Archive for the ‘Inspiring’ Category

Adaptics is building hardware applications that will allow you to collect and visualise measurement data using pocket-sized electronic tools — even a complete measurement toolbox — that connect wirelessly to your phone. Tim Redfern tells us about their line of products for measuring voltage, current, distance, area, and even the weather.

What idea did you start with, and how did it start to evolve?

We initially planned to design an electrical measuring circuit from scratch, but it’s much more practical to use this chip that manages the whole instrument.

Multimeters are used by electricians and people who design electronics, to measure voltage and current, but there’s a burgeoning market for artists and hobbyists who work with electronics, and that would be the market we initially envisage would be interested in [our product, Electic]. It’s quite niche, but the world market for multimeters is about 75 million — it’s not a market that’s going away anytime soon.

And since we started with LaunchPad, we’ve come to think of [Adaptics] as being a family of products, rather than thinking about it as being just one thing. We started thinking about a whole phenomenon of hardware and software products.

Can you describe what you mean by hardware apps?

We’re thinking about them as hardware apps because they’re products that have both a hardware and a software component.

It connects to your device via bluetooth and lets you make measurements. The advantage of it is that the kind of user interface you can make on a smartphone, and the features you can provide using the smartphone are much more advanced than the low-end multimeters. You can buy a basic multimeter for 20 euro, but with the smartphone, you can record the information, have a much more sophisticated interface, and save the information.

Higher end meters that do graphing can cost about 500 euro, but we’ll be able to offer features that are on a higher end at a lower price, and a lot more portable.

What else are you working on?
We started focusing on another measuring device that has wider appeal. It’s a sensor accessory that uses a laser to measure distance, and would have another couple of related sensors that will also have what’s called an inclinometer, which is like a spirit level. It will have a measuring wheel, which can be used like a tape measure to measure around curved things, or say, a path on a map. It can do things like measure area and volume.

We call it Constructic, and our initial research shows that loads of people will use it. We’re also hoping to keep them all below a hundred euro.

 

Tell us more about your approach

There’s never been an app that had a manual — the whole philosophy demands that everything has to be self-explanatory. And we want to make these products from that starting point, to blur the distinction between software on the screen and the accessory it works with.

The instructions for using it will be on the screen of the app, and you’ll be able to download it for free and preview it. Obviously you can’t do anything without the hardware, but the app will be a strong business lever for it — you can make the purchase inside the app.

Eventually we will be able to offer different versions of the software, once you’ve bought the hardware, and it will be more specific about what you’re using it for.

What was your engagement with Inventorium like?

I’d been to quite a few Inventorium events and was enjoying the discussions about devising ideas for tech startups and pitching them. It’s a different way of thinking about things, and I hadn’t had that background. I’ve been involved in creative industries and media, but the idea of actually making things and selling them is quite alien.

How did the team form?

On the round of LaunchPad 4, I was having a few chats with Jack, whom I worked with for Playhouse — a large-scale media project where we turned [Dublin’s] Liberty Hall into a big display — and a few other things. We thought it would be interesting to do something, and this was based somewhere in the centre of our interests, knowledge and abilities.

I’d been more involved in the electronics and low-level programming. Jack’s been more involved in hardware and physical design, and [fellow co-founder] Johnny, is focused on user interface and user experience design. Patrice is Johnny’s sister, and has been advising us on marketing and financial things.

It’s hard to start a business with a bunch of creative people. It would have been easier if we had someone to just take on the business end.

Where is the business now?

We’re working with a product designer who is hopefully going to come on board. We have to look closer, and look at the costs of getting into the small-scale manufacture of a prototype range. Then we’ll put them in front of people who will review them. Once we get funding together for the physical prototypes, it probably be a 3-to-4 month process to produce them.

And what else is on the horizon?

The third one, Meteotic, is the idea of a weather sensor, a mini weather station. It’s a wind speed measurer and thermometer, and measures moistures in the atmosphere. The idea would be that you could crowdsource the weather through it, mainly for outdoor activities. And we’re talking about one that’s even simpler and more mainstream, which is basically a scales for measuring weight, and it would tie in with recipe wizards. It would be a really neat, featureless cylindrical disc that you sit things on and it measures things for you. We’re quite excited for it.

Why play a game? Because games are about rules

But can you put rules on creativity?

“Say something funny.” It’s a comedian’s worst nightmare. “Go on — I don’t want to fence you in, say anything.” Why doesn’t this work?

“Say anything” creates a mental block as you try to think of a subject, a theme, an issue. But games are about rules, and when we’re feeling rebellious, we come up with crafty workarounds. Creativity is about breaking, challenging, and reshaping rules and conventions, not ignoring them.

When we have too much room to roam, we end up focusing on things that have worked in the past. And that’s fine — we all stand on the shoulders of giants. But we tend to stay safe, take our time, and end up with strategies that aren’t very exciting. Ideas end up as design by committee, and those rarely result in anything visionary.

No, when we want excitement, we want to see MacGyver build an escape mechanism we never thought possible, using chewing gum and a shoelace — that’s a thrill.

When you’re asked to “be creative”, you end up using your mental energy coming up with a problem to solve, when what you really want is to be laser-focused on coming up with a range of solutions.

What you need are concrete problems. So we give you poker, and poker gives you problems.

Inventorium Poker is unlike any game of actual poker you’ve played or seen, but “Inventorium Blackjack” sounded a little too dangerous, and Inventoriumopoly was a bit on the acquisitive side for us.

How does Inventorium Poker work?

Don’t worry, you can’t lose your shirt, your house, or your wedding ring.

We give each group of participants a deck of cards that fit the context of the event. For example, when we had a Mobile Apps workshops we gave each team a deck of cards.

There was a set for contexts, a set for people, and a set for technologies. You might have chosen the context “mountaintop”, “hospital” or “school”, each of which would bring its own challenge to the people for whom you’d be developing, who could be “older people”, “ramblers”, or “teachers”. And then technology types, which in this case were all mobile technologies, like “GPS”, “MMS”, or “video”.

From these cards, groups are quickly able to spark the problems that lead to truly creative ideas that are targeted at the appropriate users in the right context, and that use the right technology — that gives us something to start evaluating commercially.

We encourage participants to use Inventorium Poker to entertain all the ideas that spring to mind, even the daft ones — sometimes the most ridiculous, impossible idea can be hammered into a practical, useful one.

Groups come up with a series of ideas that seem like they’re worth exploring, and then they present them to the larger group. From there, each individual chooses the project they wish to work on, which means that you’re not stuck with only the idea of your initial team. We want people to go where their skills and interests are. Our open innovation model means that ideas shared with the group are shared. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your best stuff. In fact, the more you work with your idea, the more it is reshaped and reenvisioned into one that might be one step closer to reality, for you, and for your potential customers and users.

Think fast!

When you want to be creative, don’t give your brain time to think about thinking — just do! People don’t solve problems because they have the time and space to do so, they do it because they have no other option.

And we work fast because the more we let our doubts creep in, the more we second-guess the quality of an idea before we explore it, the safer our ideas get. But our job as an innovation intermediary is to take calculated risks — we make a venture less risky by crash-testing ideas and business plans. Once the brainstorm is down on paper, that’s when we can start to determine if an idea is a realistic business proposition.

We use Inventorium Poker — among lots of other strategies — to give you the boundaries and the sense of urgency that force you to rely on your ingenuity, rather than your tested experience. Experience certainly helps when it comes to evaluating concepts, but first you need the ideas.

Make them as exciting as you want! They might just be possible.

Got an idea for a game we can adapt for our events? Let us know!

As we build up to next months Inventorium ‘Digital Culture‘ event I read a report on the BBC news over the weekend and thought is gave some surprising statics when it comes to children and culture.

The report is based on a study which claims that millions of British children are “culture starved” as they have never been to an art gallery, theatre or museum.

When they looked into the reasons a quarter of parents said they could not afford to visit attractions with 28% saying they did not have the time and 18% believed their child was “too young for culture”.

When asked what cultural activities their children had participated in, the most popular was learning an instrument (39%), with ballet (24%), painting (23%) and singing in a choir (22%) the next most popular activities.

Emma Gray, from Marketing Birmingham, which runs the Visit Birmingham campaign, said it was important for all generations to embrace cultural activity.

“Culture can take many kinds of forms and it’s essential our children are encouraged to get involved with this at any early age,” she said.

“A few trips during the year to museums, landmarks or even cultural festivals will prove to be memorable, informative and fun occasions for youngsters.”

During the workshop on the 27th March we hope to bring a diverse group of people together to discuss problems such as this in the culture sector and then develop solutions to these problems leading to new services and even new businesses. Find out more here.

Read the full article here.

In the build up to next weeks workshop in Coleg Harlech it was interesting to read about some novative approaches being taken with the youth of America; Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel is conducting a high-profile experiment: Put $100,000 apiece in the hands of 24 entrepreneurial teenagers and give them free rein to pursue innovative ideas.

The condition? They have to leave their studies and classmates, and vow to stay out of college during the two-year fellowship.

Thiel’s endorsement has been followed by some quick successes; Eden Full, 19, won a $260,000 social entrepreneurship award for her efforts to improve solar energy in developing countries. Dale Stephens, 20, landed a Penguin deal for his book Hacking Your Education.

With startup success stories tempting undergraduates to quit, universities have raced to add entrepreneurship to their curricula. Stanford has StartX, an accelerator for student-run startups. Similarly, last year UC Berkeley created FounderSchool, which prepares students to raise venture money. James G. Boyle, managing director of the Entrepreneurial Institute at Yale University (which lost four undergraduate students to Thiel fellowships) agrees that more colleges should help kids start companies, but he says that most students benefit from an environment where they can test ideas without betting their future.

Read the full article here

In contrast there are examples that the potential to innovate improves with age, Vivek Wadhwa of the Technology Review writes; the young understand the limits of the Web world, but they don’t know their own limits. It’s proving to be a powerful combination. Since they don’t know what isn’t possible, the Zuckerbergs can come up with new solutions to old problems. That is why they lead the charge in starting innovative mobile and Web companies.

But great ideas by themselves don’t lead to breakthrough technologies or successful companies. Ideas are dime a dozen. The value comes from translating ideas into inventions and inventions into successful ventures. To do this, you have to collaborate with others, obtain financing, understand markets, price products, develop distribution channels, and deal with rejection and failure. In other words, you need business and management skills and maturity. These come with education, experience, and age.

Read the full article here

Having worked with both the youth and the more senior amongst us – surely the way forward is to combine the experience of one with the unlimited potential of the other. In Wales we have mentoring schemes but maybe we need to look at taking this a step further?

What happens to your eureka moments? Do you write them across your hand? Do you scribble them on the back of an envelope? There’s an app for that and now there’s a forum, too. Inventorium’s Open Mic Idea Jam series was part of Innovation Dublin 2011, and offered an audience and a microphone to anyone with an idea and three minutes to spare. Below is a review of the events and details of the Open Mic Idea Jams planned in Wales and Ireland in 2012. 

The Idea Jam was intended as a place to share ideas at all points of development, network with like-minded and compatibly different people, and contribute to a climate of idea-sharing, mutual encouragement, and constructive critique. There were potential investors and mentors present, too, but for most it seemed a chance to open up new conversations about ideas. Eighteen people spoke at the first event in the Stag’s Head, beginning with Conor Lynch of Connector.ie, and his idea for a website for skill sharing. The pitches ran the gamut from an idea for an eco-friendly and cost effective way to dry clothes without a tumble drier, to a travel website targeting walkers in Wicklow aged 50+, to a cloud hosting service called Astroboa, described as “like a WordPress service for data”.

There was a similar mix of digital, service and physical product pitches at the second Open Mic event at Odessa, including a novel idea for car sharing that sounded like a cross between Airbnb.com and Gocar.ie. Along with this were some very early-stage, more amorphous ideas like Lisa Feay’s idea for a jazz radio station, and some other arts focused concepts, like Castle Variations, an annual week-long musical mashup in a castle.

The Idea Jams bring together a wide range of people and ideas that wouldn’t otherwise end up in the same room on purpose. They’re as useful for the audience as they are for the people pitching, a few of whom seem to have gone home with business cards for potential collaborators, partners, investors or customers. However, what was striking but perhaps not surprising was the fairly low representation of women, not just pitching, but actually attending the event. Is it because there are fewer female entrepreneurs? Or is a woman less likely to air publicly an idea that isn’t quite ready yet?

The most striking thing was this: digital companies, organisations, would-be entrepreneurs and innovators can learn some important lessons from people who make physical products, or sell services. We know already that starting something successful, whether it’s for profit, for fun, or for the greater good, means understanding who your customer is, what that customer needs, and being really clear what problem you’re solving. Your sweat equity, your money, and your passion is tied up in this great new idea. It’s easy to think that you’ve thought all of the important things through everything else can be clarified later.

For a video of previous Open Mic nights click here.

More Open Mic Idea Jams are planned for 2012:

Wales: 17th April, Fat Cat, Bangor

For more details and to register visit the events section of our website.

An article on WalesOnline.co.uk gave some interesting perspectives from business leaders on what 2012 holds for businesses in Wales some extracts are included below;

Phil Cooper: Managing Director, Venture Wales

“The natural reaction for some will be to downsize and simply cut costs. However, I hope others will respond by exploring new markets and diversifying products and services.”

“Yes, we are in a tight corner and 2012 is going to be very tough for many businesses. But only through individual enterprises taking initiatives and pursuing new opportunities together with strong political leadership will we start to turn the tide.”

Iestyn Davies: Head of External Affairs, Federation of Small Businesses in Wales
“Based on early indications, small businesses will be looking to employ more staff and will be keen to innovate and bring new products and services to market. In tough times they realise that innovation gives them a competitive edge over their competitors.”

To read the article in full click here.

Throughout 2012 Inventorium will be continuing to encourage open innovation inWales andIreland, helping teams to work towards the generation of new businesses, products and services. Our programme of workshops and Symposia will support the development of new ideas and ways of working for the public sector, SME’s and not-for-profit enterprises.

Events planned for 2012 will look at how digital technologies can be used to better support aspects of culture and industry in Wales Including workshops focussed on: Digital Culture inWales

Heritage Tourism

The Rural Economy

Education

Welsh Language and Media

Tourism

Agriculture

At each of these events Inventorium will aim to have sector professionals clearly defining some of the problems they are currently facing – the main focus of the rest of the day will then be on diverse teams of people – made up of industry professionals, technologists, designers, developers, academics and entrepreneurs – working together to develop solutions to those problems.

Details of these events will appear on www.inventorium.org/events