Great minds think differently: innovation through collaboration
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Great minds think differently: innovation through collaboration
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Thinking
How an open sourced challenge created innovation through collaboration
Great minds think alike? Well, not according to our latest collaboration with StoryFutures – a forward-thinking R&D programme based at Royal Holloway, University of London. StoryFutures run workshops and labs that bring together a diverse range of thinkers and thought leaders to solve creative and business problems. Their ethos is to ‘place innovative storytelling at the heart of next-generation immersive technologies and experiences’, and we were delighted to help alongside our longtime partners Prodigio.
Rising to the challenge
Our StoryFutures collaboration started with a brief. But instead of a brief given out to a small number of agencies, this brief came in the form of an ‘Open Collaboration’’ and was circulated to a wide range of different companies – each with their own specialisms. From this vast pool of responses a lucky few (including us) were picked. The successful collaborators were invited to a 2 day StoryFutures workshop where those selected were able to find out more about the project before pitching to the StoryFutures team and their client.
In a usual callout for commercial proposals, a client will write a request for proposals (or RFP), then companies will compete with each other, each writing a perfect solution as they see it – “here’s how we see your project and this is what we’d recommend for you in response”. It’s quite a distant process, where we all go away and come up with fantastic solutions, and is perhaps somewhat hit-and-miss in terms of understanding what would really make a difference to a business and its customers, rather than just what’s written in black and white in the RFP.
What is ‘Open Collaboration’?
Unlike a pitch where you never meet the competition, the StoryFutures experience was one of true openness where everyone worked side by side. Clients, facilitators and creatives are all placed in the process together for an extended callout. It’s a process which breaks down many of the traditional barriers. Instead of a short conference call to ask a few quick questions, the client is at the heart of the workshop, and able to provide knowledge and insight that would never normally make it into the pitch process. Not only is it incredibly interesting, it also enables the pitch teams to deliver a response far more fitting to the needs of the project.
Want to know more? Let’s Chat!
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