The experience of speed-dating and world-cafe methodology
In the previous AD Discovery and Creativity Lab session, my startup team, F.D.R. got familiarized with two communication processes, speed-dating and world-cafe. It was completely new to us, as we’ve never been tested in such conditions before, and they both had an impact on our building project and the way we are trying to realize it.
Our startup idea/product is V-Room , a virtual reality multimedia platform which aims to inform people with news from all around the globe in a more intriguing way and at the same time create a 3D environment for the users to entertain themselves and spend their free time at. As it can be seen, it’s a complex concept and speed-dating offered us the challenge to pitch the whole idea in just a few minutes in a way the listener could totally understand what it has to do with.
As a pitcher, this technique led me to quicker and in brief description of our project and consequently it was really helpful as it has to do with time-management and organizing, which is crucial in the startup and business world. The fact that I could share the idea with fellow ‘’startupers’’ and make it more popular among them has been important, too.
Main-point on the speed-dating process is feedback. Either you gather or you give. Apart from the description part, it is basic to hear what others have got to say about your project because it can be proven very beneficial, uncovering possibly major aspects that you need to work on. Given that, the questions that were asked to us by other teams have put us on the procedure of thinking even more about our product and examine whether we can develop something in the field of the question or answering immediately if we had already found the solution to the problem.
The insights that we got and their significance as well as the value of the pitcher in speed-dating cannot be fully realized if you don’t switch sides I think. Listening to other pitchers was a pretty good chance to evaluate our own pitching ability and understand how it really is ,in fact, when somebody listens to your story. Of course, it was also very interesting to be informed about other ideas and giving feedback to them, learning to detect ‘’fouls’’ (if there are any) on some suggestions and appreciate specific points of our peers’ presentations.
Final stage of the process was playing a third role, the one of the observer. In this case, you are an ‘’invisible’’ participator in the conversation, able to observe the pitcher and the questioner and make your own notes and remarks about both of them without interrupting it though. This was the most neutral level of speed-dating, where you could watch how your partner projects the team’s idea and subsequently get your own impression about the other’s startup. Really cool. Feedback was given when time expired to both sides. In that stage, the important thing was that you were able to notice the actual main points of each idea and the possible difficulties or problems they occur.
The whole process then was replayed, but this time in front of a different pitcher/questioner/observer, a different team and story. This methodology, called ‘’World-cafe’’, multiplied our insights. By changing tables and seats, moving to another totally new conversation (thus the word ‘’cafe’’ on the definition),it was an ideal way to verify our founding, and at the same time get to know about other projects, different from the previous ones we came in contact. It was speedy, accurate and helpful.
The combination of these procedures and methods (speed-dating and world-cafe) have made the last session a unique experience as the whole thing was totally new to me and my team. It tested our skills and abilities, checking our strong points and weaknesses. Although it did not provide a lot brand new findings around our startup and its characteristics, it helped us to fully realize the already noticed ones, on our way to finalize our project and make it happen.
