Capstone Concept Validation + Interviews
Project Title
The Creative Underground: Crafting Your Network
Elevator Pitch
The Creative Underground targets industry professionals by designing events that initiate the first hello. The events are crafted as a networking experience mediated by a design thinking challenge to catalyze professional connections between participants.
Description
The crafted experiences are designed to create an atmosphere where participants don’t even feel like they are networking. Through a 3-4 hour maker challenge, individuals will have the time to showcase their skills to others through creating mixed-media solutions with organized teams.
We will begin by pre-screening participants prior to the event to understand their background experience and creative skill set in order to organize groups appropriately. The gathering begins with the arrival of all RSVP’d participants, who are offered refreshments as they are organized into their groups. Participants are challenged to respond to a prompt of the event and will be provided select materials to design a solution.
Example of a challenge theme could be:
BYOT(Bring Your Own Tool): the tool they use for the night
Cocktails and Creatables
Tequila and Tangibles
During the event, groups will be thrown modifiers, such as swapping a member or adding a 3-D component, to test their adaptability throughout the challenge. The event will lead into social hour over food and drinks that reflect the specific event’s theme where participants are encouraged to approach others to discuss the experience in hopes to create new connections. Our mission is to remind people that collaboration has the power to spark ideas, revive passion and inspire creativity.
Interviews
After the initial proposal was written, we handpicked several interviewees that fit our market user, industry professional, and possible mentor in order to provide relevant feedback. Users were able to give us insight on whether the idea would be of interest while industry professionals helped us understand logistics and design. Through our interviews, we found that there was an overwhelming positive response to the project as whole validating interest and feasibility while understanding areas of refinement.
Walter Brad Werner is an instructor in the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations Division at the Leeds School of Business as well as on the Board of Directors of several start-ups and actively consults seed stage startups. After walking him through the proposed idea, Brad’s biggest advice was to consider the target audience. He stressed the importance of interviewing many potential participants on what they would expect out of the experience, as well as what tools should be provided throughout. Another important aspect to consider is how the space would be designed to achieve the best outcomes. He was able to connect us with two potential mentors for this process, both individuals in the creative industry. Brad himself expressed interest in helping us throughout the process, including advising us with the financial feasibility of the project and potential funding.
Austin is a creative professional who works as a filmmaker and editor. Austin has had experience freelancing and using coworking/social spaces. We interviewed Austin as a potential participant, who could give us feedback on the idea. A big topic that came out was the idea that users would need to BE at the event to understand it, and strategize how we would send out invites. He brought up a game that was conducted for USC freshman called Reality Ends Here, which gave some inspiration and us some ideas moving forward. A main takeaway was the idea of modifiers, which would be thrown at groups throughout the challenge. We asked Austin if he and his friends would be interested in an event like this, and he said absolutely, but a plus one would make it easier to get people to come to the event.
Jesse is a creative professional who works in Boulder as a graphic designer. Through interviewing a possible participant to the event, we found that he aligns with many of our thoughts on networking. He recalls every networking event as “uncomfortable to the point that forced conversation has no fruition and small talk has become a way to hide your true self not showcasing any of your actual abilities.” When presented the idea of Creative Underground, he immediate saw a need for an event like this and asked when him and his friends could try it out. However, did feel a need for further explanation of how we would move the event form make(athon) to cocktail hour. And feels that the transition is imperative to keep attendees around to have this initial “hello”. Furthermore, he feels that the tools that are offered need be helpful to create this solution and possibly integrate more tech to the space.
Brian is a business professional that could be a fit for the user demographic that is not within the creative scope.Overall, he was able to give us an outsider’s perspective on how it could market to someone who does not necessarily fit under the creative industry but is interested in it, ultimately, sparking the idea of expansion options. Furthermore, he suggested that we reconsider length of the event from 4-6 hours to 3-4 hours, taking into consideration the amount of time working professionals want to commit to an event. Brian explained that we should focus on making it elusive with an incentive to be there but not necessarily huge prizes. Having a set schedule but with mysterious time blocks will give people an expectation of how long it will take but still leave some mystery to what will be thrown into the mix.
Danny is a TAM Professor/ Creative Professional with years of experience working and teaching in a creative realm. He gave us insight into what would be important to him in an experience like this. He explained that he goes to networking for the free food and drinks, and that he wants to talk to people who HAVE experience, not those without experience. He thinks it’s important for people to understand the difference between mentorship and creating networks. He encouraged us to create for a narrow user in mind: the user that hates to network and has no network. Instead of creating an experience that you think people want. Ask these “creative” user what they would like to be doing on their time outside of works. Danny also brought up some relevant questions that we will need to address in the coming weeks:
Do people actually want to spend more time creating… or just want a break?
How can this experience be created in the mind of the user, where networking does not feel forced?
Most fulfilling networking is the people you already know and have gotten connected with through natural encounters. How will we recreate these natural encounters in a simulated environment? Can we?
Next Steps
After speaking to various people in the past week, we have refined our idea based on various suggestions and opinions. The next step is to dig deeper and figure out exactly what our participants want instead of assuming. Conducting user interviews will be essential to understand what kinds of people would like to attend, how they see this event going, and what they hope to gain out of this event. We will compile this feedback into useful guidelines for how the experience as a whole is created.