FIT STRATEGIC PLANNING

Ideation Workshop Recap

February 12, 2019

Ideation Workshop

February 12, 2019

The Ideation Workshop uses the outcomes of the scenario development workshops to identify large areas of opportunity for the institution and engage a larger set of FIT stakeholders in creating differentiated ways for FIT to innovate initiatives and programs to serve new student and creative industry needs. Participants build empathy with the future scenarios, use ideation techniques to brainstorm opportunity areas and solutions, and sort ideas using affinity mapping. These were pursued in 3-4 subcommittees during Phase 3

Agenda:8:00 Welcome8:05 Project Review8:15 Persona Intro & Scenario Review8:38 Persona & Scenario Interaction9:00 Identifying Stakeholder Needs 9:25 Clustering and Prioritizing9:40 Ideation and Prototyping 10:55 Group Report Outs11:15 Closing Discussion 11:25 Adjournment

Ideation WorkshopTeams immersed themselves in an assigned scenario as a persona. Personas were used to help participants think about and ideate for the needs of future stakeholders without any personal biases. A few sample personas are below:

Attendees reviewed the assigned scenario once again, as their persona and filled out the following worksheet:

Groups then broke out by scenario to discuss the persona + scenario interaction with other members exploring the same scenario. Participants were asked to write on sticky notes, the needs their personas has in their life within their scenario. Pictures of the mapping shown below:

As a larger group the attendees clustered all needs within 4 buckets: Flexible Learning, Innovation & Cross-Pollination, Digital Product Creation and the New Demand Chain, and Other.

The final activity in the ideation workshop was to ideate new products, services or business models based on clustered needs under the 4 buckets. Pictures of prototypes are below:

Flex-Cellerator: Siloed organizations are problematic. At FIT there is a lack of connectivity between students, faculty, staff industry professionals. Wanted to create a space where all these people could come together to innovate and experiment. Accelerator in which ideas can be created and accelerated in a circular way, while also remaining flexible/dynamic as development is a constant state of change.

Welcoming environment that embraces diversity. Anyone is welcome. Tools for learning – embracing traditional practices (e.g. camera obscura) and future interpretations.

Space of engagement for design thinking and creativity, new skillsets and fast learning, building relationships and empathy that may not be accessible outside of their programs.

Personalized Education:How to create a personalized curriculum on a global level. Current structure doesn’t allow this or makes it difficult. Allow students to define their own major or path through their studies. Rethink “program” structure. Allow seamless movement for students between different areas of studies at FIT and across global campuses. Model has FIT at the center but enables students to have flexible paths and ability to study at different campuses. Interconnected learning that is personalized for the student.

Incubator Landmark Building:Creating a creative environment for exploration, ideation and prototyping. Concept: reflection and aspirational architecture. Fostering communication and participation, includes pre-college through post-grad students. Suggests interactivity and participatory projects as a solution. Actions – curriculum flexibility, collaboration across all ages and with industry.

Live from Dear FIT:Podcast that runs through common hour and uncommon hour that allows peers to connect with other peers. Give voice to students on campus, “dear diary” concept, allow them to pose challenges/questions and discuss/receive input from their community.

(e.g., AMA – Ask a major anything, Live from 27th street)

The Future is Now:Radical industry partnership, mentorship and collaboration. Educator's are struggling to stay up to date to help students prepare for the professional industry.

Response: Bootcamp/workshops and research & development projects with the 3 parties. Networking/job fairs. Class partnership with company, team teaching to bring expert into the classroom.

Importance: AI tech is taking place of jobs, students need to be ahead and beyond technology. Educators not only have to teach but also facilitate connecting industry professionals and Higher Ed institutions.

Skill Evaluator and Placement:AR/VR sensors are used to holistically identify the skills of student/graduates. Hard skills and soft skills are evaluated to identify the appropriate fit for students with workplaces upon graduation. FIT provides just in time credit programs to graduates to fill gaps in hard skills as needed.

FITMe:Cloud-based platform/community/app based for continuous learning on idea that people need to continuously upgrade their skills in order to survive in a digital and remain relevant. Topics include the Digital Product Lifecycle and the Demand Chain

Demographic: Mid-career industry professional that needs to stay current to survive and demonstrate indispensability. Data is sold as currency, as users interact with the app, they can opt in to selling their to 3rd parties for profit.

The activities and outputs from this workshop led to the formation and objective of the three Think Tanks: Flexible Learning, Innovation & Cross-Pollination, Digital Product Creation and the New Demand Chain.