no talk, all action: lessons learned from startup weekend: library edition
Post on 14-Sep-2014
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Talk delivered with Stephanie Quail and Meg Ecclestone at TRY Confence, May 6, 2014. Provides perspectives of two of the event's organizers and one participant.TRANSCRIPT
NO TALK, ALL ACTION: LESSONS LEARNED FROM
STARTUP WEEKEND
Stephanie Quail, Helen Kula, & Meg Ecclestone !TRY Conference, Toronto, Ontario!
May 6, 2014!
INTRODUCTIONS STARTUP
WEEKEND
Meg Ecclestone!@mjecclestone!!
Librarian!Scott Research & Collections, !York University Libraries!!
Helen Kula!@helenkula!!
Librarian!Institute for Management & Innovation, !University of Toronto Mississauga!!
Stephanie Quail!@stephaniequail!!
Business Librarian!Rotman School of !Management, !University of Toronto!!
!• Overview of Startup Weekend!!• Startup Weekend Toronto EDU: Library Edition!
• Organizers’ Perspectives !
• A Participant’s Experience of Startup Weekend!
• Key Learnings and Takeaways for Academic Librarians!
• Q&A!
AGENDA STARTUP
WEEKEND
OVERVIEW STARTUP
WEEKEND
1,000+ events!500+ cities!
100,000+ participants!500+ cities!
1,000+ events!100,000+ participants!
Industry Professionals
(like us!)!
Designers! Developers!Business
Development Types!
Startup Weekend!
• SW Toronto launched in 2010!• 6 Startup Weekends held to date!
!
• SWEDU is SW’s education vertical!• 1st SW Toronto EDU held in 2013!• SWTOLib the first of its kind !
OVERVIEW STARTUP
WEEKEND
Typical Startup Weekend Template!Friday Night! Saturday! Sunday!Registration, dinner! The work continues…!
• Customer validation!• Business case development!• Coders code; designers
design!
• Work winds down!• Pitch prep begins!• Prototypes are
(hopefully) ready and working!
Initial 1-minute pitches!
Mentors and observers coach and provide guidance!
Judges arrive and meet ‘n greet with teams!
Voting and team formation!
5 minute pitches take place!Q&A with judges!
Teams get to work!! Judges convene and announce the winners! !
OVERVIEW STARTUP
WEEKEND
M.J. D’Elia, Librarian!University of Guelph!
Helen Kula, Librarian!University of Toronto!
M.J’s ‘Startup Library’ workshops! Helen’s experience at MaRS!
ORGANIZING #SWTOLib STARTUP
WEEKEND
And then there were five….
Helen Kula
Meg Ecclestone June Avila Emily Porta
M.J. D’Elia
ORGANIZING #SWTOLib STARTUP
WEEKEND
• Offer new kind of experiential learning opportunity for the library community !
!
• Expose library community to ‘startup thinking’ and tools, e.g.!
• Customer development - ‘get outside the building’!
• Minimum viable product (MVP)!!
• Build relationships between startup + library communities!
!
• Empower library communities to build their own solutions!
!
• Seed community of library professionals who are committed to hands-on innovation!
!!!
#SWTOLib OBJECTIVES STARTUP
WEEKEND
!Photo curtsey of http://www.getyourbotoncom/ !!
Date:!March 28-30!!!!
Location:!Mozilla Community Space!!!
THE EVENT STARTUP
WEEKEND
35 LIS professionals 28 Developers
20 Mentors & Observers
THE EVENT STARTUP
WEEKEND
10 Designers
5 Judges 1 Facilitator
BrookList!
First Place!!
HUB allows public libraries to include local community resources in their library catalog, alongside traditional library materials like books. !!
Second Place!!
SpaceValet helps students find study space on campus. The mobile app allows students to select a library or learning space on campus and determine the availability of student study space. !!
Third Place!!
Raisin Readers is an app for parents to track reading by their children aged 0-5, to celebrate reading milestones and to better connect parents with their local library. !!
Organizers’ Choice!!
BrookList embodied the spirit of startup weekend. They focused improving the holds system in libraries. The team had some early setbacks and lost a few team members, but they still presented a polished pitch on Sunday.!
TEAM PROFILES STARTUP
WEEKEND
TEAM PROFILES STARTUP
WEEKEND
EVENT FEEDBACK: THE GOOD
STARTUP WEEKEND
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How likely are you to recommend Startup Weekend to your friends or colleagues?
(0 unlikely, 10 likely)
How would you rate the overall quality of the Organizing team?
Librarians enjoyed!!
• Hands-on, experiential learning!!• DIY ethos: use what you got!!• Customer validation process!!• Team-based nature of the work!
• Focus on producing a MVP instead of perfection!!• Pivoting and iterative, fluid nature of design process!
EVENT FEEDBACK: THE GOOD
STARTUP WEEKEND
Great outcomes, such as!!
• Connections formed between library community and the startup community!
!• Librarians learned how much they
could accomplish in 54 hours!!• At least 3 teams from the weekend
continue to work on their products!
• Developers and designers ‘connected’ with library problems!
EVENT FEEDBACK: THE GOOD
STARTUP WEEKEND
Issues for the organizers!!
• Limited diversity of library types!• No school or special/corporate
library participants!!
• Application of for-profit template to non-profit library context!
• Monetization? Revenue streams?!!
• Pitches!• Over-time, not quite ‘on target’!!
• More design/UX participants needed!!• Sustaining momentum after the
weekend: where do we go?!!
EVENT FEEDBACK: THE CHALLENGES
STARTUP WEEKEND
?!• Interested in Startup Weekend movement!!• Passion for creating digital library services!! ...and I had my own idea I wanted to pitch!!!
A PARTICIPANT’S PERSPECTIVE
STARTUP WEEKEND
My event expectations!!
• Create a product that solves a library-specific problem!
!• Be part of an iterative design process!!• Meet other librarians, developers,
and designers ! !• Have a fun time and…!
• Be exhausted by the end of the weekend!!
A PARTICIPANT’S PERSPECTIVE
STARTUP WEEKEND
My pitch idea!!
• The Library Sandbox!• Didn’t make it past the voting stage!!Pitch problems!!
• Not a convincing elevator speech!• Didn’t resonate with designers and
developers!!Learning outcomes?!!
• Practice your pitch!!• Sell your ideas!• Make it relatable!
#SWTOLib – DAY 1
STARTUP WEEKEND
Second round of pitches!!
• Give winning pitches a chance to expand on their ideas!
!Forming teams!!
• Organic process!• Attempted to form groups with
designers, developers, and librarians!
#SWTOLib – DAY 1
STARTUP WEEKEND
!
• Early literacy app !• Connect parents with reading
lists and children’s librarians!• Gamify reading experience!!!
Team composition!
3 public librarians & !2 academic/media librarians!
2 developers!
1 designer!
#SWTOLib – DAY 1
STARTUP WEEKEND
Setting our agenda!
Librarians validate !hypotheses & generate content!
Developers & designers develop use cases and create wireframes!
#SWTOLib – DAY 2
STARTUP WEEKEND
Customer validation!!
• 100 completed surveys by end of Saturday; 170 completed surveys by end of Sunday!
Outcomes?!!
• Validated many hypotheses, but not all!
Next step!!
• Wo(man) on the street validation!
#SWTOLib – DAY 2
STARTUP WEEKEND
After refueling with coffee !and dinner…!
• Developers & designers demoed their working prototype!
• Began working with librarians to refine use cases and information architecture!
• Librarians refined information architecture!
• Continued generating content !
• Started developing business model !
#SWTOLib – DAY 2
STARTUP WEEKEND
Analysis of survey results!
Finalize business model! Competitor research!
Further development !of MVP!
Happening simultaneously !
#SWTOLib – DAY 3
STARTUP WEEKEND
Final pitch prep!!
Challenge: present market research, customer validation, business model and do a prototype demo in 5 minutes!!
Outcome?!!
• Overtime!• Judges had to ask us about our
revenue model during the Q&A!• We still won 3rd place!!
#SWTOLib – DAY 3
STARTUP WEEKEND
My original event expectations!!
• Create a product that solves a library-specific problem!
• Be part of an iterative design process!
• Meet other librarians, developers, and designers!• !• Have a fun time and…!
• Be exhausted by the end of the weekend!!
þ þ
þ þ
þ
EXPECTATIONS MET?
STARTUP WEEKEND
Problems my team faced!!• Monetization of our product!!• Inability to validate all of our
hypotheses!!• Difficulties creating working
prototype!!• Lack of check-in with
different team members!!
CHALLENGES
STARTUP WEEKEND
During the weekend, mentors provided our team with invaluable advice on:!!
• Pricing our product!!
• Tech help!!
• Recommendations for customer validation!!
• Helping us validate our hypotheses by telling us stories about reading to their own children!
FINDING MENTORS
STARTUP WEEKEND
Mentors are an important part of the Startup Weekend model!
• Project management!!• Customer validation !
• Embracing iterative design process!
• ‘Getting things done’; not necessarily being perfect !
• The importance of working with experts from other fields!
KEY LEARNINGS STARTUP
WEEKEND
Startup Weekend Learnings!
Academic Libraries!
Embrace project management!
• Planning by committee can b cumbersome!• Select a ‘project manager’ that balances results and
consensus building!Customer validation is king!
• Library services and products need to get feedback at all stages of development!
Iterative design process!
• The first iteration of a service shouldn’t be its last!• Learn to be nimble and change elements of your projects !
‘Getting things done’! • Being perfect rarely occurs; it’s better to work quickly and make prototypes to generate as much feedback as possible!
Outsider perspective! • Embrace and seek out feedback from outsiders!• Use different language when discussing your solutions to
library problems!
#SWTOLib & ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
STARTUP WEEKEND
STARTUP WEEKEND
QUESTIONS?!
Q: Does this event resonate with you? Would you attend? If not, why not?!!Q: Does ‘Startup Weekend’s focus on venture creation align with ‘library values’? If a conflict exists, does it decrease the learning value of this event?!!Q: How should we keep the momentum going? How can projects started be sustained and/or adopted by others?!!Q: Would this model work for solving problems specific to just your institution?!!Q: Are there alternatives to Startup Weekend for solving library problems?!
OUR QUESTIONS
STARTUP WEEKEND