As the first half of 2014 has flown by, we’re grateful for all the tremendous experiences we’ve been a part of so far this year. Here are ten, quick highlights we thought we’d share. Looking forward to continuing to build our story and would love to stay connected with you!
1. Trend Report via Smart & Scrappy Desk Research
We partnered with a leading CPG brand to create a 2014 trend report by leveraging smart & scrappy desk research. We’re told that the report has been heralded as one of the best ROI projects the team has ever taken on!
2. An Entrepreneurial Approach to Ideation
A major food manufacturer was ready for new ideas. We brought inspiration, analogs, trends and energy to a two-day ideation workshop, complete with rapid prototyping and shark-tank pitches that yielded 100s of ideas, and 16 new business propositions in the pipeline.
3. Social Media Research to Recommend a Consumer Relevant Model for Re-designing Shopping Aisle
Faced with the business challenge to help a CPG category to re-imagine the design of the shopping aisle, we quickly mined social media to recommend a consumer relevant “model” for re-design that’s now in the process of being implemented within one of their retail partners!
4. Practical, Entrepreneurial Approach to Urgent Business Question
When a major CPG brand noticed its business was in decline, they turned to us to quickly and inexpensively understand “why?”. We took a practical, entrepreneurial approach and served back an answer, with supporting consumer verbatims and videos to drive needed decisions.
5. Innovation & Entrepreneurship Training & Coaching
We’ve had the opportunity to share our innovation & entrepreneurship frameworks, processes and competency models via training and coaching for individuals, MBA programs, corporate engagements and open enrollment events.
6. Co-created and Piloted Competition for Startups to Inspire and Build New Ideas
We co-created and piloted a competition for startups from around the world on behalf of our client, a F500 manufacturer, as a new way to meet a business need that saved our client from the high cost and long lead time of internal development. It’s inspiring us to launch into more competitions and events as avenues for idea generation.
And, we’ve been excited to jump into a few other opportunities:
7. Traveling to Soweto, South Africa
Traveling to Soweto, South Africa for a life-changing look at how the developing world innovates, builds community, deals with extreme poverty, and lives joyfully.
8. Teaching Miami MBA Students our Ideation Process
Guest teaching our Immersive Idea Development process to MBA students at Miami University. They’ve asked us back for a third semester, and we love the engagement of the students in the program!
9. Inspired MRMW Conference Attendees to Move the Market Research Industry into A Sustained Mode of Innovation
We partnered with vendor and client side market researchers and leaders to imagine how we might reinvent the industry at a workshop at the MRMW conference this past spring in Chicago. Here’s a recap.
10. Lending our Expertise and Passion
We’ve been elected to a few new boards: the PDMA of Cincinnati and the NKU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute, where we love to contribute our ideas and energy. In addition, lending our expertise and passion to launch a curriculum program for Unpolished, a Cincinnati based effort to encourage, educate and engage aspiring entrepreneurs.
Stay connected via the following social channels (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) for updates as we continue to grow and partner with more clients, launch new capabilities out of our garage and as we embark on an update to our branding and overall identity over the back half of this amazing year!
See below for an updated one-pager that highlights our growing capabilities and client list. Feel free to download and share!
