A February 2021 poll by management consulting company Robert Half showed that 89% of businesses expect the hybrid work model – where employees split their time between home and the office — to be here for good. Moreover, an October 2021 joint study from Google Workspace and The Economist uncovered that 75% of employees believe their companies will fully adopt hybrid work within three years. 

This, of course, will require investment in new technology if the business of work (a.k.a. meetings) is going to continue. While many have tried to make do in 2020 and 2021 via an ad hoc solution of video chat solutions and online collaboration platforms, Zoom fatigue is real. Everyone from National Geographic to researchers at Stanford have explored the concept.

Connecting from wherever & meeting anywhere

One global operation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, has recognized it must help its employees escape the feeling they’re trapped in a tiny box on screen. While it piloted a program in 2017 where it shipped VR headsets to staff, the events of the past couple of years have accelerated this effort. Now PwC is holding meetings in exotic virtual locales like luxury ski chalets, swanky penthouses, and, surprisingly, atop notable skyscrapers. There’s also an initiative underway to outfit physical environments with higher-grade microphones, video meeting screens, and their own supply of VR headsets (so everyone can join meetings at the Empire State Building’s observation deck).

We’ve done something similar here at Voltage Control. This past holiday, we shipped a headset to every team member so we could hold our annual party virtually within a space we created using AltspaceVR. While it wasn’t perfect — I built the room myself with very little training — it allowed us to explore the technology ahead of our upcoming Control The Room Summit, which will be incorporating VR as part of its hybrid component (more on that later).

Zooming in the Metaverse

Even Zoom realizes it will have to do something to make video conferencing more engaging. During its September Zoomtopia event, it announced a partnership with the Meta-owned Oculus. This took place only a few weeks after the company formerly known as Facebook rolled out its Horizon Workrooms.

This team-up will allow Oculus Quest headset users to join Zoom Meetings and use the Zoom Whiteboard directly within VR. Workers at home and the office can then brainstorm together, collaborate on a document, have more visually interesting conversations, or just socialize. You can learn more in the video below. 

The Zoom-Oculus-Horizon partnership isn’t the only option out there, though. Around the same time, Cisco revealed its Webex platform was getting a VR/AR upgrade called Webex Hologram. Alluding to the specter of “Zoom fatigue,” Cisco said it wants to support employers in reducing the friction between virtual and in-person collaboration. Not to be outdone, Microsoft soon offered its Teams users a product called Mesh, which is its take on a VR/AR meeting mash-up. In what has to be a nod to that old Xzibit Facebook meme, Slack is even allowing its users to read messages in virtual reality.

More ways to mix it up

Mixed reality is another technology that can bring excitement, engagement, and interactivity to hybrid meetings. Not to be confused with virtual reality, mixed reality incorporates digital elements into a real environment. Headsets like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap 1 utilize sensing and imaging technologies to merge physical and virtual worlds.

Mixed reality can empower facilitators to enhance meetings in really innovative ways, such as allowing you to explore 3D visual aids that you couldn’t bring into an actual meeting room due to size or weight. Not just confined to headsets, you can present mixed reality elements on screens in a meeting space when a speaker is captured on a video camera (you’ll just need someone in an edit suite to add the layers).

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Cover Story Mockup

The purpose is to envision an ideal future state for your organization. Let go of all doubts and imagine a future state that is so awesome that it landed your organization in a well-known magazine.

Get It Now

How we’re experimenting with VR at Voltage Control

After running our third annual Control The Room facilitator summit as a remote event in 2021, we’re back at Austin’s Capital Factory on February 2nd  for a hybrid event. For those that can’t join us there, or simply prefer virtual, we’ll be utilizing Zoom, MURAL, and AltspaceVR to bring everyone together despite the physical distance.

Ultimately we decided to virtually present the conference in a space built within AltspaceVR. We won’t, however, be forcing people into the VR environment, those joining remotely can participate via Zoom if they don’t have a VR headset, or download the desktop version of AltspaceVR! We will be raffling off several pairs ahead of the event because we want to encourage everyone to experience how VR can be deployed in the facilitation space. 

Regardless of how people are joining us digitally, we’ll have hosts monitoring the VR and remote platforms to ensure a feedback loop between the in-person and distanced attendees. VR and Zoom attendees will be able to interact and ask the keynote speakers questions, live, via the platform hosts. As you can see, we’re attempting to create as much connective tissue amongst the disparate environments as possible. 

Steve Schofield of MURAL Labs is additionally hosting a week-long VR build event with world builders and facilitators to explore facilitation in VR. Participants from MURAL, Meta, the Horizon Worlds Community, Voltage Control, and Control The Room will gather in Horizon Worlds to think, explore, and build prior to the Summit. The overarching theme of exploration will be on facilitating retrospectives. The outputs will be shared during the Control the Room conference!

If you’re worried about single-handedly integrating VR into your hybrid meetings, know that our effort isn’t the work of one person — it’s the work of many. We’ll have lots of facilitators available across Zoom, MURAL, and AltspaceVR, as well as  an experienced contractor to run our A/V for us. Porting the event in Zoom alone requires him to set up three cameras and switch between them and an HDMI of the slides.

Control The Room will be our first time holding a hybrid meeting with this much technical complexity, and I look forward to sharing our post-event experiences with you. 

Want to witness our VR integration firsthand? Join us in-person or virtually at the Control The Room 2022 Summit. Single-day in-person tickets, virtual tickets, and tickets for separate workshops are all available! You can find more details here.

-Douglas Ferguson, President

The post How innovations in VR can improve hybrid meetings. appeared first on Voltage Control.

2021 is officially at its end, and before we take the first step into the new year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on a year that will be remembered as one of great leaps, coupled with devastating tragedy. Let’s take a look at some of our best moments, but first, I want to honor a team member, a mother, a friend.

Jenni Robertson

Remembering this truly wonderful person will forever prevail over my thoughts when reflecting on 2021. Jenni Robertson, our Head of Operations, was lost suddenly and tragically, to family violence last October. Jenni was at the core of the growth and identity of Voltage Control, deeply affected the way we work, created value for our clients, and supported our people.

In her memory, we have decided to focus efforts and resources to help others in similar situations. 

We have dedicated this year’s facilitation summit, Control the Room 2022, to Jenni and are launching an annual Jenni Robertson Memorial Scholarship. IIn these efforts we are partnering with SAFE, an organization that seeks a future with a just and safe community, free from violence and abuse. We pledge to not only honor Jenni, but through continuing work with SAFE, we plan to facilitate necessary shifts in how companies, communities, and families care for each other and find the support that they need. 

As facilitators, we talk about creating safe spaces, people deserve to feel safe everywhere. 

If you are interested in helping us in our work with SAFE, please reach out, I continue to be shocked and saddened at the prevalence of this problem. Let’s all work together to make a difference.

The highlight of my professional year has been the amazing team here a Voltage Control. When you work with a team of people who are passionate about what they do, care about other human beings, and truly want to make a difference you cannot possibly lose. This team has been through a year of amazing things, but also some very tragic things and I think it is a testament to the incredible abilities of each and every one of us that we were able to come together when required while also taking space as needed. We were able to persevere and are continuing to find ways to take something horrible and turn it into something that breeds hope and love. We didn’t let any of it defeat us, but instead, we stood up to honor it. When I think of Voltage Control I think of the people.

-Jamie LaFrenier, Executive Assistant

A Virtual Facilitation Experience

In February of 2021, we delivered a completely virtual and very successful facilitation summit. Hunrdeds of eager learners, expert facilitators, and meeting practitioners gathered online for a 3-day interactive CONNECTION-themed workshop. Sponsored by MURAL, we honored our mission to share the global perspective of facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, cultures, and more. Human connection is vital to the work we do, and in 2021 we were faced with the challenge of maintaining that connection in a virtual space.  

When we connect things become possible. When we are disconnected there is dysfunction. When ideas connect they become solutions. When movements connect they become revolutions. 

Through lightning talks and in-depth workshops, our community of facilitators, experts, and guests soaked up novel concepts from master facilitators, connected with peers, and gained new perspectives and approaches. This year at Control the Room 2022, we will be putting on a hybrid conference, and we are so excited to, once again, tap into the virtual room while also bridging the gap to those actually in the physical room. We even have some very exciting Virtual Reality options coming this year!

Magical Meetings

In March of 2021, I published my 4th book, Magical Meetings. As a companion project, we also launched the Magical Meetings Stories series! Within this series, I chat with professional facilitators, meeting practitioners, leaders, and CEOs from all walks of industry, to hear about their amazing meetings, how they came about, how they work, and what they plan to do with it in the future. These stories are one example of the many ways that we are continuing to invest in our ever-growing facilitation community, providing resources for all facilitators to learn and grow. It’s been almost a year since starting the series, and we’ve heard from so many incredible people and we’ll be hearing from many more as we move in 2022. The very first Magical Meeting Story we heard was from Cam Houser, founder of Actionworks. 

I think Zoom fatigue is a lie. Zoom fatigue only happens when facilitators don’t know what they’re doing.

– Cam Houser

Cam is the creator of the Instant Community-Building Workshop to help break down walls and build a deep connection with the community you work with. In the interview, we explore a pivotal question that has risen with digital and remote work on the rise: ‘What does it mean to get close to someone?’ A truly inspirational story, make sure to revisit the story that kicked of our Magical Meetings series: Instant Community-Building Workshop.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Cover Story Mockup

The purpose is to envision an ideal future state for your organization. Let go of all doubts and imagine a future state that is so awesome that it landed your organization in a well-known magazine.

Get It Now

Facilitation Certification Program

Over the years we have worked with some truly inspirational facilitators, facilitators who desired to build their skills with guidance from our unique perspective. Due to such high demand for facilitation certification, we launched a practice and cohort-based program this summer. Within a month of launching the first cohort of our Facilitator Certification Program, we knew we had created something special. Not only did we find ourselves and our students having a ton of fun, but we also have seen tangible outcomes emerging for all learners. Overall, the program is focused on development facilitators abilities  to:

• Identify a spectrum of game-changing facilitation methods and approaches
• Select the best facilitation methods for your facilitation context
• Implement the right facilitation methods to meet optimal facilitation outcomes
• Reflect on areas of personal facilitator strength and growth
• Cultivate a valuable professional facilitator identity 

These objectives allow our students to develop the key skills needed to be successful and effective facilitators. It also provides a very strong foundation to utilize these tools to transcend varieties of clients and the different contexts of their work. We are looking forward to our first cohort of 2022, beginning February 11th, if you are interested in signing up, applications are due January 14th, 2020. We hope to see you there! 

The highlight of my year is providing people the tools they need to get teams more involved, to make participatory decision making, and to include and unleash everyone.

-Annie Hodges Workshop Facilitator

Facilitation Lab

2021 saw substantial growth within our facilitation lab. At the helm, Kierra Johnson, our Community Manager, and Social Media Coordinator, thoughtfully nurtured our community of facilitators. 

We’ve had quite the year in the Facilitation Lab learning in so many vast areas of facilitation ranging from facilitating social gatherings,  psychological safety in organizations, t facilitating virtual experiences, and exploring creativity through storyboard prototyping. Our community has formed new relationships, explored new elements in facilitation, and grown closer together through our time each week together. I’m looking forward to innovating together in 2022!  -Kierra Johnson

The Facilitation Lab community truly felt the impact as well! Here is what some of the community had to say: 

“I am appreciative of the gentle reminder of how important it is to stay connected to the varying needs of the people on the teams I am on.”

“I loved the concepts introduced as I learned great new tools on how to approach facilitation to build new relationships.”

“I love how we got to practice storytelling. This is so key in driving and introducing solutions to problems.”

“This session was a great reminder to embrace the inner child to solve problems.”

“This session gave me courage to continue using games to connect people.”

Join the community every week, and come together openly to ideate, troubleshoot, and experiment with tried and true, and cutting edge facilitation activities and methods!

Reflecting back on 2021, I’m immensely grateful to have joined Voltage Control. From the very start, it’s been obvious the dedication, empathy, and talent that each member of the team has. Looking back, it’s amazing what we as a group have accomplished, and I can’t wait to continue to carry that forward into 2022.

-Hassan Ghiassi, VP of Relationships

A Future In Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality and the Metaverse are not only truly fascinating but the next big tech movement for businesses as well as entertainment. We are leaning into the new year with VR in mind. Our 2021 annual party was actually hosted in Virtual Reality, and for a handful of our employees, it was a brand new experience! Not only did we have a wonderful time, but it felt like a taste of what 2022 has in store for us. Control the Room 2022 will have VR capabilities, and we will be giving away VR headsets to select ticket holders, so make sure you get your tickets to take part! 

If there is one thing I know to be true about myself, it’s that I’m at my best when I’m learning. 2021 presented so many new opportunities for Voltage Control along with unimaginable challenges. 2021 will certainly be a year I will remember for the rest of my life. It was a major inflection point for the business in spite of devastating tragedy. I hold the deepest respect for our amazing and courageous team.

-Douglas Ferguson, President

The post 2021: A Year To Remember appeared first on Voltage Control.

When it comes to facilitation, you may be leading a single meeting or conducting a workshop series, but one fact remains true of all: our purpose is to manage discussions, help create a safe space for ideas to emerge and grow from ALL participants, and ultimately to resolve the issue at hand. The best facilitators regularly ask, ”Why did we hold this meeting?” and “What do we need to gain from it?”

Beginning the journey of professional facilitation is much less daunting than it may sound. The path is sprinkled with knowledge, growth, inclusion of everyone, and ultimately, an environment where thoughts are unleashed by allowing everyone’s voices to be heard. Chances are you are already on this path! We want you to go from being a good facilitator to the best facilitator. You can do that by leveling un through the facilitator pyramid.

What is a Facilitator?

A good facilitator plans and leads a group to meet set goals. The group process is important to effectively reach those goals, work together, make decisions, and solve the issue at hand. 

A better facilitator takes what a good facilitator does and begins to steer the group toward a more open flow of ideas and solutions, allowing voices to be heard and a more flowing process, more freedom, and playfulness, to arise. 

The best facilitator takes all that a step further. Beginning with a psychologically safe space as the foundation for the group, creating active and engaging content, and utilizing stimulating tools to unleash the potential of every idea in the room.

Without the proper space for people to bring their most authentic selves, think of how many problem-solving ideas go unheard? How many meetings would have been more productive and more stimulating had we just moved one more step up the pyramid?

Pro-Tip! Check out our FREE download: Workshop Methods & Activities A collection of links to inspire methods & activities for your next workshop. Check out all of our FREE downloads here!

Our ‘Why’ for Facilitation and facilitation certification

We lead with the value of facilitation, and we offer unique guidance to a spectrum of clients. The pursuit of knowledge, growth, and leadership are just a few of our whys for facilitation. And to share our practice and knowledge with the wider community, we recently launched our Facilitator Certification Program. Through this program, we offer guidance and coaching toward the best in facilitation. Utilizing class immersion, playbooks, readings, and more, we provide a unique opportunity for the necessary practice and feedback facilitators need to grow. The feedback comes from not only instructors but colleagues as well. All of this leads into an opportunity for students to create a portfolio that will best reflect them as a facilitator, highlighting key strengths and your knowledge.

We believe that the future is facilitation, technology and the nature of work is changing, and we believe that if businesses learn the art of facilitation those changes do not need to be as intimidating. Facilitators encourage the ideas that shape how we navigate new workspaces, technological challenges, and social encounters.

A Job Skill You Need

We are seeing a trend in workplaces becoming less hierarchical, there is a growing need for interpersonal problem-solving skills. As we move towards this shift in power and traditional workspaces, we need champions of thought and ideas. We need facilitators to light the way for the colleagues who may be hesitant to share, or unsure about change.

“If we fail to adapt, we fail to move forward.”

-John Wooden

Truly productive meetings embrace change, and that means understanding how to navigate, through facilitation, conversations that may be tough. With the confidence of a facilitation certification, those conversations take on an ease, and even introduce an excitement, about the possibilities of change. Inclusivity is the key to being an effective facilitator. It’s time we shed the traditional, in-effective meeting structure.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Cover Story Mockup

The purpose is to envision an ideal future state for your organization. Let go of all doubts and imagine a future state that is so awesome that it landed your organization in a well-known magazine.

Get It Now

Are You Ready to Climb?

Ready to climb the pyramid? Receiving your Facilitator Certification will grant you the key skills you need through the support of a cohort of facilitator colleagues. By the end of the facilitator certification program you will be able to:  

• Identify a spectrum of game-changing facilitation methods and approaches
• Select the best facilitation methods for your facilitation context
• Implement the right facilitation methods to meet optimal facilitation outcomes
• Reflect on areas of personal facilitator strength and growth
• Cultivate a valuable professional facilitator identity

Passing the coursework means receiving certifications for EACH individual course, and after satisfying all certification requirements you will receive a full certification for your professional portfolios and to display on LinkedIn. 

Not only will you have the credentials, but you will have the key skills to amplify the ideas around you, problem-solve effectively, and create an environment of growth and movement!

The post How ‘Good’ Facilitators become the ‘Best’ Facilitators appeared first on Voltage Control.

It’s a common refrain in training circles that “practice makes practice.” In order to get better at your craft, to build the necessary skills and competencies to excel in your field, you must practice. You succeed and fail. You reflect on those successes and failures. And you get better. It was this frame that inspired our VP of Learning Experience, Erik Skogsberg, when he designed our recently-launched Facilitator Certification Program. We wholeheartedly believe that facilitation is the future as companies continue to transform amidst the pandemic and rapid technological change. And we want to help facilitators across industries thrive in their craft.

As a facilitation agency that leads with the value of facilitation for helping a whole spectrum of clients, we’ve gotten many requests over the years for providing a robust facilitation certification program. Growing facilitators wanted to build their skills with our unique guidance and wanted to be recognized for it. So, this summer, we started the process of designing a practice- and cohort-based Facilitator Certification Program. And now, over a month into our first cohort, we’re having fun and learning a great deal. In this post, we’ll share a bit more about the design behind the program, how its different components fit together to provide a robust learning experience, and share a few tips to help you in your growth as a facilitator.

Focus on the Right Facilitator Outcomes

As seasoned facilitators, we have a common set of skills we regularly draw on in our work. We used those skills to anchor the outcomes for the program. Overall, we want facilitators coming out of our program to know and be able to:

• Identify a spectrum of game-changing facilitation methods and approaches
• Select the best facilitation methods for your facilitation context
• Implement the right facilitation methods to meet optimal facilitation outcomes
• Reflect on areas of personal facilitator strength and growth
• Cultivate a valuable professional facilitator identity

These course outcomes bring into focus the key steps that an effective facilitator takes time and again to support clients across contexts in their work. Facilitators know and draw from a variety of facilitation approaches and traditions. Then, based on client needs, they select the right facilitation methods to best support clients in their articulated needs . Next, they implement these methods and maximize their impact in the moment with clients. After that, they reflect on areas of facilitator strength and growth to get better. And finally, with the first four outcome areas as a foundation, they are able to cultivate the optimal professional facilitator identity to thrive in the ways that facilitators hope to out in the world. To meet these outcomes, we crafted various learning experiences for our learners.

Dive into A Spectrum of Facilitator Learning Experiences

We introduce and model a spectrum of methods through readings, playbooks, case studies, and class immersion to reach these outcomes. We provide opportunities for facilitators to practice these methods in class and in their work contexts, receive feedback and coaching from both course instructors and course colleagues, and finally produce a professional portfolio that not only shows how facilitators have met course outcomes, but also is crafted in a form and manner that would resonate most with their facilitator audiences (could be LinkedIn, professional website, and/or internal HR employee portfolio spaces). It’s essential for us to support our cohort members as they create a portfolio that will be meaningful for them.

It was important to us from the beginning that the certification would be portfolio-based, asking students to show us and the world their growth through the course. We’ve found that a real difference-maker for facilitators in our industry to not only be able to practice their craft but also to talk about it in a manner that is compelling to the audiences they care about. Building a compelling narrative and facilitator story around practice is essential.

Facilitate and Tell a Purposeful Facilitator Story

Our certification is comprised of both synchronous and asynchronous course components, readings from facilitation texts such as The Art of Gathering, Gamestorming, Liberating Structures, and Rituals for Virtual Meetings, homework assignments to practice methods in facilitator contexts, and colleague and instructor coaching, all in service of creating a professional portfolio. And we base our overall instruction in what is known as a gradual release model of teaching. Our VP of Learning Experience uses this approach extensively, as he has trained hundreds of teachers and facilitators over the years.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Cover Story Mockup

The purpose is to envision an ideal future state for your organization. Let go of all doubts and imagine a future state that is so awesome that it landed your organization in a well-known magazine.

Get It Now

What this oftentimes looks like in practice is the introduction of a method by our instructors, immersion in that method that provides students with an opportunity to not only try it out from the participant’s role but also from the vantage point of the facilitator, and then gradually turning over the work of the facilitator to learners both inside and outside of the course. We then build in both reflection and feedback along the way all geared toward facilitators using that reflection and feedback to grow and get better at talking about their work as facilitators in their portfolio and to outside audiences. We find that this storytelling component is an essential part of the work of a facilitator that pays dividends both inside and outside of the facilitated session. And this storytelling is strongest when it is anchored in a strong purpose.

Anchor Your Practice in Purpose

In fact, so much of our work as facilitators is anchored in purpose. What are the purposes that our clients have for their work? What are the purposes for our work as facilitators with our clients? What are the purposes of each activity and method  we’ve chosen to best help our clients meet their purposes and goals? Being clear on and articulating  these purposes in a consistent narrative is essential to the work of an impactful facilitator. And so much of our work with learners in the certification program is focused here. We not only help our students to build competency in the work of a facilitator, but also to be able to gain deeper perspective and self-awareness about what they are doing and communicate that to a wide variety of audiences. It’s that vantage point on practice we’ve found to be the differentiator between run-of-the-mill facilitators and facilitator-leaders who are able to thrive across a variety of contexts.

Jumpstart Your Facilitator Growth

There are some initial ways you can jumpstart your facilitator growth using techniques from our program. As we mentioned above, so much of what we do is anchored in cultivating purpose(s): you in your work, those of your client, and for your growth. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to begin this process: 

• What purpose(s) do you have as a facilitator? Why do you do what you do?
• What purpose(s) do your clients have in asking for your facilitator support?
• Based on your purpose(s) where do you excel, and where do you want to grow?

Beginning to answer these questions can help you put a finer point on just where you might best lean into facilitator growth. These questions nudge you in defining what may have just been tacit or assumed. This also begins your process of building a compelling narrative for your facilitated sessions and, your own professional identity. Your answers and recursive asking of these questions can help you build focused practice and reflection and jumpstart your journey for deeper facilitator growth.

Commit to Your Facilitator Growth

The answers to the above questions can be a great launching point for your individual growth journey. They are also an excellent precursor to making a deeper commitment to your growth through our certification program. If you’re ready to dedicate the necessary time to take your facilitation to the next level and would like to do so with seasoned instructors and a supportive cohort, then submit your application today. Applications are due for our next cohort on January 14th, 2022, and then begins on February 11th, 2022. We’d love to see you in our next cohort.

FAQ Section

What key attributes are essential for effective facilitation?
Effective facilitation hinges on several key attributes, including emotional intelligence, strong communication, and consensus-building skills. Facilitators must be adept at guiding productive meetings and fostering collaboration, ensuring that participants are fully engaged and working towards shared goals. Additionally, a deep understanding of various facilitation techniques, including visual thinking strategies and methods of innovation, is crucial to successfully navigate complex group dynamics and drive collaboration in both traditional and virtual settings.

How does the Voltage Control Facilitation Certification Program help build facilitation skills?
The Voltage Control comprehensive facilitation certification program focuses on developing critical facilitation skills through hands-on practice and interactive learning experiences. Participants engage in practical exercises and practice sessions that help reinforce the fundamentals of facilitation, as well as advanced techniques. The program includes expert critique from seasoned facilitators, providing actionable strategies and personalized feedback to improve facilitation practice. In addition, the program offers a capstone experience, enabling learners to apply their skills in real-world scenarios and complete the program with a fully-fledged facilitator skillset.

What practical tools and resources are available to participants during the certification program?
The certification program provides participants with a wealth of practical tools and resources to support their learning journey. These include access to LUMA Workplace, design tools, and an extensive library of training tools designed to enhance facilitation practice. Participants also receive exercise files, additional learning resources, and access to workshop resources that they can use to implement facilitation techniques in their daily work. The use of these tools helps participants develop effective group collaboration skills and tackle various business challenges with innovative solutions.

How does Voltage Control ensure mastery of facilitation skills?
Voltage Control ensures the mastery of facilitation skills through a hybrid approach that combines online training with virtual sessions, practice opportunities, and expert coaching. The program offers 1.5-hour video courses, weekly challenges, and practical tasks designed to build core strengths in facilitation. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their learning through individual study and reflection tasks, which help reinforce key facilitation techniques. By offering personalized facilitation training and a flexible learning cycle, the program allows participants to progress at their own pace while mastering essential skills required for effective facilitation.

What is the structure of the facilitator certification program?
The Voltage Control Facilitation Certification Program is structured to provide a comprehensive learning experience through a blend of core and elective modules. Participants start with an introduction to facilitation skills and move through core modules that cover both foundational skills and more advanced, hands-on workshop facilitation training. The program also includes elective modules that allow participants to tailor their learning to specific areas of interest, such as mastering Human-Centered Design Facilitator methods or refining facilitation practice in different contexts. Upon successful completion, participants receive a legitimate facilitation certificate and gain access to a private facilitator community, where they can continue developing their skills alongside a cohort of peers.

Can I earn a certificate of completion through the online facilitation training course?
Yes, participants who successfully complete the 6-week online facilitation course will earn a certificate of completion. The online program offers a flexible learning experience, with both synchronous and asynchronous sessions designed to accommodate varying schedules. Participants will engage in weekly challenges, practice facilitation techniques in virtual sessions, and receive expert critiques from instructors. The course concludes with a final evaluation, after which participants receive their facilitation certificate, marking their achievements and validating their newfound expertise in facilitation.

What is the role of practical experience and hands-on practice in the certification process?
Practical experience is a cornerstone of the Voltage Control certification program. Participants engage in hands-on practice through practical exercises, coaching sessions, and immersive learning experiences. These exercises give learners the opportunity to apply facilitation skills in real-world scenarios, including the use of human-centered design methods, visual thinking strategies, and collaborative leadership skills. The inclusion of expert facilitator critique and feedback further enhances the learning process, ensuring that participants refine their skills with each exercise. By the end of the program, learners will have gained practical skills that can be immediately applied in their professional roles.

How does the Voltage Control program support the development of collaborative leadership skills?
The Voltage Control program is designed to help participants build collaborative leadership skills through a combination of coaching sessions, interactive exercises, and practical tasks. Participants learn how to effectively lead group sessions, facilitate consensus-building exercises, and drive collaboration within teams. The curriculum emphasizes actionable strategies that participants can implement in real-world situations, whether they are chiefs of staff, design leaders, or team leaders within their organizations. Graduates of the program are well-equipped to lead teams through complex challenges, using facilitation techniques that foster collaboration and drive positive outcomes.

The post Designing Our Facilitator Certification Program appeared first on Voltage Control.

Are you running a company and struggling with a particular business challenge or question about your users? Do you want to make sure you’re on the right path forward to success? You might want to consider hiring a strategic planning service. It is their job to analyze the position your company is in and work with you to figure out what’s working and what’s not. Be warned: they are blunt. But, they are also fair. You may not like everything they say, but they are effective.

Strategic planning is an organizational strategy used in companies of all sizes and verticals. It provides a plan and roadmap for a company and is a tool that should be used in fulfilling a mission or goal. Strategic planning services are experts in the key aspects of the strategic planning process and can help organizations outline and implement strategic planning initiatives. Successful strategic plans should clearly document specific goals and the action steps and resources necessary to accomplish them. Organizations without a strategic planning foundation and forward-thinking process are much more likely to face roadblocks, especially in today’s competitive environment. 

Still not sure if this service could help your company? Here is a basic rundown of all the ways you might benefit from hiring a strategic planning service.

1. A Strategic Planning Service Helps You Plan

A strategic planning service’s purpose isn’t to read over your plan and then check it off so you can go execute. Their job is to partner with you during this planning phase and actually work with you on it. They will analyze your company so they can lead you down the path of smart business decisions. Elements and components of a strategic plan include:

• Mission and vision statements for context
• Goal setting
• Strategy implementation timelines
• Progress monitoring timelines
• Benchmarks and/or objectives that inform progress towards goals and how they support the mission and values
• Defining how and when progress will be tracked
• Outline of roles and responsibilities for each employee or team

2. They Facilitate the Process

When a strategic planning service first comes in, they review everything that has to do with your company. They familiarize themselves with the ins and outs, from your employees to your goals. When you’re holding your strategic planning meetings, the strategic planning service can bring in an expert to help facilitate these meetings and conversations. This expert, or facilitator, is someone who plans, designs, and leads a key group meeting or event and can help when dealing with larger topics. They offer a non-biased opinion and take care of logistics while making sure everyone stays on track. 

Pro Tip: Check out Facilitation Lab, our weekly virtual meetup focused on helping facilitators hone their craft to help improve the quality of meetings. Control the Room, Voltage Control’s Annual Facilitator Summit is another resource for facilitators. The summit provides facilitators with the opportunity to deepen their knowledge on how to facilitate meetings that matter and connect with other facilitation and meeting practitioners.

3. They Ask the Big Questions

Strategic planning services ask all the big questions that you may be afraid to ask. Your answers to these deep, probing questions are the key to unlocking a more successful future. Because they are neutral and unbiased (and offer a fresh perspective), strategic planning services aren’t afraid to dig into potentially touchy subjects. This may feel uncomfortable at first but will help you learn more about your business and where you want to take it (and how to get there) in the long run. Strategic planning services can also help accelerate innovation through design sprints and innovation exercises. 

Pro Tip: Learn about when you should run a design sprint here and how Voltage Control can help here. 

4. Strategic Planning Services Challenge Your Status Quo

Similarly to the above point, a strategic planning service is not afraid to challenge the status quo and will do this often. That means everything you’re currently doing with your business is potentially on the chopping block. Strategic planning services take an honest assessment of your company’s situation and can help you identify areas in which your organization can improve. They will share their insights and recommendations with you. Big problems will be discussed in enough detail where you’ll be able to easily make changes. You’ll have the benefit of an outsider’s perspective to see what shifts you might want to make in your company. Embrace these new ideas.

5. They Keep What Works

That being said, strategic planning companies will also identify, highlight and keep what’s working well for your organization. Every company has its individual strengths. The role of the service is also to point out these strengths so you can keep them up and iterate upon them. 

6. They Offer Advice During Changing Times

We’ve all learned how much the pandemic changed the way we work. Strategic planning services can provide clarity and organization during uncertain times. In light of recent events, an effective strategic plan looks a lot different today than a few years ago, in large part due to the increasingly hybrid workplace. Your team members are probably not in the same location, or even if they are, may not all be coming into a physical office. Many organizations had to develop strategic plans when determining how to successfully work in this hybrid and virtual environment. 

7. They Analyze and Get Involved

The strategic planning service’s job doesn’t end with analyzing your company. They get involved in helping you develop, execute and evaluate a new strategic plan. They sit down and help build your strategic plan framework, which after the initial analysis and assessment, will typically include:

• High level strategy formulation and development
• Strategic plan documentation 
• Translation of high level plan into operational planning and action items
• Performance evaluation 
• Strategic plan review and refinement as needed

A strategic planning service can also help with team alignment, collaboration training, and team culture, even if your team is remote. 

Strategic planning is a necessary, positive process when an organization wants to tackle business problems and be set up for future success. Organizations considering strategic planning should also consider utilizing strategic planning services. They bring expertise and guidance, promote team alignment and provide a more streamlined process.

Create your strategic plan today

Does your organization need help to develop a strategic plan? Voltage Control offers training and facilitation services. Reach out to hello@voltagecontrol.com to learn more or schedule a consultation.  

The post Why You Need to Hire A Strategic Planning Service appeared first on Voltage Control.

There is no doubt that interest in design thinking is at its zenith right now. But, design thinking is more than a trend or a hot topic; it is a way of working that leads to actual results for businesses. Take this powerful stat as an example: design-led companies have regularly outperformed the S&P index by 219% for the last ten years.

If you have a business — large or small — that needs new ways to look at your challenges, it might be time to engage with a design thinking consultant. Let’s take a look at design thinking, specifically how design thinking consulting can streamline and improve your business, no matter what industry you’re working in.

What Is Design Thinking?

In the old days, businesses used to have to wait for feedback. The typical business cycle would look something like:

1. Come up with an idea
2. Release a product or service
3. Market it to the best of your ability
4. Ask for feedback and hope for the best

There are a lot of blind spots in this business model. There’s also a lot of waiting and downtime, as marketing research could take months to complete.

Design thinking is more of an ecosystem than a flowchart. It applies the principles of design to every aspect of a business. It also introduces a feedback stage to each step, which helps to remove the guesswork from your company.

Part of what makes design thinking so successful (and thus powerful) is the emphasis it places on the customer. 46% of design-led firms report forming bonds with customers as the most important aspect of their business.

Design thinking is also used to incorporate creativity and flexibility into existing business models. This helps to form an alliance between hard facts and qualitative analysis.

What Is Design Thinking Consulting?

Business and innovation are often at odds with one another. Business doesn’t like being disrupted or derailed. Business executives tend to rely on tried-and-true methods to maximize profits, often to their detriment.

Innovators tend to be resentful of how much business slows them down, preventing them from acting quickly and with intuition. Design thinking is the process of getting both camps working together.

Design thinking consulting is when an existing company optimizes their current workflow with the help of design thinking experts. Some of these principles help to overcome everyday problems of digital business at the same time.

Traditional businesses place the majority of their energy in understanding historical data and trends. This is under the assumption that these insights will help future productivity, which may or not be the case, considering how quickly the digital economy evolves. Design thinking helps to prevent “analysis paralysis” by prototyping concepts and ideas and testing them as you go.

Why Design Thinking Consulting Matters

People often quote Henry Ford in the context of innovation: “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Sometimes people don’t know what they want because they don’t have the language to frame it in. They might not even realize there’s a possible solution to the problem. Design thinking offers a way to check-in with customers on an on-going basis and incorporates those insights back into your business model.

Start our Design Thinking Foundations course today!

Learn and practice Design Thinking to help your team solve problems and seize opportunities.

Get Started

There has never been as many steps and stages to the business cycle as there are today. Customers are dragging out their buyer’s journey to unprecedented lengths while researching products and services and shopping for the best possible deal.

When implemented correctly, design thinking can answer questions and address problems your customers don’t even know they have. Design thinking consulting is asking for outside help in implementing this process.

How Design Thinking Makes Your Business More Efficient

1. Overcome analysis paralysis

Design thinking incorporates analysis into every step of your business model. It helps to break data and analysis into small, manageable bites to avoid becoming overwhelmed.

2. Implement realistic timescales

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither are successful businesses and brands. Design thinking helps puts long- and short-term goals into perspective.

3. Test your hypotheses

There’s been a trend to put theory before data in the 21st Century. This is the opposite of sound scientific principles which emphasize remaining impartial until all of the data has been collected and analyzed.

4. Bridge business and vision

There’s often a disconnect between marketing teams and the rest of an organization. Design thinking gives marketers a vocabulary to translate their hunches, intuition, and instinct into actual actionable data that the C-suite can comprehend.

5. Customer-centric approach

Customers are incredibly picky these days. After all, they can be. A customer-centric approach should lie at the heart of every business strategy. Design thinking offers a way to incorporate your customer’s insights into every stage of your operation.

Are You Looking For Innovative Consulting?

Whether you’re looking for design thinking consulting or need help leading a design sprint, Voltage Control is here to help. Please reach out to us at info@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk.

The post Need Innovative Solutions? Learn How Design Thinking Consulting Can Help appeared first on Voltage Control.

This is part of my series on thought leaders in the innovation space. Check out the other articles here.

Scott Kirsner has his finger on the pulse of the current state of the industry. Scott is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Innovation Leader and also writes a weekly column on innovation and technology for the Boston Globe. Innovation Leader is an independent media and events company that provides subscription-based, in-depth content, reports, templates, and tools that focus on how innovation happens at big organizations. Scott’s work has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, and Variety.

Recently, I turned the tables on this reporter and interviewed Scott over the phone. Our conversation gave me insight into how innovation is happening (or not) at large companies right now. Read on for some of the top takeaways from our chat.

Technology creatively applied

We started off by talking about what attracts Scott to this space in general: “Technology for its own sake isn’t really interesting to me. I’m more interested in how [technology] gets applied in business to do new stuff and be useful to people in the company or the company’s customers. I’ve always enjoyed writing stories about technology used in really creative ways.”

He shared that one of his first big stories for Wired Magazine was about the technology infrastructure that runs Disney World: “As a kid, I grew up going to Disney World and always heard the myths about the underground level of the theme parks. It was a fun excuse to go hang out for a week and be behind the scenes and see the ancient technology infrastructure at the time that runs all the parades and rides.”

This illustrates his point that it’s not technology for technology’s sake that is compelling. It was the story that the technology told and the way it opened up new experiences that were fascinating and groundbreaking: “It was technology creatively applied to do something that nobody had ever thought to do before — all of these animatronic shows, movies, and immersive experiences.”

More than a trip to Silicon Valley

From his vantage point as a thought leader on innovation inside large corporations, I asked Scott to share what he sees as some of the right and wrong ways to go about inspiring innovation. The first thing he talked about is the mistake of thinking you can build expertise in innovation quickly or shallowly: “Probably the most wrong-headed thing is when companies fill the company plane with senior executives and send it to Silicon Valley. They spend two days visiting accelerators, co-working spaces, venture capital firms, and Google… and by the time they leave, they feel like they really have a handle on innovation.”

“Probably the most wrong-headed thing is when companies fill the company plane with senior executives and send it to Silicon Valley…and by the time they leave, they feel like they really have a handle on innovation.”

Instead, he thinks senior leadership should spend more time articulating why they are embarking on this journey in the first place: “Defining a clear strategy is a key starting point and asking questions like What are we trying to achieve? What is a reasonable time frame for achieving it? Who on staff should be involved, or who should we hire? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all structure or strategy for this.”

“It requires more than one person with ‘innovation’ in his or her title, sitting in an office, and trying to change the way a huge company operates. It also requires more than a year or two.”

Beyond that, companies need to know that: “It requires more than one person with ‘innovation’ in his or her title, sitting in an office, and trying to change the way a huge company operates. It also requires more than a year or two.” This concept of being patient and giving innovation time to take root is something we’ll come back to later.

Leave the Building

In this era when start-up offices offer Kombucha on tap and chef-made meals, I loved what Scott said when I asked him what he sees as the innovation “silver bullet”: “[It’s] getting out of your office or off your campus and participating in the ecosystem around you. So many companies fail at innovation because no one ever leaves the campus. They expect innovation to come to them.”

Today, many big companies incentivize employees to stay in the building. But, to Scott, the activities outside of your company are fundamental to inspiring new thinking and staying relevant.

Here’s his advice to those lured to stay inside with their foosball table and beanbags: “Get outside of the building and either be at meetups that are relevant to you or be out speaking at your alma mater and meeting student talent, or visit Accelerator Demo Days, or even a conference…”

Be Careful Mixing the Flavors of Innovation

Scott pointed to two fundamental types or “flavors” of innovation strategies that he sees inside companies right now. It’s a simple, but helpful way to look at things: one is about culture and the other is about product innovation.

The first he called the “cultural reinvigoration approach,” which he described as when companies focus on activities like crowd-sourcing new ideas from employees, innovation training, and working toward a better, or more modern, work environment

The other approach he referred to as “new product engine,” which is where specialized teams are charged with: “aggressively growing and innovating, whether through working with startups or having your own innovation lab.”

Scott’s cautioned against trying to do both approaches at the same time — i.e. having designers innovate around new products and training employees in new methods. “It gets muddy when you ask a killer product group that’s full of entrepreneurs and designers and people who come from outside the company to be the culture change group.”

“It gets muddy when you ask a killer product group…to be the culture change group.”

Patience is a virtue

In addition to Disney, another of Scott’s favorite examples of admirable, innovative companies is Fidelity Investments. To him, they’ve been very consistent in how they explore technology to evolve their business, hiring smart people, building and testing prototypes, and “beating the competition when it comes to doing the important things first.”

He talked about one of the qualities he thinks makes Fidelity successful: “They’re really patient. They’re a private company and it’s run by the third generation of the family that founded it. You have a culture that is willing to be patient and invest over time; it generally yields better results.“ As well as patience, their flexibility is also important. He’s seen that, despite being a large organization, Fidelity isn’t afraid to do new, “more start-up like things.” This blend of patience and flexibility is a winning combo.

“You have a culture that is willing to be patient and invest over time; it generally yields better results.“

Impatient Retail

On the other end of the spectrum, Scott pointed to the retail sector when I asked him about failures he sees today. “I think there are a lot of epic failures in retail these days. It’s a really tough sector. Whether you are talking about Toys R Us or Target or Macy’s, I don’t see anyone innovating intelligently, or investing in innovation in a consistent and patient way.”

He’s seen companies try interesting experiments, but then shut them down after a bad sales quarter. “No one gives up their startup after two years,” he says. But big companies do it all the time: “We haven’t seen ROI, we haven’t seen concrete results after two years, so we’re done.”

“Big companies often say, ‘If we don’t understand how this is going to become a billion dollar business, we’ll kill it.’”

In this instance, there is a lot that larger companies, retail or otherwise, can learn from entrepreneurs. “Most entrepreneurs would tell you, ‘It might be three or four years before you have real product-market fit, and it’s still a really small business and getting to a million dollars of revenue might take you a while.’ And the entrepreneur’s happy to keep putting in the time just as long as they see something growing.” On the other hand: “Big companies often say, ‘If we don’t understand how this is going to become a billion dollar business, we’ll kill it.’”

Spectrum of urgency

Yet, Scott went on to say that there is likely a “spectrum of urgency” that the two industries we just discussed — retail and financial services — face. And this might be why they are approaching how they respond to the rapidly changing business world differently.

“I do think different industries are threatened in different ways or maybe they feel a different degree of innovation urgency.” In retail, for example, people’s buying habits are changing rapidly: “Amazon, Wayfair and Casper and all these companies are coming in to chew away at different retail chains. They’re at a pretty high end of innovation urgency. Maybe it’s so high that they just don’t even know what to do…and they don’t have the time or money to invest and be patient.”

In contrast, companies like Fidelity might not be as under the gun: “At a different end of urgency, I think you have financial services companies.There are some startups in that space, but we are not gonna put our retirement savings into this new retirement app that just launched on the Android store that has no ratings and no reviews, right?”

He went on: “In financial services, there’s the regulations, there’s the trust issues, and so I think you see a little bit less urgency and disruption happening there.” This has ramifications for the time frame that companies like Fidelity have to keep up: “That means that companies are willing to invest and have a little bit more time to figure out what their strategy is going to be. They’re not running around with their hair on fire.”

Innovation in media

One of the last things we talked about was what Scott is most excited about right now, and that’s innovation in media: “How do you get people’s attention when we spend all day in front of screens, and there’s just so much content?”

Scott has had front seat tickets to watching as big shifts have taken place in media — i.e. people leaving print for digital and people leaving subscription-based media (magazines, newspapers or paid TV) for those that are free or ad-supported. This moment has also opened up an opportunity for deeper, richer content. Which is why his Innovation Leader content is available through a subscription fee model.

“It makes us very focused on only writing about stuff that no one else is covering and that is unique to us.”

In this age of widely available, quick-to-consume content, there is real value in the type of high-quality content that Innovation Leader produces. Subscribers get content that they can’t get anywhere else and, for them, it’s worth it: “It makes us very focused on only writing about stuff that no one else is covering and that is unique to us.”

It was great to add a leader reporter on the innovation “beat” to my list of interviewees. I hope you enjoyed reading highlights from our conversation!

If you want to read my other articles about innovation experts and practitioners, please check them all out here.

The post Innovation Requires Patience appeared first on Voltage Control.

“We’ve fully embraced this new way of thinking and applied it to our entrepreneurial process.” — Zac Maurais

The co-founders of Austin-based startup Favor, which was recently sold to grocery chain H-E-B, just announced their next company, Sunroom. While Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais’s first startup answered a need in the food delivery space, Sunroom is a real-estate startup that helps renters find homes and apartments and book tours on-demand.

When Sunroom was in stealth mode, I had the opportunity to facilitate a Design Sprint for their team. Now that their new endeavor is out in the open, I took the opportunity to talk with Zac about how their Design Sprint impacted Sunroom, both then and now.

The headline: the Design Sprint has been a powerful tool for the Sunroom team and they’ve adapted it in smart ways that work for them.

Why Design Sprints

First of all, I wanted to know what was the driving force behind Sunroom embarking on a Design Sprint in the first place. What made this tool or way of working intriguing to Zac and the team? “Time is the most valuable asset for companies, especially early stage ones,” Zac said. “Design sprints allow you to talk directly with target customers & make your first attempt at solving their problems. Those conversations and light-weight designs save the company a ton of time in the long-term.”

“Design sprints allow you to talk directly with target customers & make your first attempt at solving their problems. Those conversations and light-weight designs save the company a ton of time in the long-term.”

In addition, the Sprint’s emphasis on working fast, but grounded in customer insights, is also key for Zac: “You can learn a lot from talking directly to customers about something without having to build it all out, which is awesome.”

The Power of a Name

Before our Sprint together, the Sunroom team had worked in a similar fashion, just without the set structure or official name: “We used to do a lot of the same things that are in the Design Sprint, but it was less of ‘Put it in a box with a bow on it.’”

There’s power in putting a name to a certain way of working: “Now we can just refer to it as a Design Sprint: over the next two to three days, we’re gonna be dedicated to uncovering X question.”

Not only that, but Zac has found that the clarity of the Design Sprint even helps with internal understanding: “Everyone in the company is familiar with our design process. Our engineering and operations team know before building a huge new feature we’re going to do a Design Sprint. Our entire team is always curious to hear the results.”

Adapting the Sprint

I was pleased to find out that, since our Sprint together, Sunroom has adopted (and adapted!) many of the methods and folded them into their work: “We’ve made them even more lightweight, and something that we can do with a really small team, like two or three people, instead of seven.”

I was intrigued to find out more about how they’ve tweaked the Design Sprint to work for them, with a smaller team and in a shorter time frame. One way they do it is by compressing the Sprint’s Day 1 and 2 activities (goal setting, knowledge sharing, and sketching) into a couple hours. According to Zac: “Since we’re still an early stage startup, it’s a lot to ask every single person in the company to participate. That said, it’s an important activity, so we’ll pull 2–4 people into the project. Even with a slimmer team we’re able to come out with actionable insight.”

The Need for Speed

Zac has also found that the Sprint’s compressed schedule and clear goal setting can translate to speed to market: “I think that focus makes sure it gets done and gets done quickly.”

Additionally, by testing not only high-level concepts, but also UX and messaging, Sunroom is able to get ideas into development faster. They usually do about two rounds of prototypes, even iterating between interviews as needs or changes become evident. This gets them to a level of refinement fairly quickly: “It gets it to a point that it’s really close to being shippable that I can hand over to an engineer to build the spec and run with it.”

“The focus helps make sure it gets done and gets done quickly.”

Lessons in User Interviews

Because Zac typically leads the user interview portion of their Sprints (how’s that for a hands-on founder?), I picked his brain for advice. What would he say to someone approaching their first user interviews? “I’ve found it’s best not to stress or overthink your questions,” he shared. “Some of the best questions I’ve thought of on the spot. It doesn’t have to be all thought out going in your first interview.”

Despite being so close to the product, Zac isn’t the type who only wants to hear positive feedback from users. He understands the importance of critique: “Sometimes, depending on who the [interviewee] is, they can get into a rhythm of giving positive advice and it’s important to bring them out of it and remind them that you’re really trying to get to why this wouldn’t work. So, I’ll often times ask them, ‘You’ve said a lot of good things, but why is it gonna break? What fears do you still have about it?’”

“As designers, we need to be humble within the process. Approach the project without an ego. Remove your ownership mentality and strive for the best idea. Humility helps make better ideas & keeps you from being upset when customers give unexpected feedback.”

He went on: “We have a tendency as entrepreneurs to think we’ve came up with something really good, but I try to think of the work as not necessarily my work but just concepts. Win or lose, it’s still a win for me. I try to remove the ownership component. Just being humble within the process and not having an ego about your designs. I think that humility helps.”

It was a great leading Zac and Sunroom team through their first Design Sprint. To me, their story really illustrates how five focused days can have long-term effects for a team. As Zac says: “We’ve fully embraced this new way of thinking and applied it to our entrepreneurial process…”

The post Why the New Startup Sunroom Loves the Design Sprint appeared first on Voltage Control.

This is part of my series on thought leaders in the innovation space.

Gary Hoover is an incredibly successful businessman, scholar of business history, and the force behind at least six start-ups (“Maybe eight if you count the ones I started in college,” he says). His successes include the founding of BOOKSTOP, the first chain of giant book superstores, which was later purchased by Barnes & Noble. He also founded Hoover’s, the world’s largest Internet-based provider of information about enterprises, which went public and was eventually purchased for $117 million. Today, Gary Hoover mentors entrepreneurs, speaks to corporate and government leaders around the world, and writes on business history, retail, and other subjects on his website Hoovers World. (I definitely recommend checking out his site.)

We had a fascinating conversation over the phone, with Gary talking to me from his home in Flatonia, Texas where he has a personal library of over 57,000 books. We spoke about his successes and his thoughts on the secret ingredients for innovation. And, he shared a ton of great examples and stories with me from the history of business. While it’s hard to choose just a few nuggets from our chat, here are some my favorites…

Innovation Can Be ‘Tiny’

One thing I enjoyed about Gary’s perspective is that his definition of innovation is not narrow. When he talks innovation, he’s not only thinking about the things that might jump to mind when we hear that word — things like apps or digital technology. He takes a broader view, naming everything from the factory farming of chickens, the airline’s “hub and spoke” model, and FedEx’s modern delivery system as some of the major, impactful innovations in recent history. “In my mind, all of those are technologies, they are new innovative techniques, a new way of delivering or making a new technology or service,” he said.

He also talked about the usually-unnoticed ways that companies innovate on a daily basis: “It’s equally important that companies innovate in small ways. I’m willing to bet that UPS and FedEx are both looking at ways to improve themselves every day and ways to tweak the system.”

“I think innovation can be tiny things or big things.” — Gary Hoover

Obsess About Your Customers

Just as Gary takes a different view on what constitutes innovation, he also believes that innovation is not simply about who has the better technology or science. He cited Apple, which he calls one of the two greatest technology companies in American history. (IBM is the second company.) He talked about Apple’s famed CEO Steve Jobs and his relentless focus on his customers: “Did he really have better science than Dell or HP or Microsoft? I’m sure he had great science, but he had this obsession with design and with the user experience. So even in the great technology companies, it’s not really about the technology. It is about knowing and loving your customer.”

The customer is always top of mind for Gary: “Coming out of retail, I have this obsession with: Who is my customer? What do they want and what can I do for them today?” It was the customer that was at the heart of his third start-up, Travelfest, which was a travel superstore that he started in the mid-90s. “The travel agency industry was kind of a racket with the airlines giving the travel agency bonuses if they booked customers on their airline. Travelfest had nothing to do with that. We booked based on what was best for the customer, not just the big carriers…We played by a whole different set of rules. We put the customer first which was rare.” While the stores ultimately closed, the story really illustrates how Gary thinks and the primacy of the customer in all he does.

“Coming out of retail, I have this obsession with: Who is my customer? What do they want and what can I do for them today?” -Gary Hoover

Look for the Oddballs

I asked Gary to tell me about his essential ingredients for success in business. He talked a lot about the importance of having a different perspective, of thinking about things differently. He told me a story about Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart: “When he opened a new store, he always put one person on the management team who made other people uncomfortable, who just wasn’t like anyone else. He always tried to find somebody who just thought differently.”

“Get different minds in the room. At least hear them out. Look for the oddballs.” — Gary Hoover

For Gary, the concept of thinking differently is closely related to having the mental space to let your mind wander and come up with new ideas. He links his tendency to daydream to his creativity: “When I was in school, I did a lot of daydreaming. I spent a lot of my life doodling. I still go driving the back country roads and let the mind flow and turn the music up.” (It’s also why he infrequently uses a telephone. “The ringing annoys me and breaks my train of thought,” he says.)

He also talked about how some companies have encouraged this kind of free thought and how it can be directly tied to innovation: “3M would give their people one day a week off to go study whatever they wanted to and look into other things. Through that, and processes like that, they came up with Post-It notes and all kinds of other innovations.”

Mash Up Two Great Ideas

When asked Gary about his innovation “silver bullet”, he said: “I think the most important thing is combining two things that everybody sees every day.” This comes from his experience with creating BOOKSTOP: “I had this idea of a book superstore. The idea of the superstore was created by Charles Lazarus with Toys “R” Us in the late 1950s. By the time I did BOOKSTOP, everybody had been to a Toys “R” Us and everybody had been to a book store, but no one thought to put the ideas together.”

“By the time I did BOOKSTOP, everybody had been to a Toys “R” Us and everybody had been to a book store, but no one thought to put the ideas together.” — Gary Hoover

Gary continues to use this method of combining two seemingly disparate ideas as a way to play around with new and novel business concepts: “Sometimes I make a grid with ten columns and rows and throw [stuff] on each side — books, music, flowers, movies and, on the other side, ways to distribute it: brick and mortar , online selling, memberships, subscriptions, library loaning… Then I look at each box in that grid. Is there an opportunity there? Is there something that someone isn’t doing? With any new idea you have to give it a chance. You can’t take five seconds and say it will never work. Let it sink in, play with it, let it marinate, talk to people about it.” (I don’t know about you, but I love this 10 x 10 grid idea and can’t wait to try it.)

Follow Your Gut & Be Brave

Finally, I want to end with some wise words from Gary on what we need more of in American business and innovation right now: “What I think is lacking in big corporations today in America is imagination and courage.” He used Dollar Shave Club as an example of bravery, as they took on a giant like Gillette, which had owned the industry for a century. Another company he admires is CVS, especially for their move to stop selling cigarettes: “That cost real money as that is a lucrative field. But they didn’t really see it right being a health oriented store to do that. They just had the guts…”

“What I think is lacking in big corporations today in America is imagination and courage.” — Gary Hoover

The post Look for the Oddballs appeared first on Voltage Control.

As a touring musician, I’ve performed in many cities throughout the US and Europe. I toured heavily throughout the nineties and into the early 2000s. In fact, in 2007, I performed in a new city every month of the year. After years of gigging, I settled down a bit to concentrate on my health, my wife, and my software startup. It wasn’t until recently that I began to realize I wasn’t enjoying travel as much as I used to. I was visiting places that were compelling, but something wasn’t the same.

Six months after founding Voltage Control, I decided that it was time to think about markets outside of Austin. My network felt strong and growing, yet I didn’t have many connections outside of the city. I started to prepare a plan that would build my network in other places and eventually lead to a healthy pipeline of clients.

I decided to take the same approach that has worked for me here in Austin, starting with referrals and introductions to interesting people and seeing where those conversations lead. My ask to my network was simple, “Who is someone you think I should know?” Sometimes the response would be: “I can’t think of any potential clients for you.” To which I’d reply: “I’m not looking for clients. I’m looking for interesting people doing interesting things.”

Once I had my approach identified, I needed to start implementing it. To actually follow through on my plan, I had to pick a city. I started by making a list of potential destinations. After weeks of refining and reordering the list and mostly just being indecisive, an opportunity to visit San Francisco presented itself.

Capital One was hosting a Change Catalyst Diversity and Inclusion workshop at the Capital One office in San Francisco. It was immediately clear that this was the signal I’d been waiting for: San Fransisco would be my first destination. I signed up and booked my flights. I booked the trip for the entire week even though the workshop was only Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The extra days would give me time to work on building my network.

I setup up coffees, lunches, and dinners with old friends and new contacts. In short order, I had filled up the entire week with meetings. It looked like my plan just might work. Upon arriving in San Francisco on Monday morning, I headed out to Downtown Oakland to meet with Robbie Bhathal, CEO of Suiteness, to whom my friend John Turpin had introduced to me. After a lovely chat with Robbie, I caught a quick bite with Guy Taylor, an old friend who is now running a synthesizer shop. Then I headed back to the city to meet Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, for a pleasant stroll through Golden Gate Park.

For the rest of the week, I followed a similar circuitous path through the Noe Valley, Soma, South Park, College Hill, The Castro, and The Financial District. I met with lots of fascinating people in new and unique places. I even hiked the Berkley hills with a brilliant gentleman who had recently obtained his Ph.D. in Organizational Theory. We had a grand time exercising while he swapped his theoretical knowledge for my stories from the trenches.

After what on all accounts should have been an exhausting week, I returned delighted and electrified. In the following days, as I reflected on the trip and what it meant to me, I began to realize it was one of my favorite trips in a long time. After thinking a bit more, I realized that this trip resembled my early days of touring.

After thinking a bit more, I realized that this trip resembled my early days of touring.

When touring as a band or solo musician, I worked with promoters, sponsors, fans, booking agents, club owners, and other professionals associated with the event. The first thing you typically did when arriving in a new city is connect with your local contact, which is usually a music professional, close friend or fan. This person showed you around their favorite places and introduced you friends. It was a fantastic way to see a city—through a local’s eyes.

My San Francisco trip followed a similar format. Each day I had a mission and one or more people that were hosting me. My approach was to meet wherever it was convenient for the other. Going to their preferred location created a scenario where I was always discovering places I might not have otherwise.

Since my trip to San Francisco, I’ve also visited San Diego and New York where I followed the same protocol. The San Diego trip centered around the 0111 CTO conference and the New York trip was for the Nasdaq CTO Summit. They were both booked on short notice and due to scheduling issues I wasn’t able to schedule as much time. They felt a bit rushed, so I hope to do entire weeks like my San Francisco trip in the future.

Connecting with like-minded humans in new places.

It is clear to me that this is the beginning of a new way of travel for me. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to consider this a return to the way I fell in love with travel. Connecting with like-minded humans in new places.

Thanks for reading! Share with my your latest travel adventures or how you explore new cities when you travel.

Voltage Control specializes in Design Sprints, and we facilitate Sprints in Austin, Dallas, New York, San Francisco, and wherever you are! Please email Douglas at douglas@voltagecontrol.co if you are interested in having him facilitate your Sprint, coach your team on how to run an efficient Sprint, or are curious to learn more about how a Sprint might help your company or product.

If you are in or near Austin, visit us at the Austin Design Sprint Meetup. Each month we have a guest speaker share their experience participating in a Design Sprint. If you would like to be a future speaker, please email me.

The post Liberating Travel appeared first on Voltage Control.