Bespoke Event Design and Consulting
Some events are just too unique to be made in a template.
Surely we'll borrow some building blocks from our previous events. And you'll add some blocks, too.
Bespoke event design and consulting will prove its worth when you want to do something that hasn't been done before.
Or it has been done but without any significant echo.
To showcase how we work, we'll share our From inspiration to innovation event design.
The event took place in Ljubljana in 2014. Not very recent, granted. However, the event was recognized by the Slovene Chamber of Commerce and State's Forum of Innovation as the:
World's first fully gamified business education conference. (or jump down to contact)
Here are the details.
Introduction
In the start of 2014, InCo movement and The Manager's Association of Slovenia decided to organise a business conference "From inspiration to innovation", dedicated to simulating an innovation process, according to InCo's dynamic model of innovation phases.
Surely we'll borrow some building blocks from our previous events. And you'll add some blocks, too.
Bespoke event design and consulting will prove its worth when you want to do something that hasn't been done before.
Or it has been done but without any significant echo.
To showcase how we work, we'll share our From inspiration to innovation event design.
The event took place in Ljubljana in 2014. Not very recent, granted. However, the event was recognized by the Slovene Chamber of Commerce and State's Forum of Innovation as the:
World's first fully gamified business education conference. (or jump down to contact)
Here are the details.
Introduction
In the start of 2014, InCo movement and The Manager's Association of Slovenia decided to organise a business conference "From inspiration to innovation", dedicated to simulating an innovation process, according to InCo's dynamic model of innovation phases.
Concept evolution
Soon after this initial idea, InCo members agreed to create a conference based on participant's involvement that would go beyond the simple 'listen- endlessly-maybe-raise-your-hand-and-ask-something-once-in-a-while and the occasional-mini-workshops' to lighten up the ex-catedra conference style that so many of us have been experiencing in the last decades...
Therefore a concept of experiential learning was applied, transforming the conference into an experiential conference, based solely on participants undertaking tasks and striving to learn as they go.
The question soon arose: do we invite the participants to enter the process with their own individual cases (challenges) or do we simply give them a pre-made one, one for everybody?
We decided to go with a universal challenge for the practical reasons of running such an event.
Next question: do we take a business challenge from the environment or try to come up with one purely fictional?
With this question arising, everything was set to involve the concept of gamification.
Gamifying the conference
The conference itself was unique in its design. Participants formed teams and each team travelled through 3 different stages (the 3 phases of innovation) throughout the day, experiencing different techniques in each stage.
Soon after this initial idea, InCo members agreed to create a conference based on participant's involvement that would go beyond the simple 'listen- endlessly-maybe-raise-your-hand-and-ask-something-once-in-a-while and the occasional-mini-workshops' to lighten up the ex-catedra conference style that so many of us have been experiencing in the last decades...
Therefore a concept of experiential learning was applied, transforming the conference into an experiential conference, based solely on participants undertaking tasks and striving to learn as they go.
The question soon arose: do we invite the participants to enter the process with their own individual cases (challenges) or do we simply give them a pre-made one, one for everybody?
We decided to go with a universal challenge for the practical reasons of running such an event.
Next question: do we take a business challenge from the environment or try to come up with one purely fictional?
With this question arising, everything was set to involve the concept of gamification.
Gamifying the conference
The conference itself was unique in its design. Participants formed teams and each team travelled through 3 different stages (the 3 phases of innovation) throughout the day, experiencing different techniques in each stage.
Directly and indirectly, participants experienced 12 different techniques that supported them in their quest: to design an innovative business model, a strategy to help out the Robin Hood company!
Violeta, InCo movement's leader, has described the conference in detail.
>> Read her blog post here (in Slovene) and here (in English).
For our purposes here we shall only zoom in on the actual gamification aspect of that gamified conference, which turned out to be a huge success!
Robin's gamification elements
In the picture below you can see the gamification elements used in InCo's adaptation of the Robin Hood challenge:
Violeta, InCo movement's leader, has described the conference in detail.
>> Read her blog post here (in Slovene) and here (in English).
For our purposes here we shall only zoom in on the actual gamification aspect of that gamified conference, which turned out to be a huge success!
Robin's gamification elements
In the picture below you can see the gamification elements used in InCo's adaptation of the Robin Hood challenge:
*live action role playing; in this case, LARP elements were used to a low degree. If we had wanted to increase LARP, we would have needed costumes and heavier space designing, along with powers and in-depth characters backgrounds. We decided not to increase LARP due to an already complex conference design.
** canvas can serve as an independent tool (the model of the conference can be easily adapted and used for playing in your company's environtment).
More gaming insights
You might be asking: "OK, a lot of stuff here, but what is the actual gamification about it?" A fair question, indeed.
The most basic gamification element is the narrative and game world, coupled with producing the end result on the participants' part.
"What effect does it have," you might ask next.
It gives purpose for teams to follow through an intense 11-hour conference, to emerge fully in each skill (the 12 techniques), to design a solution using gamified canvas, to work within the team and with other teams (we've witnessed two teams sharing secret ally information!) and just basically transcend the limits of left-brain problem-solving to ascend to greater ideas that might lead to innovation.
Transferability - the conference as a product
InCo's Robin Hood gamified conference can be easily reproduced to fit your organisation's requirements. It can be localised even up to the point of changing the narrative. Who is your local hero? What challenges does he/she face?
Technically
There were 76 participants, daring enough to take the challenge and help ship another invention (the conference itself) to the market. There were some 30 people running the conference: thinkers, witnesses, facilitators, trainers (the 12 techniques), architects, ambient designers, and so on.
Conclusions and an invitation
To my knowledge, "From inspiration to innovation", that took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia on June 12th 2014, was the first gamified experiential business conference in the world. An innovation.
To my knowledge, "From inspiration to innovation", that took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia on June 12th 2014, was the first gamified experiential business conference in the world. An innovation.
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