a topic that he’s distilling into a book as we type this post. You can see photos from the event, including the icebreaker tags here.
Looking forward, CreativeMornings will be happening once a month at various venues across London and details of future events can be found on the CreativeMornings website. Given that bringing together the remarkable, creative people to make things better is at the core of what we do, Sense Worldwide is proud to be providing ongoing support to this important initiative.
Drew goes Inside
Staying true to his business card copy, Drew has had the mags lapping up his words again. This time it’s the Australian design review (inside) that’s been questioning him, among others like Yves Behar and Tokujin Yoshioka, about the importance of user experience. Here’s a taste of what he had to say: “…as a human-focused designer I’m striving to improve how people relate to space, objects and one another. …By making the relationship between the designers and the consumers more meaningful, we’re helping the designers make the relationship between the user and their products more meaningful.” Click here for a PDF of the full article.
Sense Worldwide at the PDMA Conference
We’re taking part in the PDMA (Product Development and Management Association) Conference on Co-creation and Social Product Development. It’s taking place in Phoenix Arizona over the 27th – 28th June 2011 and our CEO, Jeremy Brown will be there to attend to share our thoughts on collaborative transformation.
The Conference on Social Product Development and Co-creation, is a groundbreaking event developed by the PDMA in partnership with co-creation pioneer, Local Motors. It brings together an unprecedented group of Thinkers, Makers and Doers – quite literally, the “best of the best” who will share their co-creative approaches for driving breakthrough results in product development and innovation.
Topics for the event are…
Scalable Engagement Platforms
How companies design platforms to provide places to connect with customers and other stakeholders to expand the opportunities for co-creative engagement.
The Value of Experience
Understanding how value creation is changing and to capitalize on change by understanding the key principles of co-creation.
Creating Really Big Things
Learn how companies embrace social product development to redefine traditional business models.
The Maker Movement
How to make niche products mainstream and empower customers to create and build them themselves.
Customer Interactions
Building rich customer engagement strategies, involving the growth of user-generated communities and networks.
Thinking Social
Exploring how the power of social media can change the relationship between an organisation and its stakeholders.
Jeremy will be sharing the stage with other keynote speakers from a diverse range of inspirational companies. Harvard Business School, American Express, CloudFab.com, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Hallmark, InnoCentive, Intuit Labs, Kimberly-Clark, Lego Group, Make Magazine, MakeBot Industries, Microsoft Design Studio, Ponoko, Quirky, Ross School of Business, Think_Social,org, Threadless, Wevolve, Wired Magazine.
We will also be taking a booth where we can share a little bit more about what we do, how we do it and who we do it with, so come along and say hello.
Creative Mornings
Since 2007, creative types in New York have been attending Creative Mornings, an event organised by the effervescent Tina Roth Eisenberg a.k.a. SwissMiss. These free sessions combine an inspiring 20 minute presentation (previous speakers include Milton Glaser and Khoi Vinh) with 20 minutes of conversation over coffee and bagels to kick-start the day.
Drew watched with envy as the concept rolled out to L.A., San Francisco and Zurich and wondered why there wasn’t something like it in London. To put his envy to bed, he made a really dodgy video with Raj and pleaded with Tina to let him be the host of the London chapter.
And so it was.
With the first session kicking off on 8th July with Michael Johnson of Johnson Banks, we’re really looking forward to welcoming the London creative community to the Sense Worldwide loft for a chat, a coffee and a Bruno’s Bacon Butty.
If you’d like to come along or get involved as a speaker or a helper, please email Drew with CMLDN in the subject line. We’re keen to have the talks move around in London, so if you’d like to offer up your venue, get in touch too!
Create Destroy Innovate
‘Is innovation the new black? Or just the word of the moment?’
Our very own Director of Innovation, Steve Heron, will be part of the distinguished panel debating questions surrounding innovation at Create Destroy Innovate. The event, set up St Martins MA students and is taking place on Tuesday 21st June. We’ll see you there.
A clever man tells us about Smart Fabric
A clever man called Raymond Oliver came into the Sense Loft last week to tell us more about what he’s working on. We first met met Raymond through a collaborative project we ran with Northumbria Uni’s fashion marketing students and M&S on the future of childrens’ wear.
Raymond is a professor at Northumbria University, a chemical engineer and expert in interactive materials. One of his focuses is on making the advanced technology he’s an expert in, real and relevant to people through design, which is why he’s working closely with the design school.
In a one hour presentation I felt we only scratched the surface of the amazing technologies he’s pioneering; tiny electronics that can be swallowed that illuminate messages on our skin, wallpaper prints that can communicate with us and smart fabrics. Still in very early developments it was quite difficult to see exactly how some of these technologies might be used in ‘real life’, which is why he’s been funded to set up P3i a cross disciplinary team made up of designers and scientists, based in Islington, who”ll work on just that. One to watch we think.
Fashioning The Changes
This week, Helen, Millie and Jill went to visit the final day of Graduate Fashion Week held at Earl’s Court. George at Asda sponsors the event, following River Island and Topshop who held the slot before them. It’s still a great finish for hard working students at the end of a tough four years and we had a few favourite pieces of work, including a range of teas designed alongside a homewares collection by a Northumbria Fashion Marketing student.
It’s clear to see that students are increasingly embracing the opportunity to use new technologies in their work, demonstrated by a neat trend for laser cut textiles. However, what we thought was interesting was that whilst some of the work tended towards ‘costume futuristic’, the display of the collections was often nostalgic.
Sense Worldwide Help Design Out Crime
Our work has been published in the Design Council ‘Programe Overview – demonstrating the role of design in crime prevention’.
Crime prevention advice and information for small businesses is inconsistent and inaccessible, leaving many more vulnerable to crime than they need to be. We helped them to design the service that identifies areas of vulnerability for specific crime issues through answering a series of short questions that quickly get to the heart of the matter.
You can see the site here. The Guardian have also done a piece on the initiative.
Cisco saying nice things about us
There’s a great piece about our online insight tool, CNCT up on Cisco’s website. Cloud computing is getting more traction in recent months and this article focuses on the not so obvious benefits of cloud computing that are usually touted, such as costs.
“Freed from location, and fully empowered by the ability to share the richest possible blend of media online, individual creative groups can be dynamically connected and tapped into at any time – as with the underlying servers that connect them.”
Read more here.
