|
Early Bird Ends Soon!
|
|
The first Innovation Games Summit is just a few months away, January 22-25, 2013. The 2-day Summit and pre-Summit workshops bring together leaders in business, government and nonprofits to share and learn how Innovation Games, Gamestorming, Business Model Canvas and related techniques are helping organizations do real work.
Register with the Early Bird price and join attendees and speakers from Cisco, IBM, John Deere, NetApp, and more, to experience how collaborative play results in breakthrough products and services.
|
Innovation Games Online Training
|
Enthiosys President & IGQI Jason Tanner is teaching a 6-hour course covering our Online Game Platform Innovation Games Online. The virtual class will cover both Visual Collaboration and Virtual Market games, and prepares participants to plan, setup, facilitate and post-process the game results. Also includes a 3-month professional subscription to Innovation Games Online.
Date: Dec. 18-19, 2012
Timing: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Location: Virtual
Cost: $195*
Register here.
*Includes a 3-month subscription to Innovation Games Online.
|
New Innovation
Games Certification Class
|
Luke Hohmann will be teaching the first of our newly redesigned Innovation Games courses as a Pre- Innovation Games Summit Workshop on January 22-23, 2013. The class registration includes attendance at the Innovation Games Summit (all keynotes, sessions and parties). Innovation.
January 22-23, 2013
Venue: Biltmore Hotel & Suites
Location:Santa Clara, CA
Cost: $1,095 (All-Access Pass; early bird price ends 12/13)
Register here.
|
Kanban One-Day Simulation Class
|
Net Objective's Alan Shalloway is teaching a One-Day Kanban Simulation as part of the Innovation Games Summit on January 23, 2013. The one-day course is available alone, or as a package with the entire Innovation Games Summit.
January 23, 2013
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Pricing: $295-$995 (Early Bird ends 12/13)
Register here.
|
Innovation Games in Paris
|
Innovation Games-partner Objet Direct is offering three Innovation Games for Customer Understanding, taught in French, in 2013. Objet Direct boasts three Qualified Instructors on its staff, in Lyon, Grenoble and Paris.
See the Objet Direct website for more details.
Dates: March 21-22, 2013; June 20-12, 2013; October 17-18, 2013
Location: Paris, France
Pricing: 1100 Euros
Register here.
|
The Business Design Summit, Berlin
|
Luke Hohmann joins the faculty of the Business Design Summit, set for April 19-20, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. Other Speakers include Alexander Osterwalder, David Sibbets, Dave Gray, Steve Blank.
Date: April 19-20, 2013
Location: Berlin, Germany
Pricing: 1,500 Euros early bird
Register here.
|
|
|
Greetings!
Welcome to latest issue of Your Next Move!, our monthly newsletter covering the latest news, events and announcements from the Innovation Games®
community.
|
|
Innovation Games at Work Objet Direct Puts Product Box Into Play
The French love Innovation Games®. Case in point? Our newest partner Objet Direct -- our only certified partner in France -- which boast three Innovation Games® Qualified Instructors and Trained Facilitators among its  employees. Objet Direct has incorporated Innovation Games into its client work, finding (like many other organizations) that the games often improve and enhance agile techniques.
Earlier this year, Objet Direct began working with Weleda Laboratories, a global pharmaceutical company with a presence in more than 50 countries. Weleda wanted its ecommerce and online presence revised and restructured and tapped Objet Direct for the project. The Objet Direct team would follow agile practices for the Weleda project and started with a "0" sprint to allow Weleda to define and describe the project's vision document, as well as the product backlog.
Product Box to the Rescue
Objet Direct wanted to gain as complete an understanding of Weleda's needs as possible. They wanted to use a technique that wouldn't just uncover apparent needs, but unknown or less obvious requirements. Enter Product Box, along with stickers and markers and glitter glue. 
During the initial meeting, held using the workshop format, Weleda's team built Product Boxes illustrating their requirements concerning the orientation and makeup of their future websites. How did it turn out?
"Bravo Innovation Games," extols Weleda's Ecommerce & Digital Marketing Manager Carrie Mass, "for creating such a useful and enjoyable series of games to support active learning! As new adopters of the Agile methodology, the exercises we've experienced so far have made a world of difference in learning [to be Agile]. The games employed to learn and introduce the method have been insightful, engaging and effective."
Objet Direct tells us that using Innovation Games in tandem with Agility is bringing success to not just Weleda, but several other clients, as well. "We want our partnership with Innovation Games to allow other companies in France experience this innovative tool kit for project development, in their native French," writes Objet Direct's Cory Casper.
Mais, bien sûr. We couldn't agree more.
Read more about Objet Direct and their upcoming Innovation Games classes (offered in French!) on our website.
|
|
As seen in the Financial Times
On Nov. 9, 2012, the Financial Time's Assistant Editor  and Market Commentator Gillian Tett wrote about our work with the City of San José, CA to elicit feedback and cooperation from community leaders and city residents during the budgeting process.
Like many cities in the U.S., San José has faced budget shortfalls, resulting in reduced city services. Beginning in 2011, we adapted a version of our prioritization game Buy a Feature to work for government, allowing citizens, during the Budget Game, to not only "purchase" the city services they most value, but also gain revenue for those purchases by either cutting current services or increasing revenue through various tax measures.
Tett writes, "A cynic might dismiss this as just a marketing or political gimmick. And San José appears to be the first city in the US to do anything quite like this. But, if nothing else, the experiment is distinctly thought-provoking, particularly given the real-life democratic dramas that have played out in America this week."
The third annual Budget Games for the city of San José will be on January 26, 2013 (See next article in this newsletter for more details). And Every Voice Engaged, the nonprofit founded to bring Budget Games to other communities is in talks to bring the games to local governments across the U.S.
To read the complete Financial Times article, go here. Want to get involved with the 3rd Annual Budget Games? Sign up at EveryVoiceEngaged.org.
|
|
Get Involved!
Volunteer & Help San Jose Citizens Make a Difference through Budget Games
Since 2011, we've helped the City of San José's elected officials,  community leaders, city management and citizens work together --through games--to tackle the city's budget shortfall. This year our nonprofit arm, the Every Voice Engaged Foundation, is leading the charge and we need You to make it a success!
We need volunteer observers and facilitators to lead groups of neighborhood, civic and city leaders in the structured exercises, including the specially designed version of Buy a Feature, Budget Games.
What: 3rd Annual Budget Games
When: Saturday, January 26, 2012
Where: San José Convention Center, San José, CA.
Sign up here to volunteer.
If you're interested in other ways games are being used in Government or learning more about Budget Games, attend the Innovation Games Summit on January 24-25 in neighboring Santa Clara, CA.
|
Innovation Games Summit
New sessions from IBM, John Deere, Kaiser Permanent and others -- Early Bird Ends Soon!
Our goal for the program at the Innovation Games Summit was to showcase real-world, practical applications of  Innovation Games, Gamestorming and related techniques. We wanted sessions illustrating how companies large and small are using collaborative play and serious games to do work--better, faster and easier.
We're thrilled at the sessions submitted, and they highlight not just how games are used in market research or product development, but also in strategy, sales, you name it.
Here's a sneak peak (the final program will be announced in just a few days) at how Innovation Games are bringing success to all parts of the enterprise:
Market Insight
Ulf Hannelius, Aneega AB
Government
Mark Dixon, IBM
Grab Bag
Cesario Ramos, AgiliX Agile Consulting
|
Early Bird ends Dec 13th!
Register for the Innovation Games Summit by December 13 and save $200. The All-Access Pass includes the new Innovation Games Certification class (debuting at the Summit), along with all Summit Tracks, keynotes and special events. Don't miss your opportunity to learn how leading companies are using Innovation Games to do real work -- better, faster, easier than ever before.
All Access Pass (Only a few spots left!): $1,095
Register today! |
Game Spotlight
20/20 Vision--with Wooden Blocks!
The best part of putting together this newsletter is seeing how Innovation Games® are being adapted and put to work around the globe, in every industry imaginable. This month we feature a post froom Portland-based applied anthropologist Amy L. Santee. Amy adapted 20/20 Vision for use with wooden blocks to get feedback on her clients ideal customer experience.
Not just another boring focus group.
Focus group participants, Amy writes, "really appreciate it when they don't have to sit [...] for two hours in one, long drawn-out conversation." Instead, Amy includes at least one or two hands-on activities to get people talking, thinking and using their imaginations.
Tactile and unexpected.
"One example of a collaborative, hands-on activity I have used in the past," Amy continues, "involves something participants don't usually expect -- playing with blocks! This is actually an adaptation of an exercise from a book called Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play by Luke Hohmann."
Called 20/20 Vision, this game is a way to gain insight into customer priorities, Amy writes as she describes how she used the technique with a current client.
 | |
20/20 Vision Blocks
|
Why Blocks? "First, I thought it would be better to involve the participants by having them do the actual "arranging" of the list of attributes, rather than having me doing it for them with index cards. [Second], why use paper index cards? Why not use something more interesting and tactile that adds to the hands-on, collaborative feel? I couldn't think of anything that would work better for this very purpose than big sturdy blocks of some sort." How did it work? Amy writes that the 20/20 Vision games as blocks, "was a useful catalyst for revealing how people define the ideal customer experience. All of the talking, sharing of opinions, debating, and collaborating provided insights unattainable by more traditional market research approaches." To read all the project details, including how Amy structured the exercise, and had the blocks made at a local hardware store, check out her post, "Defining the ideal customer experience: an example of a collaborative, hands-on focus group activity for market research". For more on 20/20 Vision, check out innovationgames.com.
|
|
|
Have any news about the Innovation Games® community? Email us at info@innovationgames.com.
Can't wait for the next newsletter? Do you have to know what's new with Innovation Games®, right now? Find out what's happening with us at Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and our blog.
Sincerely,
Tami Carter VP, Marketing The Innovation Games® Company |
|
|
