SFRU Innovation Workshops
Practical, inspirational sessions that generate ideas you can use.
SFRU Innovation Workshops empower you to turns trends into actionable ideas.
Attendees work with a simple, structured method that sees them use trends to generate new product, service and experience ideas, internal culture shifts, or new strategic directions.
I’ve run more than 50 innovation workshops, both in-person and online, with teams from the c-suite down and at a wide range of household-name organisations. Think Unilever, Google, Marriott, Virgin, Westfield and beyond.
Attendees leave with a storehouse of new innovation ideas that they can start on today.
But that’s not all. Participants also learn a powerful trend and innovation framework, which they can use time and again in the years ahead. In a fast-changing world, this method – for identifying and innovating with meaningful trends – is more valuable than ever.
🧑💻 Who are the workshops for?
I’ve run these sessions for a wide range of teams, from the c-suite down.
That means for marketing teams keen to generate new campaign ideas for the upcoming year. Product designers who want to innovate around the trends reshaping their industry. Sales teams keen to create new customer experience flows. Senior leaders who know they need to set their organisation on a new path. And many others!
They’re perfect for any team seeking any of the below:
To learn more about the trends transforming the behaviours, mindsets, and expectations of their consumers, and their operating landscape.
To use trends to develop breakthrough new product, service, or campaign ideas, to transform internal culture, or to set new strategic directions.
To work with and absorb a simple, powerful foresight method that empowers you to turn overwhelming change into new opportunity.
If you want to explore whether an SFRU Innovation Workshop is right for you, just drop us a line!
👋 Start the conversation!
Ready to gather your team and start innovating? Or simply want to learn more about the SFRU Innovation Workshop?
Drop our Head of Business a line at octavia@sfru.io with all enquiries.
And visit our website to learn more about us.
🔍 How it works
The Innovation Workshops work best at a running time anywhere between 90 minutes and three hours.
They can serve a team of five looking for a focused innovation experience. Or inspire a team of 50+.
Our preparation
Before the workshop, we’ll work together to identify the core themes, shifts, and innovation triggers you want to explore.
Based on our conversation, I’ll identify key trends – reshaping human behaviours and mindsets, and the business landscape – that are most relevant to you. We’ll winnow the list down to a handful, typically between three and six, to work with during our session.
Workshop session
The session itself starts with a presentation of the trends we’ll be working with. After that, it’s time for attendees to get to work!
Learn. The session starts with a presentation, in which I share the trends and outline the innovation method we’ll be working with.
Innovate. After a quick break, it’s time for work. Attendees split into teams, and I guide them through the structured innovation method that sees them turn our trends into concrete new innovation ideas.
Present and vote. Each team chooses the best idea they generated during the session, and briefly presents it to the entire group. To close, we vote on a winning idea.
Go forth. A brief recap of the session, including the core trend spotting and innovation framework.
After the event
I’ll follow up with a written recap of all the ideas generated on the day, plus an additional trend-driven analysis of each of them.
You’re also free to keep all the PPT materials presented on the day, including the initial trend presentation and the full guide to the innovation method.
About your facilitator
Book an SFRU workshop, and we’ll work together on the session preparation. Then I’ll run a high-energy and inspiring session on the day.
I’m the founder of New World Same Humans, a newsletter on trends, technology, and our shared future that reaches 19,000 inboxes each week.
I also consult on trends and futures for a wide range businesses and nonprofits. I’ve lead research and writing on trend reports read by thousands of professionals, inside pretty much every household-name brand you can name.
I speak regularly at leading conferences, such as The Next Web, 15 Seconds, and NEXT. Here is a picture of me waving me waving my hand in the air at TNW a few years ago.
In 2018 I was appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption. The council brings together leading experts from business, academia, and government to promote innovative thinking on the future of consumerism.
💥 The SFRU innovation method
At the heart of the SFRU innovation method is a simple, powerful insight.
Meaningful new trends emerge when a changing world collides with fundamental human needs and values. Those trends transform human behaviours and mindsets, and the landscape you operate in.
During the session, attendees work with a structured method founded on this insight. You’ll analyse the key building blocks of the trends under discussion in order to generate new innovation ideas.
Among other questions, we’ll ask:
What key changes are driving this trend forward?
What fundamental human needs and values is this trend tapping in to?
What new human behaviours and mindsets emerge out of the collision between these changes and fundamental needs?
The full structured method is simple, powerful, and fun to apply. And once attendees have applied it in our session, it will become part of their professional toolkit forever.
🙌 Testimonial: a workshop with lastminute.com
Earlier this year I ran an Innovation Workshop with travel platform lastminute.com.
As with all travel organisations, the business has faced a challenging time since the start of the pandemic. This session, commissioned by Head of Marketing Enrico Nonino, brought senior leaders from across the organisation together.
Here’s what Enrico had to say after the session:
As a travel company committed to designing the future of travel and tourism through digital technology, we’re always striving to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to emerging travel trends.
We ran our first workshop with SFRU back in February 2021 and found the session extremely valuable. David proved to be a force of nature in guiding us on how innovations can trigger trends that are shifting perceptions and behaviours among consumers.
Tailored for senior executives, and perfectly suited to coordinate remotely, the workshop provided great insight on some key emerging shifts in consumer behaviour. The trends were evidenced by qualitative research, and supported by a logical methodology that allowed us to apply them to create tangible outputs.
The insights discussed throughout the workshop have since featured within our corporate strategy and planning, allowing us to future-proof our business in line with the constantly-changing market scenario.
👋 Talk to us!
Ready to gather your team and prepare to smash 2022? Or simply want to learn more about the SFRU Innovation Workshop?
Drop our Head of Business a line at octavia@sfru.io with all enquiries.
We look forward to hearing from you, and we’ll get straight back. Meanwhile, visit our website to learn more about us.