We are driven by our own failures.  Having delivered many traditional learning experiences in our past lives, we faced the facts, that despite great reviews immediately after their participation, these innovation support solutions were broken in terms of delivering tangible results six-twelve months later. The learning was simply another 'dot', not a step-change.

 

In short, conferences can be great for inspiration and networking but are expensive and infrequent, workshops rarely lead to change because learning is separated from immediate application and without sustained follow-up, Hackathons are great at focus on protoypes and making but lacking crucial customer development, elearning is scalable but confined to knowledge exchange and without any 'getting out of the building', on-the-job training with stretch goals is great but lacking a consistent structure for implementation, and knowledge management portals are full of documents which may save time at best, but are missing the skills, mindsets, and relationships development that is critical for innovation change to happen.

 

We've been grappling (through experimentation) with this question, how to design a repeatable (low-cost), scalable (embedded throughout the organisation) and impactful (on revenue/funding) innovation support model? Our answer -   virtual [ x ] incubators