Some key "employee experience" take-aways from eX Indy (part 1)

eX Summit successfully launched its first event - eX Indy - last week at Launch Fishers in the Indianapolis area. We had a packed house, great speakers and panelists who provided the audience with a lot of actionable best practices (85% agreed on that).


Engagement measurement

As we already wrote about it, only 30% of the US employees feel engaged and inspired at work. It is a serious issue organizations must address, considering that increased engagement means (from Emplify's presentation):

• 22% higher utilization and productivity

• 50% lower turnover rate

• 3 times more profitable in operating margin.

Surveying employees about their relationship with and commitment to the company's mission, values and brand message is an effective way to measure their engagement. The most compelling component of engagement is the psychological conditions of the workplace: meaningfulness, safe, capacity. When an organization addresses them positively, the engagement increases. Mobile applications, such as Emplify's app, are a great way not only to measure your employees' engagement, but also to communicate and exchange in a more personalized way, versus the traditional and generic emails sent from HR.


The power of workplace design

Business Furniture, from a Steelcase report, highlighted that in order to design a workplace that is resilient and encourages engagement, organizations must create an ecosystem of interconnected zones and settings that are destinations where people have choice and control over where and how they work. This ecosystem should offer a palette of posture, presence and privacy. When organizations do this, they help people by offering spaces that support their physical, cognitive and emotional wellbeing.

When considering (re)designing the workplace, companies should:

• conduct a thorough research on workplace design strategy and best practices

• engage employees throughout the process to increase the rate of adoption 

• provide spaces for BOTH collaboration and concentration.

"Companies lose by viewing office space as something to manage or minimize. The workspace is, in fact, a crucial driver of productivity and morale." (Read: Change Your Space, Change Your Culture: How Engaging Workspaces Lead to Transformation and Growth)

How design drives the employee experience

Studio Science highlighted how organizations can use design methodologies and processes to foster employee collaboration and engagement.

Using design sprints - the same way tech companies use "dev" sprints - Nathan's team creates the space and the framework to tackle complex problems by involving multiple teams with different skills and mindsets. 

"Employees must participate in meaningful work and know that they’re impacting the world around them... A design-led culture creates positive experience by engaging employees in the meaningful creation of solutions and value, and encourages strong relationships with co-workers. It ultimately connects individuals to purpose.", concluded Nathan.

Stay tuned for "eX Indy part 2" next week.

Close proximity technology redefines relationships between businesses and consumers.

This article is part of a series of posts covering innovation in Indiana.

In the recent months there’s been a lot of buzz around hotel chains adopting proximity technology to enhance their guest experience, whether the technology uses NCF, RFID or BLE.

If, like me, you’ve had your fair share of business travel, you often experience problems. Airline delays. Congested traffic. Key doesn’t work. Room not ready. Long lines. The list goes on. It can be really inconvenient to travel, and the industry is constantly searching for new ways to develop brand loyalty among consumers.

Travel brands are looking to offer their guests something new and compelling. Indiana-based y!kes delivers a differentiated way to travel.

As the creator of the first of its kind, proximity-aware technology, y!kes provides an advanced solution to ensure traveling is hassle free.

The company’s technology equips business and leisure travelers with the ability to use their smartphones to bypass the cumbersome hotel check-in process and access their room all while their phone sits in their pocket. By harnessing the power of Bluetooth, y!kes opens the doors to unlimited interactions between businesses and consumers and redefines their relationships.
The hotel guests’ process has remained unchanged and cumbersome for years. Now that the majority of visitors come equipped with a smartphone housing Bluetooth capabilities, there is room for improvement. While regular guests wait in line, friends walk in thanks to y!kes. 

According to Alan Philips, Chief Marketing Office at Morgans Hotel Group, “putting location & service aside, gone are the days when you can differentiate your hotel by spending lavishly on the buildings design & fixtures. The future customers of hotels will be less concerned with the luxury appointments of their rooms, and more concerned with the experiences you provide and how your brand services their personal needs & image”.

y!kes’ h(app)y technology, also known as its hyper app, actually attracts, retains and grows lifelong guests by offering an experience that feels unique and upgraded. With the ability to avoid the front desk and customize rooms to individual preferences, hotels are able to build long-term loyalty and leave users feeling happily surprised.

While industry adversaries attempt to mimic its sophistication with other versions of keyless entry technology, none matches the unprecedented hotel experience y!kes unleashes. Competitors’ front-desk bypass applications require guests to physically utilize their mobile device to unlock a hotel room by holding their phone up to the door handle (not much different from using a keycard). With y!kes, users can keep their phone tucked away and need only the app running in the background to unlock the door. As a result, competitors inflict a more invasive and time-consuming solution when compared to y!kes.

The company’s initial public debut was in 2012 at HITECH, the world’s largest hospitality technology tradeshow, and was recognized for its groundbreaking system when it was awarded a 2012 Indiana Innovation award. Its industry-first system unlocked a new era of proximity-aware technology, and the team has spent the last two years refining its proprietary system even further.

The Indianapolis-based company continued to innovate and grow throughout 2014, bringing in new employees and creating promising relationships with some of the world’s leading hotel brands. With keyless entry gaining momentum in the market, international brands have expressed unprecedented interest in integrating y!kes-enabled systems into their properties.

y!kes focuses on maximizing the hotel infrastructure to perfect, streamline and simplify the guest experience. By eliminating the multi-step process, the company intends to deliver the hotel stay of the future, and expand it to other markets.

y!kes serves as both a software and hardware solution, presenting the next generation of proximity-aware technology through the advancement of Bluetooth capabilities. Offering hotel properties specifically engineered y!kes devices for install in the lobby, room floors and doors, and offering consumers a customizable mobile app available for download on smartphones, these patented technologies work together to alter consumers’ experiences as soon as they step foot on the property.

y!kes’ h(app)y technology retrieves data from onsite Property Management Systems (PMS) and provides guests with room number confirmations via the app on check-in day. The company is revolutionizing the hotel industry and redefining proximity technology. It is the only company to develop the hardware and software needed for secure, seamless hotel navigation through keyless access requiring only a touch of a door handle and a tucked away smartphone.

With the hotel industry already jumping on board, there are many other vertical markets where y!kes is hoping to provide significant impact, including retail, multi-unit housing and more… Looking towards the future, y!kes will continue to utilize proximity technology to better the overall customer experience.

Can social and business activism spark innovation?

There has been a lot of buzz around embracing failure as a stepping-stone to success. Many organizations welcome the idea and contemplate the thought of celebrating failure, but they are often reluctant to embrace the concept in practice.

There are two main reasons. One is risk and failure aversion. In a work or school setting, our brains are formatted to learn theory and what the outcome should be instead of experimenting through trial and error.  People don’t like to make mistakes, and they don’t like to look foolish, whether it is an adult or a child. Trial-and-error can cause both of these things to happen when things don’t work out as expected. The second reason is that our organizational cultures are often not designed to experimenting. In larger organizations, we are often trying to improve efficiency. Doing this means that we must reduce variation and risk. But innovation and experimentation increase variation.

What smart people realize is that without failure there would be no success. Failure leads to insight. Failure leads to understanding. Failure leads to innovation. As Douglas Adams said, “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” What’s critical is to be able to learn from failed experiments to lead to successful ventures. On the West Coast, many successful organizations, from start-ups to established companies, have embraced this concept, but it is more of a challenge in the conservative Midwest.
The reasons are not too hard to find. Even in the most progressive and understanding of workplaces admitting to failure brings forth feelings of embarrassment, shame and inadequacy. In more extreme organizations it can lead to understandable concerns about loss of status and even salary.

Now, Indiana is challenging failure aversion. Led by Launch Fishers and Indiana Small Business Development Center, FailFest will celebrate the role failure plays in moving companies, careers and communities forward. On November 19, FailFest will bring Indiana’s most important business leaders together to share the lessons they’ve learned from the mistakes they’ve made, both personally and professionally, in a day-long conference designed to inspire, inform and ultimately change the way failure is perceived in our society. Failure leads to innovation.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison


As FailFest illustrates, social and business activism can help challenge the status-quo.

In that spirit, a group of innovation activists that I am leading is launching a new experiment – s.p.IN – Indiana’s first social & business activism platform that brings together innovation enthusiasts and practitioners to shape the Hoosier state’s future.

s.p.IN has been developed through an iteration process, gathering feedback from business leaders across the state about what they saw was missing in the existing initiatives around innovation (from conceptualization, to brand positioning to content). The intent is to bring people together that would likely not meet otherwise and get them work on specific innovative projects aimed to help the business community. CONNECT. EMPOWER. INSTIGATE. ACT.

s.p.IN seeks to accelerate innovation by creating an open innovation and collaboration platform where professionals use their diverse ideas, experience and resources to solve specific challenges within four key themes:

·      - Planting the seeds of innovation in education

·      - Creating a toolkit for Indiana entrepreneurs

·      - Revisiting transportation

·      - Designing a roadmap for community revitalization

To provide a venue for discussion and idea generation, s.p.IN hosts monthly mini-collisions with Indiana’s top influencers and innovation leaders at local businesses. Mini-collisions focus on a set of deliverables for each topic. The first projects will be announced in December. Output from mini-collisions will be unveiled online and shared in depth during s.p.IN’s Collide Summit Indiana un-conference, where the broader community will have the opportunity to provide feedback and build on the ideas.

Will it work? If we don’t try we’ll never know. This is what experimentation is all about. No risk taking, no failure in our minds. Only an opportunity to learn and succeed in the long term.

Planting the seeds of innovation in education

Don Wettrick is on a mission: revolutionizing the world of education by training the next generation of innovators.

A reformed teacher (he taught to middle and high school students for 17 years), Don started planting the seeds of innovation at the Franklin, IN High School 3-and-a-half years ago, having found inspiration in Daniel Pink's book "Drive".
Because of the State's education standards, he had to find an innovative way to start his class as it was not part of the state catalogue. One class called "group discussion" was the platform for him to start his journey, as it encompassed most of the ingredients needs: group setting, brainstorming, discussion...
After a short stint in Franklin, Wettrick was hired by the Noblesville, IN High School to be their innovation coordinator. There he has found the perfect environment to carry on his mission: trust and transparency. Unlike many other schools across the nation, Noblesville HS does not block social media, such as Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. "It is a very progressive school", Wettrick explains. "Everything we do is transparent and open to everyone to see: students, parents, teachers, mentors...". He created his own channel on Youtube to explain what his students do on a weekly basis. Soon, Don Wettrick and his students will be able to work in a brand new innovation center. But above all, what makes the environment so prolific to his mission is the school's willingness to fail and to celebrate failure. The philosophy there is trial and error, and experimentation. "By empowering students to take risks, we've made them be more responsible. As a matter of fact, we've not seen any abuse of social media for instance. It is a very special and unique environment, which you don't find in many other schools, unfortunately".

What does an innovation class look like?

First, with each new group of students, Don has to teach them different skills: how not to be compliant, how to think differently, how they should challenge and confront him instead of taking his words for granted. "Right now, it is natural for kids to be compliant, to sit and listen to what their teachers have to say, without questioning. The system beats the creativity out of them. Kids have been trained that way; my first job is to unteach them". He hears new students in his class asking him what he expects them to do. His answer: "I won't tell you, you need to find your own opportunity, find collaborators, I'm only here to help you, not to tell you what to do". At the beginning, some kids freeze up because it is such a foreign and disruptive concept to them. However, they quickly grasp the benefit of it.
During the first weeks of the class, students will identify their own opportunity to develop a project. They will formulate a plan of action and time table, find collaborators and resources, like any entrepreneur would do. "Online collaboration enables access to information, resources and mentors. With Skype, Google Hangout or Twitter, my students talk to a mentor in the Silicon Valley or an app developer in Beijing", Wettrick explains. "Teachers don't know everything. If a student wants to work on a solar panel, I can't teach them. I will lead them to connect with experts (collaborators) around the world". The response from such experts is amazing. They are baffled when a high-school girl tells them she is part of an innovation class and she is developing an app. Social media is at the foundation of this innovation class, enabling students to connect 24/7 around the globe. "If we want to study neck injury, we may contact Peyton Manning. He will probably not respond, but his doctor will", says Wettrick. Professionals are shocked by the boldness of students and are willing to help these students who are curious, want to learn, and who are responsible.

Students meet three times a week in their innovation lab. Monday is the time for an open forum, a debate on a specific issue chosen by the students, or an exchange on how to solve of problem that a student is facing with his project. Students learn from TED talks, magazines such as WIRED, blogs... "The goal is to get kids interested in what's next", says Don Wettrick.
Tuesday or Wednesday is for planning, in groups of 2-3. Some times students leave the building, other times they skype, google hangout, looking for the next collaborator, doing research...
On Friday, students reconvene, a bit like a congress. They recap the week, reflect on what they've learned, write group and individuals blogs, record Youtube podcasts...

Students have worked on app development, one of them is coding for Google glass. The "Pass system" used at Noblesville High School was developed by a 15-year-old student and his collaborator out of Launch Fishers. They are working on a project to redesign hospital gowns. Students also collaborate with Universities such as Stanford.

Don Wettrick has taken his students on field trips to the Silicon Valley, is planning trips to the East Coast, to meet with some of their collaborators and other influencers.

The innovation class at Noblesville HS is elective. Because Don is the only innovation director in the school for the time being, he interviewed and selected the students himself. He does not care about the grades, he wants motivated, creative students. "My model student would be a skate boarder, because he is non-conventional, doesn't like a structured environment, succeeds by trial and error, is not afraid to get back up after falling painfully, and because he is artistic".

Controversy coming up...

Don Wettrick's innovation class is not easy to replicate in all schools because on the culture lying in the very traditional world of education. In his book to come out in the next couple of weeks - Pure Genius: Creating A Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level - Don explains what his philosophy is and how he created this unique curriculum. He even dedicates 3 full chapters on the use of social media as the foundation of teaching innovation to kids.
He expects a lot of blow back once the book comes out "because it is unconventional". He admits doesn't own the truth, he simply wants to offer an alternative. "Do I believe I have the right approach, absolutely. But I understand not everyone will agree. Innovation is not for everyone, but everyone can be innovative. The next idea can come from anybody, if they know how to think differently".

The earlier kids can learn about creativity and non-linear thinking, the better.

"Don Wettrick has turned the traditional classroom experience on its head, allowing the students to take control of their own education. The results are stunning! This book should be the blueprint for the future of education." 
Tina Seelig - Professor, Stanford University, Author, inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity

“Can school be a place where risk-taking and creativity flourish?  Don Wettrick offers and emphatic “yes” — and shows how he’s done it. Wettrick has incorporated a range of creativity-generating concepts into his teaching and turned his classroom into an innovation factory. This book teaches you how to do the same and still maintain rigorous educational standards. You'll be amazed by his students’ accomplishments and eager to put his ideas into practice."
Daniel Pink, author of DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND

Indiana on all fronts of Innovation

Last year's acquisition of Indianapolis' ExactTarget by Salesforce for $2.5 billion helped Indiana get national attention, credibility and capital as becoming a center for innovation.

From the stock options gains generated by the acquisition, "many current and former ExactTarget staffers have turned into investors, employees and advisors for a bevy of other local startups, lending experience and wealth to help the next generation of tech successes grow", says Mike Langellier, CEO of TechPoint. The Indy tech scene now draws interest from investors and talent outside the state.

To support this effort, TechPoint, Indiana's technology growth initiative, unveiled in November 2013 the pilot of a first-of-its kind talent recruiting program called IndyX aimed at attracting and retaining skilled individuals by connecting them to the Indianapolis community and thousands of open jobs in tech companies.

The summer coolness in the Midwest does not affect the heat on innovation. Indianapolis has been surfing on the wave of innovation, with many initiatives: Mira Awards, the Innovation Showcase, the Day of Innovation conference...

On May 4, the Mira Awards recognized among others Interactive Intelligence as the Tech Company of the Year, and DoubleMap as the Tech Startup of the Year. The number of applications (record of 170) was an increase of 40% from last year.

On July 10, the Innovation Showcase attracted 850 attendees including entrepreneurs, investors and community supporters. Investor eduction sessions, pitches and exhibits by Midwest startups, panel discussions were the highlight of the event. The winner, Cearna Aesthetics, received the largest ever prize which included $128,000 in investment and professional services. 

On August 28, Centric, an Indianapolis innovation networking group, will host the Day of Innovation conference with local and national innovation thought leaders, with the mission to elevate Indianapolis as a center of innovation. It will also recognize innovative Hoosier companies with the Indiana Innovation Awards.


On January 22, Lt. Governor Sue Ellspermann announced that the Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC) was partnering with Launch Fishers to establish the Launch Indiana SBDC (“Launch Indiana”). Launch Indiana connects Indiana’s innovation-driven entrepreneurs with mentorship, education, and assistance from successful entrepreneurs. It serves entrepreneurs statewide with a sharp focus on high potential companies known as, what Launch Fishers founder Wechsler calls, “Innovation Driven Enterprises.”

Indiana may never be the new Silicon Valley, but it can become a major player on the national innovation scene. The more we educate, inspire, motivate and support local entrepreneurs, the more ExactTargets there will be...

10 reasons why you must attend the Day of Innovation conference!

Day of Innovation - August 28 - Indianapolis, IN

10. “Either you choose to innovate or to commoditize” - Charlie McTargett, 2013 Day of Innovation keynote speaker and VP Product Development at Delta Faucet.

9. Network with others who share an innovation mindset.

8. Event you don’t want to miss because everybody is going to talk about it.

7. Challenge the status quo in your organization and learn from Indiana’s innovation thought leaders.

6. Educate your employees about innovation at a low cost (only $200 compared to other conferences of $1000+).

5. Because we don’t believe in the conventional way of thinking, our panel will bring an espresso shot of disruption to challenge the status quo. Expect (good) chaos.

4. Learn how to be innovative well beyond product development: marketing, customer experience, future planning, competitive intelligence, company culture, mindset.

3. Your competitors have already registered. What are you waiting for?

2. This will change the way you think about innovation in your organization.

1. Expose yourself to new perspectives you’ve not considered before.

Register now!

Join The Resistance Against The Status Quo

Tired of hearing the same old adage "we've always done it this way" which leads to nowhere but the status quo? At Centric, we are tired of it!

Join the resistance against the status quo at Indianapolis' Day of Innovation conference on August 28.

Innovation is not just about launching a brand new product on the market. It is a mindset that leads to the implementation of ideas.

Day of Innovation will feature keynote speaker Jeff Baxter, co-founder of Steely Dan and lead-guitarist of the Doobie Brother. Baxter is now a consultant for the Pentagon on counter-terrorism. He will teach the audience how to think non-linear in a linear world.

Speaking of (national) security, companies must keep an (innovative) eye on this matter. Jeremy Morton and Tom Baldwin, two executives at Stanley Security, will share with us how to keep abreast of change and remain the industry leader in innovation.

Doug Boles, President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will talk about the future of one of the most iconic sports venues in the world, host of the Indianapolis 500.

You can be innovative in marketing in one of the oldest sports in the world... soccer. Peter Wilt from Indy Eleven, Indianapolis' new NASL professional soccer team, will share with us how his team developed an innovative grass-roots and non conventional marketing campaign to defeat all odds and sell record season tickets.

You can be a product or device focused company but still genuinely care about your end users, in Roche's case, their patients. Laura Spiegel will tell the story of Roche's LifeMap Experience to say "no" to the status quo in Diabetes care.
Want to discover Google's behind-the-scene culture of innovation? We won't bring Vince Vaughn or Owen Wilson (they are not available, sorry!), but we'll have a true Xoogler (read: ex-Googler) - Joe Van Deman -  to share some secrets.

Because we don't believe in the conventional way of thinking, our panel will bring a espresso shot of disruption to challenge the status quo. Expect (good) chaos!

Finally, Day of Innovation will celebrate Indiana's most innovative organizations with the Indiana Innovation Awards ceremony.

Join the resistance against the status quo!

New name for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

When I was a kid, my great-grandmother used to make pottery. In her backyard, she had a shop and a tiny museum, which she would show to relatives and friends… What’s the link between my great-grandmother and the IMS, you will ask me?
Should we rename the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the Indianapolis Motor Slowway? Growing up in France, like any European child, all I knew about car racing was Formula 1, with in the 80s and 90s the likes of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Michael Andretti… However, I knew of the Indianapolis 500 as being the most prestigious race in the world. I had no idea what Champ Cars was, I could not place Indianapolis on a map, but I knew of the Indianapolis 500. For years, the Indianapolis 500 has been of one the most prestigious sports events in the world, not just in racing, but across all sports. Studies show that the wheel and wing logo of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one of the top 10 most recognizable brands in the world.

As a (proud) Hoosier by adoption, I got to become emotionally attached to the IMS, to the Indianapolis 500, to the city. I still don’t know sh#t about Indy Car, or NASCAR. I only know a few drivers by name, but it stops here. I have been at all races at the Speedway, which is an iconic venue for any sports fan. US car racing was born in Indianapolis, damn it! But I am frustrated with the idea that there are so many lost opportunities because of the status quo, the conservatism, the lack a guts to restore the IMS to its past glory. Various IMS leaders have moved (if at all) way to slow (Slowway?) to keep the IMS brand upbeat and relevant to the present, and the future.

When I was a kid, my great-grandmother used to make pottery. In her backyard, she had a shop and a tiny museum, which she would show to relatives and friends… What’s the link between my great-grandmother and the IMS, you will ask me? One, they were born slightly at the same time. Second, my GG’s museum looked like what the IMS museum looks today: an old place, which has not changed in decades. When I look at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, with its interactive, hands-on exhibits and activities, or the Dallara factory on Main Street with its simulators, real-time workshops, state-to-the-art building, I don’t understand how the IMS cannot keep up? I once took my son (only once - he was 5 at that time) to the IMS museum, and after spending only 15 minutes in the building, he told me he wanted to leave because he was bored! Isn’t that sad? I typically have to drag my kids out of the Children’s Museum after an entire afternoon spent there because they want to stay (we go there often, but they never get bored). If you ask anyone (and mostly adults) what their experience has been at the Dallara factory, their eyes will lit up, their face expands with a huge smile, and they will say “awesome”. WTF is going on with the IMS? They should have been doing this for years!

With such an iconic venue as the IMS, with one of the most prestigious sports events in the world with the Indianapolis 500, the IMS board should bring the track to the people, not try to bring people to the track (so far, the latter has been a failure – look at the plummeting number of spectators the last few years). As an example, the Gilles Villeneuve track in Montreal is open all year long to the public. When I lived in Montreal, I used to roller blade or ride my bike every weekend or evening in the spring & summer, for free. I don’t mean the IMS board should do the same, but they should make the IMS and Indy Car a sexy product. The only time Indy Car looked sexy in the past several years was when Danica Patrick ran in the series. Indy Car was sexy because of Danica Patrick, not because it was Indy Car itself. Maybe she was a distraction (at times) to the discipline itself, but at least she brought the spot lights, audience and sponsors to the league. Now that she is gone (she still is very sexy BTW), what’s left for Indy Car? Not much… Fans, sponsors, drivers are going away year after year. 

Indy Car, along with the IMS, must become sexy again, as stand-alone symbols, not through a Go Daddy sex symbol! Come on, IMS people, show that you have power in your engine, that you have the guts to run 240 mph (the unofficial track record is 239 and the track record for qualifying is 237 – so move faster) to move the IMS and the Indy Car into the future and make them relevant again. I still don’t know sh#t about Indy Car, but I know sh#t about developing unique brand experiences. What about you? Let the drivers be drivers and the engineers be engineers.