Hyper Island Learning Lab

On Tuesday night at a hidden away studio in Shoreditch Pete and I attended the inaugural Hyper Island Learning Lab.

These sessions are opened up to the great and good of the tech, digital and creative worlds with the aim to provide tools which will stretch your thinking and approach to regular work, client briefs and product challenges.

Not knowing quite what to expect me, Pete and 30 other people were put in small groups, sat down and told within the next hour we were all going to create an app from scratch and bring it to prototype phase.

The brief – to create an app which helps you learn something new while fitting into your everyday life.

Over the next hour we had a crash course in taking a concept to prototype. In eight to ten minute chunks, we identified our problem, developed a solution, worked up a concept and took that idea to prototype phase. At which point we then shared the idea with another group to gain insight and feedback to further refine the product.

In this case our “product” was an app, and the problem was to learn something new, but at its core the idea is you can take this approach to all aspects of work from rebranding a company to starting a business of your own.

As the semi-clichéd saying goes: ‘work smarter, not longer’. And while I’m not advocating rebranding a multinational in just one hour, the approach is a refreshing change and certainly makes you focus on the core concepts, challenges and solutions which need to be addressed.

Pete and I agreed we will be using what we learned in the future both internally and with clients.

If you want to find out more about Hyper Island or attend one of the Learning Labs yourself check out their website here.