3 reasons why you can’t miss the next Continuous Innovation Day

I was aware of Continuous Innovation Day #2 before even starting at Sage. If you have read the article about my wonderful hiring process, you already know that I had to present a challenge about how to promote this event to make it a success.

I joined Sage on 10th of May, and I was very excited to continue working on this topic. My first contact to a Continuous Innovation event was the 10x Innovation Growth training, during my first week. It set the bar high, and I couldn’t wait for the 26th of May to come!

I contributed to the promotion of CI Day #2 by helping Melentha with the Linkedin event. Contrary to the first edition in January, this second session was not only open to Sage colleagues, but also to external people. Indeed, the topic (“Defining the problem: discovering the right problem to solve, through customer insights”) was appealing to a large audience, and resonated well beyond Sage.

Another new feature was the participation of real Sage customers – who better than them could make the topic relevant and vibrant? Lauren was in charge of finding and onboarding them. She did an amazing job and brought 3 very different types of customers to the CI Day #2 panel: CFO of Osprey Group Lewis Dangerfield, Global Director of ICT for Palladium Group Lorena Moreira Saenz and Managing Director of Bulldog Kitchens David Lyall. They all have been Sage clients for 4 to 9 years.

Before the event, I was lucky to witness all the “behind the scenes” work done by many Sage colleagues, all part of the Continuous Innovation community. Getting closer to the date, I could feel the excitement and the stress rising up among the co-organisers. I was also impressed by the great communication, coordination, and commitment from everyone.

Then the long awaited day arrived. More than 200 people were connected on the 26th of May to learn about better defining customers problems, get inspired, and have fun. The event started with a burst of energy from hosts Kay and Fred, who immediately set the mood. Followed a great illustration of the importance of listening to customers: the hilarious gift wrap video clip from Love Actually. The rest of the event unfolded very naturally, alternating between different formats to keep the audience engaged. After breakout rooms where everyone could connect and discuss the importance of better defining customer problems, Sue shared her experience and what she learnt about the challenges faced by Sage clients during the pandemic.

After the QA session with Sue, Marcio took the lead to introduce Design Thinking principles to the audience. How can we create powerful problem statements to focus on the customer’s insights? After the theory came the practice, starting with a deep discussion to understand the challenges and needs of our customers. This part was very authentic and insightful, as our 3 customers shared their personal and professional struggles during Covid-19. It was particularly interesting to learn that despite their differences (industry, company size…), customers were facing the same kind of issues, in particular related to maintaining the link between employees and a sense of belonging to their organisation.

After listening to customers’ needs, participants were split in breakout rooms to practice Design Thinking: reflect on findings, create an empathy map, build a problem statement and think about tangible actions. Our 3 customers were in some breakout rooms, contributing to the process and helping participants with their insights.

To end the event, everyone was brought back to the main room for a celebration of the journey made and the new knowledge gained. The energy was definitely still up, and enthusiastic messages were popping up in the chat from everywhere!

Now you know why you don’t want to miss the next Continuous Innovation Day. It’s really a unique opportunity to:

• gather with colleagues and externals to network informally
• learn concrete techniques to think out of the box
• have loads of fun which will leave you inspired and energised

Did you attend? Don’t hesitate to share your experience in the comments, and tell me what is your best reason to keep on attending Continuous Innovation Day in the future!