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IDEO Make-a-thon Thanks & Recap!

Thanks to everyone who attended the IDEO Make-a-thon this weekend!

Your enthusiasm, passion, creativity and skills helped make the prototype of this event spectacular and generated some truly original ideas.

We hope you enjoyed the event as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

If you want to continue work on the 8 OpenIDEO open-source projects from the IDEO Make-a-thon, please use the project brief links below. Please add your relevant links / files / images / photos, or videos from your projects. If you would like to leave comments and feedback about the event, please leave comments on this post.

Over the next few weeks we will be documenting our learnings from the prototype IDEO Make-a-thon on OpenIDEO Field Notes and IDEO Labs. Keep an eye out!

The photos of the Make-a-thon are up! Check them out here...

In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap of all the IDEO Make-a-thon teams and projects:

Village People

Brief: The Future of the Village Fête

Starting with the question ‘What is the urban fête?’ The Village People team created a new grassroots movement where London locals can plan and stage their own fête interventions. Prototypes included a fantastic brand, video testimonials from locals and a concrete ‘deaddrop’ where locals can share digital fête music.

Team: @brendandawes, @neilchurcher, Charlene Lam, Emilie Sheehan, Nazia Parvez, @robinhowie, Lawrence Willmott, Ivo Vos, Chris Grantham.

Team Xtreme

Brief: Boris Bikes for Tourists

Team Xtreme were tasked with improving the Boris Bike scheme for London visitors. They created a number of innovative prototypes including a receipt docket that gives you a sightseeing cycle route and a custom clip that can be used to mount cameras, maps, flowers to your Boris Bike.

Look out for the soon-to-be-released 3D product on thingiverse.com!

Team: @basil, @james_croft, @falkowate, @ithinkihaveacat, @bedford2, @hadleybeeman, @jude.pullen

Karma Comedians

Brief: Postcode Gangs

The Karma Comedians team sought to bring locals together through a skills sharing interactive phone booth. They created a seamless experience prototype by joining up technologies such as Twillio, Skype and the iPad.

Check out the open source version of the code here: https://github.com/andypiper/karma

Team: @andypiper, @dnw1710, Haley Stopford, @tburrellsaward, @vbrooksy, Steve O'Connor.

Bikewell

Brief: Cycle Safety 3.0

The Bikewell team looked at cycle safety on London streets and created a service to teach people about cycle safety as well as a series of smart bike lights that react to cars when they’re too close, or post messages to drivers in traffic.

Checkout the video of the working bike light prototype here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIETDClOn9o

Team: @roseofwinter, Josah Emsley, Larissa Seilern, @cactuslouise, Oliver Poyntz, @jeremy_ih 

Amnesty International

As part of the Make-a-thon, we also worked with 4 briefs for Amnesty in tackling unlawful detention.
Thanks to @amy_bonsall and @AmnestyInternational. 

Protect Yourself

Brief: Amnesty Advice Platform and Amnesty Action on Google

Protect Yourself created a live prototype of an Amnesty Checklist platform where activists, family and friends can seek advice about unlawful detention. The team worked with Amnesty subject matter experts to create the content for these checklists as well as building the platform to host them.

Take a look at the live prototype! hackweekend.info/

Team: @bengmorgan, @tezzutezzu, @sabrinatucci, @hisposyrian, @danieltownsend

Don’t Panic

The team built an alert app and platform for signaling at risk situations using Google Maps and HTML5 technologies. Accessible via mobile browsers by those at risk, individuals can hit the alert button to register when they’re in danger of being taken, sending their location and details. A group of volunteers monitor the platform and in turn alert the relevant organizations.

Check out the live panic button: panicbutton.herokuapp.com/
And the monitoring interface: panicbutton.herokuapp.com/notifications

Team: Zaynab Leeya, @biancaUXD, Jill Irving

Activate

Brief: Amnesty Observer App

The team built an app to help people record and upload human rights violations. Using HTML5 and Phonegap, they were able to create a working app for the iPhone that allows users to record video or photos and upload details about the imagery to a secure server.

Team: @iliasbartolini, @gridinoc, Ralf Rebmann, @tristamsparks

Watchdog

A web service for determining if an `at risk` activist has gone offline and may need help. The service monitors a user’s social media usage and alerts those in their network if they haven’t registered any activity for a period of time. This is a subtle way of detecting when someone may be missing, without relying on the person to be proactive.

Team: @ideesabsurdes, @joelanman, @junkafarian

Tokyo Reflections: OpenStorm & Expert Interview

For the Amnesty International challenge, I recently facilitated a “Brainstorm in a Box”, a “Refinement” and a “Expert Feedback” initiative at my university in Tokyo. I thought it might be valuable for others if I shared my experiences and reflections. For the next 6 months (until I graduate) I plan to facilitate similar workshops for each OpenIDEO challenge, and I would be delighted to collaborate with other universities abroad working on related projects.

BRAINSTORM IN A BOX:

Attendance:

I attend an international university, but have experienced that there is a large divide between the Japanese undergraduate students and the predominantly international graduate students; A divide caused by age, language and cultural barriers. So, as a peace studies major, I thought it would be valuable to try to bring together the undergrad and the grad students. I have therefore engaged in a new Social Hub initiative at campus, which was started by the Chapel at my university, to bring people together informally, and in a more flexible format than usual. For, in Japan it is most common to socialize with others students through club activities. The clubs however meet 3-4 times a week and often practise for 3 hours. This is a commitment too large for many graduate students to get involved in. The result is sadly an even bigger social divide between the students. Japanese undergrad students are thus less likely to attend spontaneous events because they don´t have time to participate in it, and they also tend to think that participating in an event means a large commitment.

I am currently in my second year of my graduate studies, writing my thesis on the topic of social innovation strategies to assist the peace building effort. Through my research I have learned what a small role design thinking and social innovation plays in the Japanese society, despite its struggles with an aging society, declining birth-rates, job loss (-production is moved to cheaper overseas location), and last but not least the recovery after the 3-11 disaster. My personal agenda was therefore to introduce design thinking and creative tools to the university students. During my time as an intern with OpenIDEO I learned about the outstanding work that Tracy Brandenburg is doing with her students, and thought that OpenIDEO would provide a perfect platform to bring graduate and undergraduate students together to share their experiences and to learn from each other.

Location:

In collaboration with the Social Hub at my university I therefore organized a “Brainstorm in Box” workshop last Tuesday afternoon from 5-7PM. We chose to do the workshop in the late afternoon, when most classes are done, but before people would leave to have dinner. The timing also opened the opportunity for the participants to have dinner together afterwards, to discuss more and get to know each other even better. One negative side effect was however, that several of my non-university friends, who are interested in OpenIDEO, were not able to attend because they were still at work. To get a higher attendance I believe it is crucial to make the workshop easy to access and convenient in terms of time.

Marketing:

In advance of the workshop I had designed OpenIDEO posters and matching fliers, using some of the design elements from the OpenIDEO website. We decided to write the poster in English, since that would be the language spoken at the workshop. Doing it bilingual was a possibility, which we discussed, but since we are at an international university, we thought we would test how many people would come, if the posters were only in English. We also spoke to three professors, who teach human rights related undergraduate classes, and were able to present OpenIDEO to the students for 15 minutes and to hand out fliers in class. We also discussed with the professors whether it would be possible for them to give extra credits to the students who would attend the workshop. This was however not possible, since some of the students might have had other classes going on at the same time as the workshop. Giving credits to some students, and not others, would be considered unfair. In the end, only 1 student from the about 100 students we presented to, actually attended! I am at the moment trying to find out why. I wonder if the English language may have scared some Japanese students away (-many Japanese students feel insecure speaking English, because they are afraid of making mistakes or getting misunderstood). Maybe the topic was too difficult/complex, or they needed better notice, or better timing. I wonder what might motivate and trigger them to attend in the future, such as free dinner, positive peer-pressure (*get their friends to attend), a more central location, better communication, bringing in external speakers, bringing a “celebrity” to attend etc.

The workshop:

In the end we were 9 people attending the workshop. 5 graduates and 4 undergraduates. People from 4 continents attended, and the participants were passionate and interested in the topic as well as interested in learning about brainstorming techniques. To make the brainstorm more fun I had borrowed a white lab coat from the hospital clinique at campus – I used it to indicate that this was a social experiment, and that we were there to test out new ways to approach peace building – and to show that it was OK to think different, plus that having fun and relaxing was an important part of why we were there.

Workshop Design & Reflections:

1. Welcome & “Energizer” (15min)

“Check in”… Who are you, why are you here?

* People are busy and half of them were not on time. We started 15 minutes later than intended and when new people arrived, it took a little time to bring them up to speed and get them to introduce themselves to the group. I believe the group dynamics could have been better if everyone arrived at the same time.

2. Presentation of OpenIDEO (10min)

Show Video + Introduce the Amnesty Challenge

* To make sure people felt informed, I had printed out all the available challenge information from the OpenIDEO platform, and placed it in front of people at the table. Everyone felt well informed.

3. Present IDEO’s Brainstorming rules (5min)

* I made a large poster where I had handwritten the rules in happy colors. I introduced them one by one and gave examples for each. People were nodding and thought it sounded fun and meaningful. None of the participants knew the IDEO brainstorming rules from before. IDEO is not well known in Japan outside of design and innovation circles. They do however get very impressed when you tell them that IDEO designed the first Apple mouse.

4. Warm up exercise (5min)

Form groups of 3‐5 people. A quick warm‐up exercise + share ideas with the group

* This gave everybody a chance to speak up in front of the group. This made it easier for the Japanese undergraduate students to participate from the beginning and feel part of the group. They are usually a little quieter than the average international graduate student, and it was therefore important for me to make them feel included and “safe”.

5. Brainstorm! (45min)

15 minutes on each topic

* I had prepared three boards with a “How Might We…” questions on each. But in the end we ended up only using one, but trying to incorporate all the questions into one brainstorm. People had fun, everyone shared their ideas and experiences with the group. Since the participants were not used to this kind of brainstorm, I felt that process facilitation was important to ensure that we stayed on topic and explored as many angles of the challenge as possible. Secondly, my role as a facilitator was also to set an example for others to follow – for instance to obviously build on top of other people’s ideas and to actively encourage wild ideas and remind people to draw, not just write.  The Human Rights topic was good to discuss in an international group, but one of the Japanese students asked me after the workshop whether OpenIDEO only tackled such “Complex, difficult and serious issues” because she felt that it might keep people from participating.

6. Vote!

Put a sticker on the 3 ideas you like the best!

* For the voting session we used colored stickers, which people placed on the concepts they liked, each in turn. A few people asked what the evaluation criteria should be (ex. ease, cost, originality, impact), but since they were not clearly defined in the brief, I asked people to vote on what they would most like to see implemented. People had not done visual voting before, and seemed to have fun and find it useful and actionable, since they could see a concrete result of their work.

7. Get volunteers to upload the winning ideas

Upload the ideas to OpenIDEO.com and remind people to credit “Brainstorm in a Box”

* In the end we decided to upload the three ideas, which got the most votes. I asked the people who had drawn the winning ideas if they would have time to upload the concept, and gave them a deadline three days later, to be sure that they would upload the ideas before the closure of the Concepting Phase.  I took pictures of all the winning ideas, and when I got home I wrote an e-mail to all the people who had volunteered and sent the relevant picture along with a step-by-step description of how to upload an idea on the OpenIDEO-platform. Everyone uploaded his or her idea in time, and one person even uploaded another idea, which she liked herself.

One thing, which I wish I had done in the end of the workshop, was to do a quick “Check out” or “after action review”, to learn what the group had liked and what needed improvement. I did this kind of evaluation with people on a one-to-one basis afterwards, but I think it would have been beneficial for the group to share with each other.

Summary:

All in all I was happy with the workshop, and believe that the more we do, the more people will attend, and the better the ideas will get – once people are used to the process and the rules of brainstorms.

REFINEMENT:

One of our concepts was selected for the Refinement Phase, and since our concept was related to Google, I reached out to one of my Japanese contacts, working for Google in Silicon Valley, and asked whether he could recommend anyone in the organization who would be able to help us improve our idea. Despite the very short deadline (*the refinement phase is only 1 week), he was able to locate a person and set up a meeting for us with Google in Tokyo.

I then invited people from the OpenStorm, as well as other interested people, to meet for 1 hour to conduct a SWOT–analysis (Strength - Weaknesses – Opportunities - Threats) to map out our existing idea. We spent most time on the “Opportunities” section, coming up with new ideas, which would answer the questions and weaknesses, which had been raised in the comment section on the OpenIDEO platform. After the meeting I synthesised the main points from the meeting and prepared a PowerPoint for our meeting with Google.

EXPERT INTERVIEW:

Friday afternoon four people from the brainstorm met with a Google representative to present our idea. In the beginning we made it very clear that we were there to develop the idea, not to implement it. We were very lucky that the person, whom we talked to, was familiar with the OpenIDEO platform already and very supportive of what we were trying to do. In the meeting we worked on concept clarification ex. mapped out the target groups, the features and benefits.

After the Google meeting we created a Google doc, where the four people who attended the meeting, co-authored the refinement of the concept before it was uploaded to OpenIDEO. Once it was uploaded I sent out an e-mail to all the people who had been involved in the project, and thanked them and encouraged them to go online and evaluate our concept, as well as the concept of others.  I emphasized that OpenIDEO is not a competition and clarified that winning is not the purpose of what we were doing – rather that it was to inspire Amnesty International, so they can do a better job.

The evaluation phase is now up and running, and we are very excited to see how things will develop. Once the Amnesty International Challenge is over, I plan to sit down with a few of the participants from my university, to evaluate our first challenge, and make the necessary changes before we get properly started on the Steelcase Challenge.

In conclusion:

My hope is that we will eventually be able to collaborate with other universities around the world and do brainstorms together. We are right now talking to Tohoku University in Sendai – and plan to do brainstorms with them for the Steelcase challenge. I think that would be an amazing as well as meaningful experience.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas please feel free to share them with me either via e-mail (anne@kaospilot.dk) or here at the forum.

Best wishes from Tokyo, Anne

If you would like to see what the workshop looked like... please check out this 30 min documentary: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4LVpaSFkfcwww.youtube.com/wa...

Introducing OpenIDEO + Universities

Whether you're a long-time OpenIDEATOR or new to our collaborative, creative community,
you've no doubt realised that OpenIDEO is a terrific tool for learning about social and
environmental issues, design thinking and innovation.

For a while now, the OpenIDEO team has been cooking up ways to further that learning by
exploring how OpenIDEO might be used in university and graduate settings – whether it's
in a design or innovation course or as part of a MBA, social impact or other student club.
This, plus the community enthusiasm for Impact Challenge concepts like Charlotte Fliegner's
OpenUNI, has inspired us to open this university-themed forum.

If you're interested in bringing OpenIDEO to your school or classroom, this forum is a great place
to ask questions and get guidance from folks who have already started using OpenIDEO on campus.
And if you have already hosted a brainstorm in your club, run a prototyping session in your course,
or spread the word about our collaborative community at your school, here's your chance to share your story!

We hope you'll join the conversation so that we can all keep learning and collaborating together for social good. 

Cheers,
the OpenIDEO Team

PS. To stay up to date with forum updates you can subscribe to any discussion topic by hitting
that little envelope button up there on the top right. Then you'll get email notifications on all
new comments and stay up on the conversations!

Did you know? Little tips and tricks for OpenIDEO

Hi guys, I'll be posting little tips and tricks for OpenIDEO under this thread.
Click 'subscribe' to receive them! Or feel free to post the tips you've found.

Did you know you can use your left and right arrow keys and navigate Concepts and Inspirations?

When you're on a Concept, press left or right arrow keys on your keyboard to go to the next or previous item!

Introducing the New Users Forum

Welcome onboard, new users! Here's a place for you to ask for help, scan issues and tips plus share experiences 

as you learn the ropes of OpenIDEO. This forum is being co-facilitated by one of our awesome seasoned users: Arjan Tupan.
Others may chime in to help you out – so don't feel shy – holler if you need help and shout-out to share.
We're a collaborative community and are keen to nurture fresh hearts and minds joining us in the pursuit of social good!

Check out existing forum topics or start your own.

You can also subscribe to the forums by hitting the Envelope icon
in the top right hand side of a specific discussion or the entire forum
to stay up to date with latest. 

If you've got feedback or queries directly for our team – send us
an email to hello@openideo.com