I enjoyed my day at JumpStart‘s Startup Scaleup, Northeast Ohio’s largest single entrepreneurial event of the year, on June 19th. The day’s agenda is still online (but hard to find).
What I got out of the conference that is spread out across a neighborhood…
I gained a sense of the current state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Northeast Ohio. As someone participating in our entrepreneur ecosystem in Toledo, I marvel in their resources, but they spent some time discussing their shortcomings.
Based on what I heard in the “Design Thinking” session and observed elsewhere, I think the timing is right to add human-centered design as part of Cleveland’s regional economic development strategy. Other regions like Detroit and San Diego are already doing it.
Using design methods to grow the ecosystem (e.g., design for diversity & inclusion) and help entrepreneurs and businesses (e.g., human-centered design as the core of the innovation process) could take many forms in doing it the “Cleveland way”.
Appreciative Inquiry was invented in Cleveland, so it could provide the foundation for Northeast Ohio’s human-centered economic development strategy. Going from “problems to be solved” to “mysteries to be appreciated” with Appreciative Inquiry completely aligns with current design philosophy around problem-framing before problem-solving. It looks like this is already in motion, with an Appreciate Inquiry Summit planed for later this year.
Specific to entrepreneur ecosystems, the Kauffman ESHIP initiative is interesting because it is both trying to establish a field for “entrepreneurial ecosystem building” and carefully designing the process of establishing the field. There are 7 principles for designing an entrepreneurial ecosystem, for example.
I also met colleagues from Toledo (sometimes we have to leave town to hang out) and generated more ideas for our own ecosystem of entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, and technologists.
I met some NEO startup leaders who are interested in getting some help with their user experience.
And I got plenty of exercise walking around the Flats. Much better than sitting in an air-conditioned hotel all day.
Session Description: Join 1848 Ventures, a subsidiary of Westfield, and IDEO, a global design firm, for a conversation about their partnership which uses the philosophy of “design thinking” to build better products, services and ventures. Explore tangible examples of this philosophy in action and learn how deep insights about human behavior—from customers to employees to partners—can be used by any business (from SaaS startups to manufacturing firms) to innovate and grow.
