Today, just coming back from an inspiring meeting where CoOrpheumeum, TeamAcademy, LockSchuppen and SingularityUniversity have been the topics, some thoughts are racing through my mind.
What is so special about TeamAcademy that it has caught my interest a while ago?
PeterSenge, founder of Society for Organizational Learning, at his panel discussion (tune in at 1:11:10) at MIT mentioned TeamAcademy back in 2005. It seems like the entrepreneurial incubator for the future. Dialogue sessions as seen on the left are one essential part of the daily entrepreneurial work at TeamAcademy. The picture was taken in January 2009 during the IGNITION workshop in Jyväskylä. This kind of session is normal part of the entrepreneurial education, running up to 4 hours each (it sounds like a waste of time at first sight, but really needs quite some time to enable that people in the group feel safe enough to state their questions, feelings, problems, etc.)
Run in an old factory of the paper industry in Jyväskylä, close to the railway station, the place is set up in an OpenSpace style. This resembles current CoWorking spaces that are currently emerging around the globe, to foster the entrepreneurial power of small startups and team entrepreneurs. On the flight presentations, workshops, etc. can be set up with no big effort. Changing the environment to the needs of the entrepreneurs, this is what future work and design spaces will need to be - the more open and flexible the better.
Ville Hast (2nd from left) and Ville Keränen (3rd from left) have been the coaches for the workshop IGNITION for Leadership. Both are part of a spin-off of TeamAcademy, called MonkeyBusiness.
Their saying is for learning to happen:
More Action - More Chaos - More Mistakes - More Learning!
How true is that?
At the end of the three-day workshop stood a so-called "customer challenge". A Spanish company offering software for innovation management had given the real case in for the teams to provide useful consulting for their problem. As a Spanish company there recognition in the global world of innovation program provides was not yet valued. So their question was, "How and in which ways can we gain better recognition, and open new markets?".
Within a 2-hours session, the workshop participants in three different groups worked on solutions to be presented (in a short few minutes long video to be transmitted to the client via Skype).
In the end, every party in the process gained:
Team Academy - spreading the word through real-life experience of new kind of entrepreneurship education
Participants - reasonably priced workshop (including housing, food, workshop and party of TeamAcademy anniversary), direct conversations with TeamAcademy students, head coach (JohannesPartanen) and other coaches
Coaches - More practice with international diverse participants (Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, Netherlands)
Client - Diverse solution input in a very short and dense time, pricing feeds (probably) back into subsidizing the price for participants to attend
Entrepreneurship - the spirit of what can be achieved together has sparked all participants
All in all, this has led to starting the entrepreneurial think tank and incubator LockSchuppen. We also have set up a supporting CoWorking space, CoOrpheum, within an old ballroom to prototype the new forms of cooperative work (currently the crowd is working to convince the City of Dresden that it is worthwhile to emerge a "double" of TeamAcademy!).
What are you doing to achieve a similar vision in your city?
PS.: Inspired and driven by (in inspired order ;-)):
What is so special about TeamAcademy that it has caught my interest a while ago?
Their saying is for learning to happen:
More Action - More Chaos - More Mistakes - More Learning!
How true is that?
At the end of the three-day workshop stood a so-called "customer challenge". A Spanish company offering software for innovation management had given the real case in for the teams to provide useful consulting for their problem. As a Spanish company there recognition in the global world of innovation program provides was not yet valued. So their question was, "How and in which ways can we gain better recognition, and open new markets?".
Within a 2-hours session, the workshop participants in three different groups worked on solutions to be presented (in a short few minutes long video to be transmitted to the client via Skype).
In the end, every party in the process gained:
Team Academy - spreading the word through real-life experience of new kind of entrepreneurship education
Participants - reasonably priced workshop (including housing, food, workshop and party of TeamAcademy anniversary), direct conversations with TeamAcademy students, head coach (JohannesPartanen) and other coaches
Coaches - More practice with international diverse participants (Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, Netherlands)
Client - Diverse solution input in a very short and dense time, pricing feeds (probably) back into subsidizing the price for participants to attend
Entrepreneurship - the spirit of what can be achieved together has sparked all participants
All in all, this has led to starting the entrepreneurial think tank and incubator LockSchuppen. We also have set up a supporting CoWorking space, CoOrpheum, within an old ballroom to prototype the new forms of cooperative work (currently the crowd is working to convince the City of Dresden that it is worthwhile to emerge a "double" of TeamAcademy!).
What are you doing to achieve a similar vision in your city?
PS.: Inspired and driven by (in inspired order ;-)):
- PeterClaussen (visionary & former plant manager of BMW Plant Leipzig; I remember well our conversations during these times :-))
- JayForrester (founder of the field SystemDynamics, I met him back in 2007 during a workshop at MIT Sloan; he told me at the age of 89 years back then, "Even if others don't yet understand your idea or vision, work on it. You will learn from feedback yourself!")
- SingularityUniversity (founded by RayKurzweil)
- SystemDynamicsSociety
- PI Community (founded by OttoScharmer)
- OttoScharmer's blog (action researcher on organizational change, author of "TheoryU")
- CharlesVanDerHaegen (who told me in August 2008 the following, "I will be going to Finland to see the Penguins!"
- RayKurzweil (founder of SingularityUniversity, inventor and author of "The Singularity is Near" whom we met at the 4th DresdenFutureForum)
- SocietyForOrganizationalLearning
- RainerWasserfuhr
- FraukeGodat (running a prototyping of a TheoryU CaseClinic with me back in Berlin in March 2009)
