How to surf the innovation wave and survive? Learning from the LIFT Conference
Lift Conference is one of Europe’s key events about innovation and digital technologies. It features a special blend of inspiring speeches by some of the world’s best speakers, truly interactive workshops, exhibitions of interactive media projects and prototypes to play with …and the legendary Fondue!
One thing I have learned from Lift is that Robots might not have soul, but like the Blabdroid, they might help humans to reveal their own soul and personality. Blabdroid is a tinny, lovely and simple robot, based off the Boxie robot research from MIT, aiming to talk and to question humans in their humanity, what a paradox!
Next, Bracken P. Darrell, CEO of Logitech, came on stage and, while not being as much tinny and lovely than the Blabdroid, Bracken has some level of humanity, as he wants his company to remain small, at least reachable to everyone, and creating big products!
Of course, for him the next big thing is the Internet of Things. Would you expect something else from the Logitech CEO? No, not really… nevertheless, if he could put his vision of following Apple’s extreme design path: Simplicity, Functionality and Design; and keeping his company small in operating and remaining Agile; then Logitech might even exceed future customer’s expectations!
Most speakers talked about creativity and designers, Philippe Silberzahn, a professor debunking the myths of entrepreneurship, cited Arnold J. Toynbee, who had written, “The source of decline is the loss of creative capacity in the organization”. Of course… then someone in the audience asked
“How can we measure creativity?”
Arrrggghhh… human nature, willing to measure everything… sometime it is just good to STOP it and just DO it!
If one speaker was full of creativity, it was Sean D. Goff, a teenager from Basel Switzerland. Sean was admitted, at the age of 9, to the advanced electronics workshop at “Jugend Elektronik- und Technikzentrum Regio Basel JETZ” as the youngest participant ever… and when he was asked how he is inventing all those things, he simply said… well, when I see a problem I think I can solve, I try… the BEST entrepreneur tip from a 16 years old guy, et voilà!