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An incubator program and consulting group for early-stage impact entrepreneurs.

New Resource: The Marshmallow Challenge

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Need to kickstart a meeting, get a team into a creative frame of mind, or simply encourage your organization to think about what it takes to dramatically increase innovation? Invest 45 minutes to run a marshmallow challenge! We’ve just added this great resource by Tom Wujec of Autodesk and Peter Skillman of Microsoft to our website for you to view and/or download. Its lesson is that we need to identify the assumptions in our project – the real customer needs, the cost of the product, the duration of the service – and test them early and often. That’s the mechanism that leads to effective innovation.

You can download the resource (photos of teams in the process of doing the challenge and .pdf slides of the presentation) here, and step-by-step instructions are available on Tom Wujec’s site here.

(Please note: a URL link to marshmallowchallenge.com mentioned in the resource was not working at the time this was posted. See Tom Wujec’s site instead for information.)

Stay tuned for more resources to be added in the weeks to come!

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New Resource: Theology and Design–Design Synthesis

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Photo by William Bout

Here’s the third in our series of blog posts highlighting useful resources, also the third by our friend Bethany Stolle of Stolle Creative, titled “Theology and Design–Design Synthesis”! Bethany is an interaction designer, curriculum developer, and entrepreneur with a decade of experience creating physical and digital products for children, youth, and adults.

Here’s a small excerpt: “After designers conduct research, the data must be synthesized to bring clarity out of chaos. The sense-making process lays a foundation for ideation and prototyping. Thorough synthesis can help ministry leaders imagine new possibilities for ministries that are grounded in empathy rather than assumption.”

Be sure to visit the resource page to view/download the entire handout! And, stay tuned for more resources to come!

Hungry for more? Sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on our latest blogs and Ministry Incubators news!

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New Resource: Theology and Design–Practicing Empathy in Design Thinking

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Photo by William Bout

Here’s the second in our series of blog posts highlighting useful resources, also the second by our friend Bethany Stolle of Stolle Creative, titled “Theology and Design–Practicing Empathy”! Bethany is an interaction designer, curriculum developer, and entrepreneur with a decade of experience creating physical and digital products for children, youth, and adults.

Here’s a small excerpt: “Designers engage in generative research at the start of a project to seek problems, develop empathy, and gain a deeper understanding of people’s needs and desires. The methods tend to be qualitative and open-ended. Generative research can help ministry leaders develop empathy for our neighbors, as well as invite others into a creative, collaborative process that invigorates our ministries.”

Be sure to visit the resource page to view/download the entire handout! And, stay tuned for the posting next week of a third resource by Bethany on design synthesis.

Hungry for more? Sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on our latest blogs and Ministry Incubators news!

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New Resource: Theology and Design–What is Design Thinking?

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Photo by William Bout

We’re launching a series of useful resource posts in the coming weeks that we hope will help you in your entrepreneurial pursuits! This first post highlights a great handout by our friend Bethany Stolle of Stolle Creative, titled “Theology and Design–What is Design Thinking?” Bethany is an interaction designer, curriculum developer, and entrepreneur with a decade of experience creating physical and digital products for children, youth, and adults.

Here’s a small excerpt: “Design thinking is an empathy-driven, human-centered approach to addressing complex problems. When ministry leaders embrace empathy, we encounter others in new ways that can shape ministry.”

Be sure to visit the resource page to view/download the entire handout!

Hungry for more? Sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on our latest blogs and Ministry Incubators news!

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Ever Wonder What a Hatchathon Actually Is?

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If you have heard us talking about “Hatchathon” all over the place but don’t really know what it is, here is a presentation that Kenda made for the upcoming Hatchathon with the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. It explains a little bit what you can expect if you are able to attend one of these events. You can find our upcoming events (including a few Hatchathons), on our events page.

Hungry for more? Sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on our latest blogs and Ministry Incubators news!

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