Tag: Edmunds.com

Open Invitation To Innovation

Friday, February 21st, 2014

edmunds-logo

 

 

INNOVATION WORKSHOP

You Are Invited

innovation-workshop

Edmunds.com’s free Innovation Workshop will showcase to an exclusive, hand-picked audience some of the most interesting ways that a company can innovate today.

Renowned experts and authors are being brought in to present on critical concepts and productive processes. Jeanne Bliss will share her insights on how to garner customer loyalty. I will teach a 4-step solution-based approach to solving problems and improving flow. And Edmunds.com pros in a range of business areas will lift the curtain on some of the innovative practices that have brought the company success, and offer tips for how you can apply them in your work.

HackSched

The workshop will coincide with Hackomotive 2014, a hackathon-style competition in which a total of $35,000 prize money will be awarded to the participants who present the best products and ideas that deliver a better car shopping experience. Workshop participants are welcome to observe Hackomotive activities when not workshopping.

This workshop – and Hackomotive – will be very interesting and unique events, and we truly hope that you can join us. Here are only two things we are going to ask for in return:

1 Your signature. You must sign the “Appearance Release and Agreement” required by our lawyers. This simply gives us your permission to film and photograph your participation at the event and use those materials on Edmunds channels. The form will be available at event registration, and can be forwarded via email prior to the event, upon request.
2 Your social media engagement. As you experience Edmunds.com’s Innovation Workshop, please share, tagging @Edmunds as you do.

[button color=theme-button icon=no-icon size=large link=mailto:Hackomotive@edmunds.com]RSVP to Hackomotive@edmunds.com[/button]
no later than end of day today, Friday, February 21, 2014!

Diary Of A Hackathon: Prelude To Hackomotive

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Hackomotive, the first ever automotive-focused hackathon, hosted by Edmunds.com, kicks off tonight at The Annenberg Community Beach House, on the sand at sunset. It’s shaping up to be an exciting two days of creativity by well over 150 participants each to deconstruct and recreate the automotive shopping experience. I’m jazzed to be the emcee.

Hackathons, to the uninitiated, have moved well beyond the technology-only focus that “hack” conjures up, to become a valid method of bringing a diverse and passionate group of people together over a short time to solve real world problems. Today’s hackathon, and Hackomotive, draws not just programmers and coders, but designers, storytellers, marketers and entrepreneurs. Creativity is a contact sport, and having dozens of talented individuals rub shoulders and put their heads together is bound to produce something profound.

My first exposure to a hackathon-like event was at Toyota, when it was fairly common in factories to participate in jishuken–where a small team of masters work to solve a particular problem in a compressed timeframe…working straight through, often without sleep, until the problem was solved. It often lasted 48 hours or more. Hackathons are a scaled up version of that, set in an open environment, rather than closed. It’s a mashup of jishuken intensity with the loose structure of Open Space Technology, whereby participants come together to work collectively on the things they are most passionate about.

At Edmunds.com (disclosure: Edmunds is a client), we have used hackathons effectively as an ideation-t0-prototype pipeline, in areas as far away from technology as you can get…such as sales. The ideas are always good, and provide solid starting points for the real world experimentation and rapid prototyping that follows, during which the creativity becomes creation.

I’ll report on the developments of the two days. With any luck, we will emerge with dozens of ideas of how to make car shopping as easy and exciting as owning a brand new car.

Open Invitation to Hack!

Monday, January 14th, 2013

A couple of years ago I published a little book, a fable, called The Shibumi Strategy, about a down-sized sales manager, Andy Harmon, forced to take a job in a car dealership in order to avoid disrupting his family. Andy was able to create a breakthrough in how people bought cars in his little part of the world. The story was based on an amalgam of true stories, and Andy was a composite character based on real people. Among other things, it was my way of showing how you can create meaningful change in the most constrained circumstances.

Now’s it’s your turn to demonstrate your creativity and ingenuity in doing the exact same thing. Can you rethink and reinvent the automotive experience? If you think you can, I invite you to join me in Santa Monica, California, at the Edmunds.com Hackamotive event February 26-28, 2013. I’ll be emceeing the event, which is shaping up to be a great time. Tackling a serious challenge, with cash prizes on the line–who wouldn’t want to give it a go?

Hackomotive is a 2-day challenge that focuses on reimagining the car shopping experience by bringing together consumers, dealers, manufacturers, designers and technologists to shatter the status quo. Car buying is the second biggest purchase behind a home for most consumers and remains an unpleasant, anxiety-filled experience that has changed little even with the benefit of online resources. By bringing together the right mix of thought leaders and change agents, we believe we can reinvent the car buying experience from the ground up. A panel of judges will then evaluate the proposed solutions to determine the winners.

We’ll begin the evening of February 26 with a reception dinner, then start fresh February 27, with prizes awarded the afternoon of February 28. We’ll feed you and give to space to create–you decide how much sleep you need (or don’t need) to change the world.

If you think you have what it takes, apply today! If you know others who might like to be considered, send them to the site today: HACKOMOTIVE. Here’s a quick video that introduces what we’re trying to achieve.