Tag: collaboration

My 30 day challenges, day 30, THE END – by Philip Dodson

Posted on by philipdodson

Yes all 8 challenges completed 100% for every day for 30 consecutive days – YES.

I didn’t climb Everest, I did swim the channel, I didn’t run a marathon. But I do feel a real sense of achievement and it proves that many small goals, taken day by day, will lead to big results.

I wanted my last blog to be a monumental one, but given I left home at 5:40am and I got home at 22:30 – I’ve simply run out of time.

I wanted to do a collage of all the photos that I took on each of the 30 days, but that will take time, so I’ll save that for the weekend.

Today’s picture is of Krusty aka Bernie Mitchell. We had a great workshop at the hub this evening on collaboration, service design and service proto-typing from Simon & Phillippa from Redfront.

pic 30

Essentially, in a team with Karl & Bernie, we picked a random card, ours was the 8 of clubs. From this we had to come up with a service inspired by this. Then design the customer, then how we’d attract them, finishing off with a service prototype.

We came up with the After 8 gambling club in Euston, a rather seedy throw back to the 1970’s, in a basement, wait….

Our customer was Krusty, a middle aged wine bar owner in north London, who drove an old jag, was a property agent by day and liked old style clubs.

We tempted him to our club with complimentary fizzy drinks, peanuts, dancing girls and a place to gamble. At the end we made an advert, which once I have a copy, I will share. It will either be a hit or a total flop!

However, the great thing to come out of the evening is, in just 2 hours, working in collaboration, we designed a service, customer journey, fleshed out the details of the marketing and delivery, even made an advert.

So if you’re prepared to focus and be creative, then anything is possible and a lot easier and quicker than you imagine.

A great way to end my 30 days of challenges.

My 30 day challenges, day 29 – by Philip Dodson

Posted on by philipdodson

Day 29, the finish line is always within grasp, just one more day to go. Although, I must say, habits do form and much quicker than I initially thought they would.

It’s likely that I will continue with most of the 8 challenges beyond tomorrow and I already have some new challenges in the pipeline.

So today’s picture is of one of the chalk boards that we have at the hub to advertise events coming up, this particular one is a comedy & networking evening on 22nd October (shameless plug!).

pic 29

My thoughts today turn again to co-working, which in itself is not a new thing, nor is collaboration. The whole concept of co-working, however, is evolving and it’s rapid rise globally is a reaction to a desire to have a real alternative to corporate world, to the isolation of working solo at home and to the cost of an office.

However, co-working is perhaps the wrong term, as really just working in the same physical space with other unrelated people, is not what it is about for me.

The fact is, humans are social animals and in order to thrive, be happy and in a good physical and mental state, we need to be around and interact with others.

So just working together is not it, it is interacting and building a community together, an eco-system, where the exchange is not simply chit-chat. The exchange must be social capital in order for co-working to be what it really should be.

It’s about using the physical space to create a social capital exchange, where both parties benefit from sharing and helping each other for no initial financial gain. The money will come, as the community becomes stronger and when the need arises. The needs will arise though as you will get to meet, like, know and trust others.

The corporate world is failing and is in decline, co-working is rising, but has yet to evolve as the solution. The solution lies in the meshing together of the evolving sharing economy and the old corporate world. They both need each other. Co-working is the catalyst for change.