A Big Plug from OVO Innovation

OVO Innovation is Jeffrey Phillips' organization. Jeffrey devoted part of his latest monthly newsletter to us and how wonderful Mindcamp was. Clearly he's a deeply perceptive and intelligent man! Here it is quoted in full. Here's a link, too, to sign up to get Jeffrey's newsletter on a regular basis.

from OVO newsletter by Jeffrey Phillips/OVO Innovation, October 2009
The Innovation Gymnasium

Mindcamp
I called Mindcamp the innovation gymnasium because the word gymnasium means more than we typically use it for in the States. In Europe, the word means a school that focuses on educating the mind and the body. To me, that's what Mindcamp did for my innovation muscles. It stretched my mind and my body, and brought me back energized. Mindcamp is the brainchild of Tim Hurson and the folks at Thinkxic. Regular readers of the newsletter will know that I recommend Tim's book, and when he suggested that I submit a speaking topic at his Mindcamp I was thrilled to have a chance.

What is Mindcamp?
Frankly, I'm still trying to puzzle that one out. The website says that Mindcamp is a "four-day micro-university for personal, professional, and organizational creativity - a feast of 90-minute concurrent sessions presented by the best creativity leaders in North America and world-wide." It was all of that and more. Better than an innovation conference since many of the participants had the chance to speak. Better than a training program given the breadth of topics and the interactivity. And, best of all, it occurs on a very fundamental basis, stripping away a lot of the overhead that is unnecessary to focus on the interaction and education. After all, in what other innovation conference could you get to sleep in a yurt?

My top takeaways
The recurring theme is that creativity and imagination in business is important, and yet so often neglected. While innovative types like John Mackay from Whole Foods schedule blocks of time in their calendar to think and imagine new products or services, the culture in most firms actively discourages any creative thinking exercises, and even when these are done they are often half-hearted attempts that are assumed to be failures before they even begin.

Another take-away: there are many creative thinking techniques and methods that can be deployed. I attended several breakouts that used analogies, collages, NLP techniques and many other methods and approaches. There's no "one size fits all" approach, find the method that seems right for your firm or your circumstances. Another takeaway - creativity and imagination are infiltrating the corporate world. At the conference I met people from Disney (no surprise) but also American Express and other financial firms as well as other Fortune 500 firms. Most of the practitioners in attendance have worked with large corporations, so the concept of creativity is definitely working its way into every business. Why? There's no alternative. To tap the best thinking and to differentiate from competition, every firm needs to get the best possible thinking it can from its employees, partners and customers. Using the same old tools and methods guarantees the same old results. Introducing more creativity and imagination is crucial for new ideas.

Improving innovation conferences
MindCamp is the model for what an innovation and creativity conference should be. No flashy banners, no "booths", no executive, gold-plated sponsors. Just a lot of committed people who are really passionate about innovation. Unlike a lot of conferences where people turn up to gather information but don't engage in the proceedings, people at Mindcamp were engaged and exchanging ideas and information all the time.

There are a couple of other "MindCamp" like events occurring this fall and into the spring, in case you are interested. There will be a program in Florida and in Atlanta, and of course there is the CREAconference in Italy in the spring. If you can attend one of these, I'd encourage you to go, or plan for MindCamp Toronto next fall.

What a Great Mindcamp!.... and the To Do List

Awesome Mindcamp! You'd think our job would be done, but now there's a great big to-do list, including, in no particular order:

1. collect, read, and share evaluations among the planning team
2. share evaluations with presenters when requested (and appropriate)
   
3. organize storage for the Mindcamp supplies, previously stored in Kristen's basement but she's moving next month
4. go back and drop off lost keys plus pick up the giant graffiti sign Sid Marquez created as Graffeur-in-Residence
5. before that, figure out where we can store said graffiti sign
6. post a list of the machu-picchus (which is what pecha-kuchas will henceforth be called, thanks to Bill Sturner) on the website so people can see who presented what
7. start a Mindcamp 2009 group on The Hub so people can post their stories and pictures etc. etc.
8. create a page giving the websites, blogs and Twitter names for presenters so people can follow up with them (or just follow them)
9. before that, write presenters to ensure we have their blog addresses and Twitter names, which we've never thought to collect before
   
10. figure out which weekend we can book for Mindcamp 2010
    
11. collect all the petty cash receipts and reimburse people who spent money on our behalf
12. tidy up all the bookkeeping
13. send out a couple of invoices for last-minute registrations and upgrades
14. send out an email pointing participants to the handout web page (a page containing links to PDFs of handouts presenters were willing to share)
15. before that, send out an email to presenters encouraging them to provide PDFs if they haven't already
16. have a debrief meeting among the planning team to discuss how things went and how they might change for next year
17. change the date/information on the website to reflect the fact that Mindcamp 2009 has already happened, and Mindcamp 2010 is now less than a year away
18. send out paypal invoices for the IOUs we received for T-shirts and books
19. kick myself for not getting decent photos of the half-dozen presenters who have never provided me with anything better than a lo-res grainy postage stamp or 20-year-old vacation snap....
    
20. .....?
    

OK that's all I can think of sitting here in the kitchen at my laptop. There are certainly about a million more I haven't thought of or am not responsible for anyway. But instead of doing them, well, I'm writing this. Much less overwhelming!

If you who are reading this were at Mindcamp, THANK you for coming and making it the great event that it was. If you weren't, my sincere condolences, you missed the best Mindcamp ever....Sorry!

Absent Friends

Inevitably, some of our favourite Mindcampers can't make it every year. And when they don't they are missed! Two of them just touched me deeply today by sending something special. One is Jonathan Brown, who can't make it this year as he's travelling in Europe. But here's what he sent me:

"In your last e-mail you sent me, you challenged me to learn and play a song in a language I didn't know. Since I won't be with you for this Mindcamp edition, have a look at this (100% in Italian). And also this one (in German), with a surprise guest. Have a great Mindcamp, my Mind will be with you while travelling in Europe. ;-)"

And here they are!

Oh, Dear, What Will the Weather Be?

Starting 10 days before Mindcamp, my morning ritual includes looking the weather forecast and publishing the current predictions for each Mindcamp day as it draws closer. Starting with the wild-and-wooly 10-day forecasts -- this year I'm using weather.com -- I work my way to the more dependable 7-day forecasts from Environment Canada who refrain from longer-term predictions. In doing so, I pass through heaven and hell.

Will it rain? Will it be freezing cold? Will we get any sun at all? Can we have a campfire? Should we warn people to bring umbrellas, extra blankets?

September is generally a mercurial month, weather-wise, or rather I should say weather-prediction-wise. The 10-day forecast tends to be rather dramatic, and this year at one point or another predicted rain on every Mindcamp day. Environment Canada, reassuringly, has come in with more moderate forecasts of clouds and the odd shower. Fortunately for us, EC forecasts tend to be the most reliable, and they're also specific to the vicinity of Mindcamp, whereas the US-based weather.com recognizes only Toronto as a prediction-worthy locale.

All of which is to say that, if you want to share my heaven and hell, watch the changing predictions unfold as I post them on the front page of mindcamp.org.

"We'll See..."

I'm going to start saying "We'll see...." when people say, "See you at Mindcamp!" I'm not trying to be a killjoy, it's just that you never know what's going to happen.

Yesterday we received the unhappy news that Starr Cline (The Power of Yes) has had a mishap, and although she'll be alright she needs to rest up a bruised leg and therefore she and Jerry won't be coming this year. Fingers crossed for next year!

Canadian-Mexican diplomacy nearly resulted in the loss of Clara Kluk (The Art of Defining a Problem, Real-Time Innovation). In July our wonderful government suddenly announced that henceforth Mexican citizens would need a visa to travel to Canada. There was no advance notice, no grace period for people with immediately travel plans. Clara had already submitted her sessions, made her travel arrangements, bought her tickets, and paid her registration. Suddenly she was faced with having to generate the right paperwork (which included, bizarrely, Tim's Canadian tax assessment) and pay Canada a fee of $250 in order to make the trip she had already planned and paid for. Moreover, the lineups that sprang up outside the Canadian embassy were so large that it seemed in doubt that she could get a visa in time.

We hustled to provide the paperwork, and then Clara, with good humour and patience, got up at 4:00am one morning to join the line outside the embassy. Hours later that afternoon, she got to the front of the line and obtained an appointment for an interview in mid-August. By coincidence, Tim and I were arriving by plane to Mexico City to visit her (no visa required!) at the very hour of her interview. We all breathed great sighs of relief when her application was accepted and her visa granted.

So, see you at Mindcamp? Well, we'll see...

Making Space - and Busting Fossil Ideas

One of the great challenges of Mindcamp is size: we're very successful, sold out pretty much every year, but the size of the Cedar Glen site has traditionally limited us to 120 participants. The number of beds at Mindcamp is just 90, and we've been able to add 30 to that figure through yurts, through tenting, and through people staying off-site in nearby hotels. But 120 was our ceiling.

Why? The Cedar Glen dining room capacity was just 120 and, since we feel that taking all our meals together is an integral part of the Mindcamp experience, we stayed at 120 for a number of years.

Tim often talks in his keynotes about "fossil ideas" -- things we believe only because we've always believed them. Well, the 120-person dining room capacity is one of these things. It was true when we started Mindcamp in 2003. But it turns out the figure was based on the Y's then-provisionary (and cautious) estimate of fire safety guidelines. Since then the YMCA have confirmed that they can, and routinely do, accommodate 160 in the dining room comfortably and safely.

We just never asked. Till now. A banana peel we've been slipping on for years...

What's in a Nametag?

In keeping with our voluntary, low-cost, every-penny-counts, environmental approach, we've always shied away from Swag -- you know, the T-shirts, bags, caps, pens, and other booty one gets at conferences. We even have people make their own nametags -- that is of course all about creativity, but isn't it nice that it saves money and printer ink.

Last year, however, thoroughly sick of the thin cords we'd been using (and having to untangle!), we were able to get a great price on some "thinkx/mindcamp" lanyards. It warmed our hearts quite disproportionately to be able to offer this tiny but respectable nugget of Swag to participants.

While discussing this year's strategy, one of us produced the forest of nametag accessories accumulated over years of creativity-conference-going. Even after throwing out the broken, stained, cracked and old ones, there are still about 40 usable nametag holders here, from simple coloured lanyards to elaborate pouches with pockets and and penholders.

So we'll have a tradeoff: there will be official thinkx/mindcamp lanyards, but there will also be a mixed bag of craziness for people who want to choose something completely different. And have you got any lanyards at home? Bring them along! Pass them around! Why not? It's environmentally responsible, and frankly pretty creative too.