Intersections 2011 2nd – 3rd March, Eden Project, Cornwall.
Global financial turmoil, political change, unprecedented cuts and local protests, we are under greater pressure than ever before to find innovative, sustainable solutions to the challenges of our times.
This was the introductory positioning for the 2 day creative conference, part of the Cornwall Design Season, hosted by DOTT Cornwall team in the beautiful environment of The Eden Project.
It was a very inspiring 2 days – reaffirming existing thoughts and beliefs, where I met lots of dynamic and visionary people working towards designing a better future – looking to find ways to embed social innovation, design thinking into service provision and business culture.
The real challenge now is not to revert back to ‘business as usual’.
Below is a quick summary of the programme – but the overall take away was to focus on – more action less talk or as Tom Henderson from ShelterBox proclaimed “Keep it simple and do it now!” Josephine Green claims it really is a question of engaging with the future differently – describing the shift from command and control to a truly flat world of collaboration – ” the world view in which we now live is bankrupt”.
Summary:
Nick Jankel / WeCreate – ‘Together everything is possible’. Collaboration and Co-creation being the key theme – (Slideshare) We need to create ‘Platforms not content’.
Tom Hulme @thulme / IDEO - “Everybody can/will participate” ( 80% lurkers & 20% active) Shared learnings from founding OpenIDEO and running the project for 6 months.
David McCandless @mccandelish / Information is beautiful – “Data is the MP3 of knowledge..” Showcasing visualisations of existing data and how this can highlight new patterns of behaviour.
David Rowan @irowan / Wired UK - ‘Co-creating with bits and atoms’. Talked through well documented case studies where digital had influenced the ‘real’ world. Kiva / Zopa / Airb&b / Kickstarter … Also discussed how 3D printing had shifted R&D and the future of IP amongst manufacuring business.
Alan Moore @alansmlxl / SMLXL - ‘No straight lines’. Brilliant overview on the future of business.”We’re not in a technological revolution. We’re in a social revolution … we need to de-school our society.
Other highlights were the superb ShelterBox Hotel created for one night only, the Dott Community Innovation Awards hosted by Sea Communications as part of DOTT / Big Design Challenge on Wednesday night, Charles Armstrong’s talk on all things community and social insights using technology
I would like to leave you with the words of Tim Smit founder of the Eden Project – “Now is the time in human history where we have to prove our name ‘homo sapien’ or burn.”
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