Weitere ähnliche Inhalte Ähnlich wie Lift Conference Design Research (20) Lift Conference Design Research1. Lift Conference
Design Research Findings
June 11, 2010
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
2. Contents
Introduction 4
Networking Beats Content 11
Content Still Matters 17
Making the Workshops Work 22
Create Centres of Gravity 28
Do the Basics Really Well 30
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 2
4. Introduction
The Lift conference hosts a unique, diverse, and inspirational gathering whose
success can be traced back to a mindset that challenges assumptions, dismisses
the status quo, and asks questions others avoid. It is precisely this mindset that
drove Lift to come to frog for a novel collaboration.
Lift asked to be ‘put under the design microscope’ by using design research
techniques to find out how attendees really perceive the conference and what
they like – and don’t like – about it. Lift recognized that the results may expose
flaws, but took the point of view that these presented opportunities.
frog is honored to have been part of this initiative, and pleased to provide this
detailed set of findings from our research on the Lift 10 conference in Geneva,
Switzerland, in May of 2010. We hope these findings are useful for planning future
Lift conferences.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 4
5. The design research approach
Design research is a primarily qualitative approach of using observations and
interviews to discover people’s true behaviors, perceptions, and unmet needs. It
is an iterative process of observing, analysing the data, coming up with ideas and
hypotheses based on the analysis, and then repeating the process to further
improve understanding.
It involves spending time in an environment – in this case the Lift conference
itself – and gathering large quantities of observations and anecdotes. These
individual pieces of data are analysed and clustered into themes.
The themes formed the basis of the frogThink workshop for generating new ideas
about how to improve the Lift experience.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 5
6. What we did
frog carried out a number of parallel activities during the three days of the
conference:
• Observation of attendees’ behaviors and of presentations and workshops
• Ad hoc interviews with attendees to get their impressions
• Experience diaries that 50 Lift attendees filled out on the first day
• Monitoring of conference Twitter feeds
• Analysis of photos emailed from Lifters’ camera-phones
• Conducted a frogThink ideation workshop with about 20 attendees
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 6
7. Experience diaries
50 Lifters volunteered at check-in to fill out experience diaries to track their
highs, lows, and networking experiences during the first day. Networking was
tracked by noting the color of a new contact’s LIFT badge.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 7
8. frogThink workshop
frog invited about 20 Lifters to a one hour frogThink session on day two to
generate ideas for improving Lift, using four themes from our research so far. We
used an ideation activity called Random Entry to help participants make the leap
from traditional thought patterns to creative, innovative thought patterns
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 8
9. Our findings
This document describes the collected findings and groups them into several
themes:
• Networking beats content
• Content on the main stage still matters
• Making the workshops work
• Create centres of gravity
• Do the basics really well
Throughout we include quotes, observations, Tweets, and ideas for
improvements, shown as follows:
frog observations and Tweets
anecdotes Ideas, suggestions and
food for thought
At the end of some sections we also describe some of the ideas from the
frogThink workshop (which didn’t cover all the above themes as they had not all
been defined by the time of the workshop)
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 9
10. Contact:
Till Grusche, Senior Marketing Manager (till.grusche@frogdesign.com)
frog wishes to thank Laurent Haug and Nicolas Nova for their interest in using
design research to study the Lift experience.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 10
11. 1 / Networking Beats Content
The ability to meet and share ideas with a
diverse range of interesting people is the
major reason people come to Lift
11
12. The diversity of Lift is a huge draw
Meeting a diverse range of people is a key goal, at least as important as the
presentations themselves
“I like the connecting of universes “The diversity at Lift is amazing.”
and ideas.”
“The people and the networking “Lift people are so inspirational.”
are the powerful part.”
“Relatively many female
speakers at #lift10.”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
13. Lift feels like a family reunion with new family always joining
People like the mix of newcomers and old faces. They expect to see some past
Lifters, and to connect with Lift newcomers. People new to Lift can feel like they
are not yet members of the family.
“As a newbie, #lift10 feels
like a gathering of a family
you don’t know yet. Let’s
see if 3 days can make you
part of it.”
One woman in her 50’s
observed that Lift is a great
way to get inspiration from
“#lift10 #meet #like younger people.
@faveeo @encoreungeek
@kian @genckas having
lunch great ideas about
aggregation curation and
tagging.” Is there more Lift could do
to help seasoned and new
Lifters connect?
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
14. Networking at Lift has some unusual challenges
Lifters are not the “usual” business crowd. They may not have business cards,
making remembering who you’ve talked to and staying in touch di cult. They are
from many countries, and speak many languages. This can make striking up
conversations intimidating, and people often cluster by language.
Is there more Lift could do to
help people of di erent
languages and nationalities
connect? Or maybe
encouraging people to
overcome their hesitancy is
part of creative serendipity?
The Lift community/profile
networking tool is one way of
helping people connect after
the conference. But a more
immediate, tangible alternative
for people who don’t have
business cards may be useful.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 14
15. Lifters rely on each other for advice during the conference
Using in-person as well as social-networked conversations, Lifters ask for and
o er advice on which workshops to attend, and logistical information such as
what the wi-fi code is.
“Looks like there’s no
pressroom but found a
couple of desks between
rooms 13 & 14 so I set up
my own. Come join me.”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 15
16. frogThink Idea: Lift Family Tree
Some ways to help people make their first introductions with the Lift family:
Create a buddy system that
pairs up Lift old-hands with
newcomers. The veteran
Lifters can show the
newcomers around them,
introduce them, and in turn
maybe meet some
unexpected people.
Require people to register
and get food in pairs (can be
separate from the buddy
system idea). Encourage
people to break the ice of
starting a new conversation
by giving them a reason to
connect.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 16
17. 2 / Content Still Matters
While networking is very important, the
quality of presentations is still a big draw
17
18. Keynote presentations
People still have high expectations of being informed, inspired and seeing
something compelling and new from the keynote presentations (such as Russell
Davies, below). There seemed to be a feeling that the main presentations this
year were not as consistently good as in past years, especially on the first day.
“# lift10 very deceptive “#lift10 has relaxed
presentation on old media. previous years' design
A lot of videos I have aesthetic for speakers'
already seen. No analysis.” slides of more graphics,
fewer bullet points: a
disappointment #dislikes”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
19. Audience engagement varied hugely
Some speakers really engaged well with the audience, others did not. With so
many distractions available (email, web, Twitter…) the speakers have to work
much harder to keep an audience’s attention.
Could Lift help speakers
with ways to better engage
with the increasingly
sophisticated and
demanding audience?
Is the burden all on the
speakers, or should there be
expectations about
attention span from the
audience to?
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 19
20. Open Stage talks well received
Open Stage talks were the small jewels in the program. Lifters really seemed to
respond well to them and very much liked their diversity. The short talks had an
energy, focus, and emphasis on personal work that was sometimes lacking in the
“big” talks.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 20
21. frogThink Idea: Content Mash-Up
Allow the audience to visually mash-up slides from various speaker’s
presentations, together with live Twitter chat to create new presentations that
link ideas together.
This encourages audience interaction to be more reflective on a session rather
than just reacting to single presentations.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 21
22. 3 / Making the Workshops Work
Lifters really enjoyed the workshops that were
well-run and engaging. But this was probably the
least consistent aspect of the conference,
leading to some disappointments.
22
23. Workshops were most successful when hands-on
The workshops that were interactive, hands-on, and which broke groups into
small teams to work collaboratively were the most successful
The Mobile Apps workshop Participants praised the
(shown here) was a eBook workshop for its
success: hands on, content and ability to
prototypes to work with, connect with people inside
small groups, speaker had and outside the eBook
run it several times before arena. A self-described
eBook expert said that
even she learned
something
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
24. Lecture “workshops” were not well received
Workshops that primarily consisted of lecture were not considered successful or
as useful
This is a user-submitted
photo of one lecture-based
workshop
“Enabling Spaces
workshop is coming to an
end. Had expected more.
Can Lift “curate” workshop Too much lecture, too little
formats to help ensure interactivity. Way too many
consistency and quality? slides.”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
25. Workshops need a critical mass of people to be successful
“Critical mass” in workshops is important – having a good density of people (ratio
of room size to number of people). Helps the workshop feel vibrant and energetic.
The VJ workshop (shown
here) was more lecture than
workshop, and had very few Can Lift balance the
attendees. Low energy & quantity of participants
engagement. People perhaps across the workshops more
afraid to leave because it proactively to help create
would be “obvious” in such a the necessary density and
small group. group sizes?
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
26. Furniture in workshops helps – or gets in the way
Easily movable chairs and desks really helped the workshop dynamic and let
groups collaborate easily. Fixed furniture, rows of desks, and built-in equipment
made it harder.
The rows of desks and the
microphones and
headphones hindered the
dynamic group
interactions that we saw in
rooms where chairs and
tables could be moved.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 26
27. Workshop presenters benefit from guidance
Presenters of workshops, especially those running them for the first time,
appreciate guidance from Lift about what to expect in terms of facilities and
audience, and how to best run their workshops.
The presenter of this
eBook workshop felt like he
was well prepared by Lift
and understood what the
room set-up and audience
was going to be like.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 27
28. 4 / Create Centres of Gravity
There are multiple ways to create centres of
gravity that give people opportunities
and excuses to meet and exchange ideas
28
29. Food is an enabler of networking
Food helps people network: Tables give places to congregate, chance encounters
happen when getting food, and refreshing a drink or plate gives people an excuse
to leave one group and join another.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary.
30. Food is an enabler of networking (cont.)
The co ee tables during the breaks were too small, only allowing about 3 people
to talk. Discourages bringing new people into existing groups at the tables. On the
first day the co ee/food stations were out at the edges of the room which
dispersed the crowd, while on the second day they were more evenly distributed
which helped the crowd mingle better.
Day 1, co ee and food at Day 2, lots more co ee and
the edges of the room food, and all over the room
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 30
31. The CICG building poses some challenges to networking
The lobby in the conference center has thick pillars that made it hard to scan the
room for familiar faces, find a specific person, or find a new group to join. The
long ledges and benches in the building encourage people to string out in rows,
focusing on their laptops rather than each other.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 31
32. Help Lifters connect with speakers before and after their talks
People want to follow up with presenters after their talks, but given the large
space and crowd, finding them can be di cult. People also wanted to know more
about the talks and workshops before they occurred, and get a feel for the
personality and topics of the speakers beyond bios/descriptions on the Lift site.
Is there more Lift could do
to help promote each talk
and workshop, and connect
speakers to audience even
before the presentations?
Photos of speakers will help
Lifters identify them ahead
of time.
Presenters could go to a
Teach Me To Make did designated area after their
some self-promotion for talks so that Lifters could
their gadget-making demo know to meet them there.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 32
33. Mingling networking, relaxing, and working is di cult
Networking, getting “real work” done, and relaxing or decompressing are all
activities that need to occur for di erent people at di erent times at a conference
as large as Lift. Having them all occur mostly in a single space (the lobby) is
problematic.
Consider a “decomp-
ression” or “quiet” zone
where people can work or
just relax, away from the
noise of networking
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 33
34. Hot gadgets are centres of gravity
Hot gadgets (e.g. iPad, below) brought by Lifters are themselves excuses to
strike up a conversation with an unfamiliar person. Gadgets and cutting-edge
technologies brought by vendors showing at Lift are also e ective, but at Lift 10
were too removed from the main crowd.
“Playing with Microsoft
Surface at #lift10 #like.
The device is super neat!
They should put at least 5
in the lobby.”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 34
35. Demos create crowds
New product and vendor demos and hands-on interactions drew small crowds,
however they were somewhat isolated from the main gathering space.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 35
36. Badges can work harder
The name badges could do more to help people connect by providing more
information about the person (interests, language, etc.). The word stickers
supplied by Lift were a fun idea but not widely used (exception below), many
people did not see them in their bags or understand what they were for.
The Lift 10 badges had the
person’s first name in
small text, last name in
large text. Switch to make
first name readable at a
glance, especially given
international crowd and
accents. (Especially
embarrassing for women
who have people staring at
“#lift10 has relaxed their chests trying to read
previous years' design their names!)
aesthetic for speakers'
slides of more graphics,
fewer bullet points: a
disappointment #dislikes”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 36
37. Badge colours
As part of the design research approach, we introduced the suggestion to
attendees that the colours on the badges may be of significance, to see if this
a ected behavior and networking. The experience diaries asked people to track
which colours of people they networked with. We found that attendees did start
to assign meanings to the colours, which were in fact randomly assigned.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 37
38. Badge colours (cont.)
We asked people to suggest what colour they felt like after a day of networking.
Though colour assignment was random, this encouraged participants to engage
with the diary and become more conscious about the connections they made.
Results showed that though some people chose to believe they belonged to a
particular group, most believe and wish to be an individual.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 38
39. frogThink Idea: Gravity Zones
Create di erent zones for di erent types of activities:
High-energy zone with
centres of gravity to attract
people. For example, a Lift
trampoline for people who
need to get rid of some extra
energy.
A Wi-Fi-free zone where Organize the attendees into the shape of the Lift
network connectivity is logo, photograph it as a memento. Gives people
unavailable, encouraging a fun activity and also encourages serendipitous
people to network in person meeting.
rather than virtually.
A power-nap zone where
people can take quick breaks
from the noise of the main
event.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 39
40. 5 / Do the Basics Really Well
Even if the content and networking are great, the
basic logistics and infrastructure still need to
be taken care of
40
41. Way-finding in the space was problematic
The CICG space is strangely di cult to navigate given that it’s just a loop. Room
numbers seem randomly distributed on floors. Maps of the Lift rooms were not
plentiful enough nor where people expected them to be. The balloon signage was
fun and on-theme, but the balloons twisted and shrank over time which made
signage change or disappear from view.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 41
42. Comfort and networking were good
The CICG main hall was comfortable to sit in for long periods, and the tables with
power outlets convenient for keeping laptops on. The wi-fi stability and bandwidth
were highly appreciated.
“#lift10 #like wifi robustness”
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 42
43. Improve the check-in experience
As the first interaction with Lift, the check-in helps create a mood for the first day.
There were some frustrations over it taking too long and having to wait in line.
“Rough start to #lift10 -
Queuing for registration,
no time left for co ee, now
in a workshop on
#innovation enabling
spaces...”
“At check-in there were too
Think like Disneyland: What many people and too-few
can Lift do to keep people desks” – Journal entry
entertained/informed while
they are waiting in line?
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 43
44. Create a greeting experience
Once checked in, there were not enough obvious centres of gravity and way-
finding mechanisms to help people feel at home and find their way around.
What could Lift do to help
people start networking the
minute they get past check-
in, and in the first break of
the day?
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 44
45. frogThink Idea: People Previews
After people check in they record a short video introducing themselves, their
interests, and what they are planning to see at the conference. These videos are
then immediately played back on screens lined up where people are queuing to
check in, giving them a sense of who else is attending, and keep them occupied
while waiting to check in.
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 45
47. Themes Summary
Networking The ability to meet and share ideas with a diverse range of
interesting people is the major reason people come to Lift
Beats Content
Content Still While networking is very important, the quality of presentations
is still a big draw
Matters
Making the Lifters really enjoyed the workshops that were well-run and
engaging. But this was probably the least consistent aspect of
Workshops Work the conference, leading to some disappointments.
Create Centres of There are multiple ways to create centres of gravity that give
people opportunities and excuses to meet and exchange ideas
Gravity
Do the Basics Even if the content and networking are great, the basic logistics
and infrastructure still need to be taken care of
Really Well
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 47
49. About frog design
frog design is a global innovation firm. We work with the world’s leading
companies, helping them create and bring to market meaningful products,
services, and experiences. Our multidisciplinary process reveals valuable
consumer and market insights and inspires lasting, humanizing solutions. With a
team of more than 500 designers, technologists, strategists, and analysts, we
deliver fully convergent experiences that span multiple technologies, platforms,
and media. We work across a broad spectrum of industries, including consumer
electronics, telecommunications, healthcare, media, education, finance, retail,
and fashion. Our clients include Disney, GE, HP, Intel, Microsoft, MTV, Qualcomm,
Seagate, Siemens and others. Founded in 1969, frog is headquartered in San
Francisco, with studios in Amsterdam, Austin, Milan, Munich, New York, Seattle,
and Shanghai.
Contact: Till.Grusche@frogdesign.com
© 2010 frog design. confidential & proprietary. 49