Back in August of last year, I accepted an appointment to a one-year term contract for an instructor's position within the Lewis College of Business, predominantly focused on entrepreneurship. In addition, I maintain my private legal practice (the IP stuff).
Related to this, as many know, current Intuit CEO Brad Smith is a native of Kenova and a 1986 Marshall Univ. graduate. Several months ago, the seed of an idea was planted, and in about 60 days, a challenge was created. On Wednesday evening, on the campus of Marshall Univ., that challenge culminated in an impressive display of creativity, innovation, team work, customer engagement and empathy, and a renewed hope that some or many of these ideas will reverse the trends in drug abuse and declining or underfunded educational opportunities.
The challenge was labeled "Innovating for Change" - using Intuit's "Design for Delight" innovation technique (a derivate of the rapid design/prototyping/testing and learning that was originally pioneered by David Kelly through Stanford's Business School). Three grand challenges were developed: early childhood education; STEM education; and substance abuse.
In January, faculty across the Marshall Univ. campus began to identify those extraordinary students that could represent their colleges in this event. In the end, the Colleges of Business, Liberal Arts, Engineering, Science, Education, and Arts/Media identified 39 students (and 14 faculty members) to participate. I was fortunate to share the faculty/coach position with an extraordinary Professor of English, Kristen Lillvis. Several of my colleagues in the College of Business served as coaches for other teams.
The students and faculty were divided into 7 teams; 2 teams were tasked with youth education; 2 teams were given STEM education; and 3 teams were assigned substance abuse. Intuit team members came to Marshall University's Foundation Hall, and over the course of two days "taught" the Intuit D4D (design for delight) methodology. From there, relevant guests were provided so that the teams could conduct interviews and collect information/data, and then be able to quickly modify and adapt the proposed solution. This iteration process was repeated multiple times. After the initial two-day bootcamp and interfacing with guests, the Intuit team left town, and the Marshall Univ. folks were left to implement and grapple with these problems.
On Wed., the seven teams presented the assigned problem, the hypothesized solution, and the journey between original proposals to the final proposal, presented in a five-minute window to a celebrity panel of judges: CEO Brad Smith; MU HOF QB Chad Pennington; and Charleston native and actress Jennifer Garner.
EACH team did an outstanding job of following the technique - and the judges admittedly had a difficult decision before them. Yet, in the end, the judges selected three teams that they considered the furthest along. The teams selected will fly to California in late June to visit with teams at Google, Apple, Facebook, and of course, experience this same technique used at Intuit. There is every reason to believe that these teams are going to get additional support to launch these ideas. My team was approached AFTER rehearsal (two hours before the show) to get in touch with a virtual reality firm in Virginia that is interested in a partnership.
Attached is a video and link to give you a sense of the scale and production. If you know anyone that went, you should ask them to describe this environment and the demonstration that they witnessed. Impressive is not quite strong enough to convey the reality of what those students did in a short window of time.
More simply stated: Intuit personnel, from Brad Smith to their honored leadership winners were BLOWN AWAY by how awesome Marshall Univ. students performed. It was incredible.
I am proud of our students and our community. And there is great potential in many of the ideas pitched. I look forward to seeing these students take these ideas further and to see them blossom.
Be proud, MU alums -- we have some wonderfully talented students. We simply need more.
http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Marshall-students--420562433.html
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news...cle_ab5ca2c7-7622-5624-ad2d-6ccaa1230e75.html
Related to this, as many know, current Intuit CEO Brad Smith is a native of Kenova and a 1986 Marshall Univ. graduate. Several months ago, the seed of an idea was planted, and in about 60 days, a challenge was created. On Wednesday evening, on the campus of Marshall Univ., that challenge culminated in an impressive display of creativity, innovation, team work, customer engagement and empathy, and a renewed hope that some or many of these ideas will reverse the trends in drug abuse and declining or underfunded educational opportunities.
The challenge was labeled "Innovating for Change" - using Intuit's "Design for Delight" innovation technique (a derivate of the rapid design/prototyping/testing and learning that was originally pioneered by David Kelly through Stanford's Business School). Three grand challenges were developed: early childhood education; STEM education; and substance abuse.
In January, faculty across the Marshall Univ. campus began to identify those extraordinary students that could represent their colleges in this event. In the end, the Colleges of Business, Liberal Arts, Engineering, Science, Education, and Arts/Media identified 39 students (and 14 faculty members) to participate. I was fortunate to share the faculty/coach position with an extraordinary Professor of English, Kristen Lillvis. Several of my colleagues in the College of Business served as coaches for other teams.
The students and faculty were divided into 7 teams; 2 teams were tasked with youth education; 2 teams were given STEM education; and 3 teams were assigned substance abuse. Intuit team members came to Marshall University's Foundation Hall, and over the course of two days "taught" the Intuit D4D (design for delight) methodology. From there, relevant guests were provided so that the teams could conduct interviews and collect information/data, and then be able to quickly modify and adapt the proposed solution. This iteration process was repeated multiple times. After the initial two-day bootcamp and interfacing with guests, the Intuit team left town, and the Marshall Univ. folks were left to implement and grapple with these problems.
On Wed., the seven teams presented the assigned problem, the hypothesized solution, and the journey between original proposals to the final proposal, presented in a five-minute window to a celebrity panel of judges: CEO Brad Smith; MU HOF QB Chad Pennington; and Charleston native and actress Jennifer Garner.
EACH team did an outstanding job of following the technique - and the judges admittedly had a difficult decision before them. Yet, in the end, the judges selected three teams that they considered the furthest along. The teams selected will fly to California in late June to visit with teams at Google, Apple, Facebook, and of course, experience this same technique used at Intuit. There is every reason to believe that these teams are going to get additional support to launch these ideas. My team was approached AFTER rehearsal (two hours before the show) to get in touch with a virtual reality firm in Virginia that is interested in a partnership.
Attached is a video and link to give you a sense of the scale and production. If you know anyone that went, you should ask them to describe this environment and the demonstration that they witnessed. Impressive is not quite strong enough to convey the reality of what those students did in a short window of time.
More simply stated: Intuit personnel, from Brad Smith to their honored leadership winners were BLOWN AWAY by how awesome Marshall Univ. students performed. It was incredible.
I am proud of our students and our community. And there is great potential in many of the ideas pitched. I look forward to seeing these students take these ideas further and to see them blossom.
Be proud, MU alums -- we have some wonderfully talented students. We simply need more.
http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Marshall-students--420562433.html
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news...cle_ab5ca2c7-7622-5624-ad2d-6ccaa1230e75.html
