Together with Dr. Anna Trifilova from the Nizhny Novgorod Architecture & Civil Engineering State University, Russia, Dr. Jan Hendrik Schumann from the Technische Universität München (Lehrstuhl für Dienstleistungs- und Technologiemarketing) and our Metor Dr. Bettina von Stamm from the Innovation Leadership Forum we recently started the project “From Real to Virtual”. Before we explain the aim of the project and its possible outcomes we are happy to announce that the project is generously financially supported by the Peter-Pribilla Foundation.
The picture shows Prof. Dr. Prof. h.c. Dr. h.c. Ralf Reichwald, chairman of the board of the Peter-Pribilla Foundation and Prof. Dr. Kathrin Möslein, board member of the Peter-Pribilla Foundation, when awarding the commitment of the Peter-Pribilla Foundation to the project team (Anna Trifilova and Alexander Richter; missing Jan Hendrik Schumann and Bettina von Stamm).
Project’s objectives /aim
The aim of the project ‘From Real to Virtual’ is to support the translation of insights from face-to-face meetings, such as a workshops, into a virtual format so that the insights can be shared, developed further and acted upon by a wider community, be it inside organizations or among customers across dispersed geographical locations.
Content of the project
The ambition of the project is to enable further exploration and continuation of face to face encounters by placing their essence into the virtual realm where it can be picked up by (a) a much larger number of participants and (b) across much wider spatial/geographical distribution. The solution developed will support this by facilitating a transfer of the created insights into the virtual world. By doing so, this project will enable the shift from the rather synchronous idea generation process – mostly taking part in the real world – to the rather asynchronous innovation management process – mostly taking part in the virtual world.
A very important factor to be taken into consideration in the transfer from real to virtual is the influence of different cultures, be it at the organisational, industry or national level. Thus, in the project we will try to enhance our understanding of the influence of culture (a) when moving from insight or idea to enactment or implementation (b) transferring ideas and insights from the real to the virtual world and (c) sharing insights and ideas generated in a small community with a larger audience, which is often unknown in its diversity.
As a concrete scenario to explore and pilot the transfer from real to virtual we will use the “Future of Innovation (FoI) Toolkit”, a toolkit that allows organisations to explore a variety of aspects they need to understand, address and be ready for in order to create a successful future of innovation. The FoI Toolkit, currently under development, is building on a book of the same title. The fact that the toolkit is still under development means that it can benefit from and be adjusted to the learnings gained from the cross-disciplinary project.
Outputs
The benefit of this project is that it does not start with a blank sheet but in fact builds on a number of existing projects and insights:
the “visualizing the invisible” project which was part of the Pribilla Foundation’s funding last year
the community mirrors project which is about the visualisation of ideas and connected to the Genie project
the KEEK project which is about collaboration on innovations
the “thefutureofinnovation” project, which is a crowdsourcing initiative manifested in a book as well as a website
The following outcomes will be created:
- prototype of the FoI suitcase
- a prototype that helps to understand how the transfer of insights and content of FoI workshops from the real into the virtual world can be supported
- a framework that provides insights into cultural implications
To create awareness, interest and collect feedback ongoing progress and interesting insights will be shared via the project platform and via the Innovation Lab platform.