Takeaways from the Takeover Innovation Conference 2018

As a UX Design Intern at Klick Health, I was fortunate to be granted permission to volunteer at Tribalscale’s Takeover Innovation Conference 2018. I helped out over a period of two days (Sunday-Monday). My duties consisted of the following: pre-event organisation (e.g. making swag-bags, organising names and placing posters), acting as a door-greeter and mic-runner for the workshop events. Being involved at this level caused me to think the amount of detail, work and communication required to run such an event.

What follows is a description of the event, a cliff-notes of the sessions attended and overall impressions.

An annual event, with the second iteration in 2018, the Takeover Innovation Conference declares “innovation to be a mindset,” with its purpose to “change [the] understanding of work, leveraging emerging tech and to adopt new models of corporate innovation labs.” The conference also supports a diversity mandate, showcasing 52% female speakers in 2017.

Oriented towards technology industry professionals, Takeover had a particular focus towards senior level staff with the following demographic breakdown: C-Suite executives (30%), VPs (20%), directors (10%) and managers (10%).

I was able to attend the following sessions:

1. Lightning Talk: Node Living by Anil Khera

• Node Living was a pseudo AirBnB app system targeting professionals for longer stays (e.g. one year) with an emphasis on industry co-living

2. Lightning Talk: Paired Design by Jane Motz Hayes

• Jane drilled on the pros/cons of the Paired Design system — delivering faster, more daring designs based on diversity of ideas and emotional/intellectual honesty

3. Lightning Talk: Paired Programming Farhan Thawar

• Farhan approached Paired Design from a programming viewpoint and as a management tool — eliminating distractions and weeding out less-stellar hires

4. GDPR Fireside Chat by Andrea Matheson and Michael Katz

• The GDPR Fireside chat discussed ownership of data, educating users, the topic of trust and the impact of GDPR compared to Y2K

5. AI: My Mind’s Playin Tricks on Me by Cameron Maclean, Cordula Robinson, Sid Lawrence and Dr. Jason Fischer

• The four person panel on AI examined the expectations and impact of AI, the deservedness of the hype and data with specificity to industries (e.g. healthcare)

6. Closing Keynote: Pepsi Co’s Innovation by Christine Cioffe

• Pepsi Co’s Christine talked innovation in the company’s portfolio — moving from products that were ‘fun for you’, to ‘better for you’ and finally ‘good for you’

7. Closing Keynote: Pantyprop by Crystal Etienne (explained in greater detail below)

The conference setting itself was an exciting marketplace for ideas and conversation. As someone junior to UX and tech, a number of the talks gave me pause to think deeply.

Crystal Etienne’s discussion about her successful product Pantyprop — a ‘period panties underwear’ made me think about the power dynamics involved with regard to technology. As someone of color, female and a creator of a non-digital ‘menstruation’ product, Crystal’s product was in her own words, “not sexy or appealing to Silicon Valley (for funding).”This inability to gain approval illustrated that often, investment decisions are made by those with influence — typically white males who heavily skew towards funding projects that are digitally-focused. This demonstrates how the term “innovation” in itself is loaded — innovation goes beyond the digital.

In this regard, there needs to be a continued discussion for diversity in terms of gender, ethnicity and social background — not least because they can produce brilliant ideas or untapped products, but so that we do not become trapped within our own biased echo chamber.

More broadly, I found that the large number of C-Suite individuals at the event pushed me to think both ambitiously and outside of convention.

This was highlighted in a conversation I had with Andrea Matheson from M5. She expanded on a question I had posed about the importance of educating users in regards to data collection and privacy. She stated that people in general have become more educated as well as socially and morally conscious regarding the products they purchase (e.g. Nike sweatshops and organic foods.) Perhaps in the future, users could, in parallel, become just as sophisticated with how their data is used.

Andrea’s answer inspired me not only to think of the bigger picture but to think of it strategically from a future perspective. Highlighting the theme of innovation (duh!) — it underscored to me that I ought not to simply see trends and ideas in the present, but to boldly reimagine them moving forward.

This was echoed during Christine Cioffe’s talk about the evolution of Pepsi Co. Although we can likely dismiss that Pepsi Co. cares about our health except from a profit perspective, its shift from producing food products that are ‘fun for you’ to ‘good for you’ demonstrated that innovation is not flat but multi-layered. Its growth is increasingly ‘shaded’ or influenced through the public lens (i.e. social media). Therefore, if societal values, beliefs and norms can be made to change, companies will pay attention when it matters (hey there, Facebook!).

Lastly, I was heartened by the conference’s focus on gender diversity. It was impressive to see a healthy female-male ratio not just in terms of speakers, but also attendees. That said, Takeover did not elaborate on their mandate this year in their statement of “taking [it] beyond gender to ensure we fully capture diversity” — that is to say, what kind of diversity? Ethnic? Color? Social or professional background?

The vagueness in their message was something I feel could be strengthened. Whether because it is the year of the Me Too movement, the cynic in me paused to question how truly genuine this belief was held by those at the conference. This was reinforced when I made comments on the message of diversity with those at the afterparty — some shrugged, while others appeared to laughed politely. Regardless, I am glad Takeover continues to make diversity part of their main message. It is a positive step and one to be applauded.

In all, I’m glad to have partaken in the Takeover Conference, it was a great learning experience. I’ll be looking forward to the next one and seeing how it evolves further in 2019.

Did you attend Takeover? Want to know more? Feel free to add comments or ask questions!