#GSjamEventifier - Service Design Emerging from Nothingness

On last Saturday the application timeline for #GSP15 ended, and I shared my experience about it (see the last post). Honestly lots of the energy I have had put into the application process since the beginning of it still resides in me and "looks" to be used effectively.

Screenshot via Eventifier

As a passionately believer in what technology can be capable to bring positive to society and the individual, this time not being to attend (in person) the Global Service Jam 2015 activities here in Dresden I decided to put up a trial on Eventifier to let the tool capture the ongoings during the event. "Unwise" (or perhaps unconsciously "wise") I included both hashtag #GSjam (global) and #GSjamDD (Dresden-based) into the form. This led immediately to the fact that about 2,000 (1,998 to be exact) tweets were imported by the Eventifier server, and no new ones able to stream in.

Screenshot via Eventifier #smw15

Unlike I did for the Social Media Week 2015, #smw15, where I did ask the team of Eventifier what had happened that the import of tweets stopped at a certain amount. I was not only advised about the restrictions of the trial but also offered that the server would be allowed to import all the information streaming in on the Web using #smw15. See for yourself here.

Screenshot via Eventifier #LichtjahrDD

This time I did not want to ask again for this favor (actually Eventifier is one of the sponsors of the Dresdner Lichtjahr here in Dresden, #LichtjahrDD (the hashtag used on social media) and the Eventifier page (where all info around the International Year of Light 2015, #IYL2015 and #LichtjahrDD are pulled in alike in order to make the global event more public around the public) on it.

In order open up all the information about the Global Service Jam 2015 on the social web to get included in the Eventifier "event" it is necessary to upgrade to BASIS for an amount of $49 (!) to enable it to stay public for one month.

So I thought, "Why not use the notion of creating a new service while the Global Service Jam is on - a digital one?"

As I had already some experience with #GSP14 I decided to use Eventbrite to make it happen via a mini-scale crowdfunding. A 1st prototype on Sunday did not raise much awareness nor supporters. With the trial still able to be explored in part for the next couple of days I decided yesterday morning to run a 2nd prototype with slightly different ticket types and changed text. In the morning I got support from a dear friend from Nigeria, Love Okochi, with whom I had been on team during the 'Technology Entrepreneurship 1' MOOC run by Prof. Chuck Eesley back in 2013. With his help we changed some of text and I put it online again.

Screenshot via Eventifier (mod.)

This time everything was kind of different, as the "event" started at noon yesterday. On a public Facebook community focusing on service design where I had posted the info with best intend earlier that day I got "strong" head wind. First I was kind of confused, could feel my heart race a bit higher than the normal pace. Over the course of the day, after I had made the point clear that this wasn't meant to make a profit rather to enable all people interested in the field of service design and this past Global Service Jam 2015, especially the ones who couldn't attend in person, or didn't know about it yet to get at least a glimpse of what it was about.

The prototype is coming to an end tonight at midnight (UTC +1) and if you got curious of what this is all about have a look at this Eventbrite-page and check on how you'd become part of the journey.

PS.: I am grateful to my friends Göran Nitsche (Germany), Christian Meyer (Germany), Bruno Winck (France), Ulrike von Rücker (Egypt), Love Okochi (Nigeria), Angela Incampo (Italy) who have supported me along the journey and have given me the mental strength to stay focused

Modifications and events since original posting of 2nd prototype (decreasing order timely):

• Article on Pulse - recent article on the journey and learning around it on Pulse
• No 3rd prototype - all done thankfully to @GSJLeeds on Eventifier
• Platinum Sponsor - fixed amount ($52 incl. fees) for one month BASIC plan, one sponsor ticket 

#GSP15 - Sometimes Slowing Down is the Wiser Alternative to Accelerate Later

It is been around this time in 2011 when I had applied for the first time to Singularity University's most prominent technology-orientated entrepreneurship program: Graduate Studies Programme

What really drove me into applying for this 10-week program with a 25,000 $ price tag (leaving the travel expenses on top of it) was that I had watched a short three minute movie trailer two years earlier. The movie connected to it, "Transcendent Man" which had made it in the Tribeca Filmfestival (The World Feature Documentary Competition) 2009, tells the story of inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Directors Barry and Felicia Ptolemy in their own words about the movie in this interview at IndieWire from 2009 on how the making of it came into being and what pulled them to do it.

Soon after this learning about the founding of Singularity University and Ray Kurzweil's TED talk about it made me grow more curious about it. TED has just partnered with dotSUB a video translation tool startup so that subtitles in other than the original language to the TED talks were possible to do. As we had started the prototyping of largely digital technology driven startup accelerator in Dresden, LockSchuppen (the name stems from the envisioned space within an unused railway shed (Lokschuppen) and the notion to "unlock" creativity of entrepreneurs, citizens and institutions as well as organizations) we translated in a crowdsourced way this into German. The compensation was rather innovative: every participant in the translation process gained for each translated line a certain amount of "virtual shares" of the future LockSchuppen company (which by that time only was an idea and working concept).

In 2011 after applying for #GSP11 at the last possible time slot I was happy to receive a place, but with the challenge to raise 25,000 $ within 7 days. Back then this was impossible and shortly after I had got the message I was invited as blogger-in-residence to a week-long tech conference in Sydney, Australia.

The events this summer however pulled even more interest to attend the Graduate Studies Programme, especially as Dresden and the region are a major economic and research cluster for new technologies based on semiconductors and new materials. "Wouldn't it make sense not only to attend the program for 10-weeks and being a living in the system acting ambassador for all the stakeholders back in Saxony?"

From 2012 to 2014 I applied another three times, and shortly after the message had come out for the 2015 application the news hit the road:

Google is taking the 25,000 $ tuition fee on their shoulders

You might expect that would be a free ride for all? Not so. You had to find to respected people in your network who would write a reference letter about your achievements and potential value to the program, doing a two-minute video on why you are the right person to go, and other writings about your past achievements.

I was well underway, everything looked good - then "#ULab: Transforming Business, Society and Self" at the MOOC landscape in early January for an intensive 6-weeks course.

This changed everything. For 2015 there will be definitely no #GSP15 for me, all who want to know more about what it is like read into the interview Angela and and myself gave to Eventifier on why we made a crowdfunding campaign (a smallish one) to enable the world to learn more about Singularity University, Peter Diamandis' and Ray Kurzweil's ambitious vision and the experiences of the people attending the 10-weeks at NASA AMES Research Center.