Innovation methods
New ideas and their successful marketing are of central importance for telecommunications. So that they are not purely a matter of coincidence, Swisscom works closely together with the Impact Hub innovation centre in Zurich. To find out how this works, we paid a visit to a workshop.
Hugo Vuyk
Almost nowhere is the significance of Zurich’s traffic hub more tangible than here: just a few metres from the Hardbrücke train station at the edge of the station’s track field. On the roof of the Impact Hub, the trains thunder across the Aussersihler Viaduct. This does not interrupt the creativity of the visitors – they excitedly exchange ideas or sit at their laptops deep in concentration.
This is also the case on Thursday, 13 August. In front of the entrance at 10 a.m., manager Johanna Stephan greets nine young entrepreneurs. They have submitted start-up ideas for the Fellowship ICT4good competition, which Swisscom is supporting. Johanna explains the day’s agenda, in English – some of the participants have only been in Switzerland for a short time, others come from the French-speaking area of the country.
At the same time, inside the viaduct’s arch, eight Swisscom managers are concentrating on documents and making notes. They are participating in a workshop to strengthen their business management skills. Today, the managers’ and the young entrepreneurs’ paths are crossing. The first group will make the latter’s ideas their own in order to present them in “reverse pitching”. A win-win situation for both sides, as conference leader Michel Bachmann explains: “For this task, the managers have to switch from the usual criticism mode to solution mode, while the young entrepreneurs see their business idea through different eyes.”
On the next day of the workshop for the Swisscom managers, another tool is the focus: rapid prototyping. Lego figures, piggy banks, coins, modelling clay and marshmallows cover the tables. One group is tasked with creating a blog with these items. The second group has to present how they can convince the group management to release funds for new projects. Michel Bachmann explains the method: “Rapid prototyping is a playful method of visualising projects. The focus is not on the handicrafts, but on the process.” So the main topic is not the methods themselves, but the transfer of ideas within Swisscom.
For the Swisscom managers on the innovation team, work with the workshop at Impact Hub Zurich, which Swisscom supports, is not over. The hard work is still to come: three months for the transfer prototyping. And the Fellowship ICT4good competition will stretch over the next twelve months, until the winner holds a final presentation in August 2016.
What opportunities does digitisation have in store for your company? We consider this question at the Swisscom Business Campus. You can develop your future business model by working together with our experts in co-creation workshops.
Over 300 entrepreneurs, innovators and social entrepreneurs use the inspiring workspaces at the very central location at Impact Hub Zurich. In addition to networking, the start-ups are offered educational events and further training programmes.
On the upper floors, project teams from a variety of companies work in intensive collaboration and over long periods of time according to the philosophy and methods of human-centered design. On the ground floor, we allow companies, managers, individual enterprises, students and lateral thinkers to take their first steps in the methods of human-centered design.
A competence centre for digitisation on the EPFL campus is the result of a strategic partnership between Swisscom and EPFL. The lab is a collaborative space that connects technologies, expertise and methods with EPFL research in order to drive the digital transformation of Swisscom customers forwards.
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