Here’s what we learnt in the first 9 days of running a global online brainstorm
And why we’re extending the deadline for submissions on our first challenge.
We had initially planned for the Circular Events Challenge to run over a period of 10 days, and 10 days only.
Why?
Because we wanted to get people thinking and acting– fast.
Things get done at hackathons, and we wanted to translate that energy to Circle Lab and enable that kind of fast-paced and focused action on a global scale.
Of course, it’s easy for us to spend 10 days reading through ideas and dreaming up solutions for a circular world — it’s our full-time job!
But, we realise not everyone has had a chance to explore and interact with the platform at their leisure and in our excitement to get things off the ground, we forgot you all had busy lives to tend to (and, for some of you, some well-deserved vacations to enjoy!).
We decided to extend the challenge until the 13th of April to give everyone an opportunity to chip in, but to also provide us with feedback. It gives us a chance to share some of our own learnings with you as well.
Here’s what we’ve learnt so far:
- The more specific the better. We’ve kept the challenge fairly broad to include and encourage as many ideas as possible, but we’re quickly realising a more specific question would go a long way in framing and guiding the ideation process and we’re currently working with Circular Glasgow to steer the challenge in the right direction. Stay tuned for an update from us ASAP!
- Digitising collaborative ideation? Not so straightforward. We have been working hard with our partners at Unc Inc to provide our users with an experience that makes it easy to collaborate and build on each others’ ideas and suggestions. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re excited to see the first inklings of what that could look like on the platform.
- The interest is there. We’re humbled with the positive reaction we’ve received over the last few days both on- and offline, from international press all the way to our colleagues (and even our parents- hi, Katie’s mom!). As of today, we have seen 38 ideas submitted on the Circular Events Challenge by people hailing from 6 different countries. These ideas provided the building blocks for 5 solutions so far, and we welcome suggestions to refine and improve them on the platform.
As we continue improving the platform and building in new features to spark the imagination and enable quicker, better collaboration, we’re excited to hear from you and how you’ve experienced the platform! Let us know your thoughts on here or find us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Edit 29/03: We are now exploring the question “What could a truly circular events space look like?” on the platform and invite everyone to join us in thinking about how existing conference and exhibition centres can incorporate circular economy principles in their modus operandi.
Join the challenge >
Interested in hosting your own challenge on Circle Lab or partnering with us to help us rise up to our ambitions? Shoot us a message at hello@circle-lab.com
