Narrow down!

Finally the day came (Friday) where we, the five hard working group members of the Entrepreneurial Incubator project, met up and took the final decisive steps, towards creating the theme for the next weeks actual product development challenges (IDEO), and thereby crossing "the point of no return"... We are almost halfway and in good spirit. The last couple of weeks has been dedicated to research, brainstorms, talks, joy, fustrations, actions, dinners, table soccer and indeed some beers too. All in all we have been very process oriented and focused on the understanding of our synopsis actual connection to the real world topics we mention in it. We will transform our work methods a little now, and focus more on our end result, the actions needed to finish and simply just start cutting down on the process bull...., and work our butts of. After a hard days work Friday we all needed a pilsner, and moved to the bar area of ITU. WOW!.... The prices there are like no other place we know, and the beers they sell there are of very high quality. Before ending our stay in Cph. we will definitely have to rock that place in real T13 style. On the way to Århus for the weekend, Torben, Anders, Jakob and Thomas had one more incredible travel/würtz experience to write about in the blog.
The creative solution for a "menu extravagance" on the slow boat from Kalundborg to Århus were as follows: 4 Store fadøl, 8 ristede, 2 frankfurtere, 12 brød, blod, bæ og bræk + ristede løg. The add on was 1 bakke pommes og godt med døbls. We all enjoyed the magnificent feast in the great surroundings of the smoking lounge. White walls, Danish hardcore truckers and the national folk hero "Bubber" on the TV in the corner.

Have a great weekend out there...

Thomas

Royal Visit

Yes, this was the big day. The day where we would get a royal visit! The picture should speak for it self. Unfortunately the prospects of our project hasn't arrived as far as the Royal Danish Family. They were at the ITU for a briefing about the innovation in the "Ørestads Region"
Well, back to basics. Too early in the morning the Borneo group left for the airport. We started with a nice breakfast at the condo, only the four of us. Today was the first day of our new way of facilitating the process. We then drove to the ITU and arrived at the office because of the enhanced security due to the coming Royal Visit. We got in started up and at 9.30hrs we checked in and made a schedule for the day.

The work started with a Risk analysis. We tried to analyse all the risks in our project. Not risks like being imprisoned or sun burned as some of the other groups might experience, but risks of us living together and the wide frames that our partner have given us. At 11.00hrs we had a break to get some lunch. The kitchen would be closed during the royal visit and therefore we had to eat at odd times... After the lunch we got back for the risk analysis which we finished around 13.00hrs.

What to do then? BRAINSTORM!! When in doubt, have a brainstorm. Not, that we were in doubt, but we wanted to get some more ideas before we start the developing phase. We had some very cool and inspiring brainstorms. Only interrupted for fresh coffee and a game of "Office Chair Football". Watch the movie and see how you get new energy and room for a new brainstorm.


Needless to say, we got some good ideas out of the day. We finished the day around 16.30 really tired of all the brain work.

At dinner time Thomas made a wonderful salad - The picture speaks for itself - Yes , it is a picture of our dinner.







Torben made dough for morning bread. Here comes the recipe:
700 ml water
5 g yeast
1 ts salt
1 ts sucker
200 g "müsli"
300 g "spelt" flour
200 g full grain wheat flour
Let it stand in the refrigerator during the night. In the morning while you are in the shower, make proper size buns out of the dough and cook them for 25 mins at 225 degrees C.

During the evening we'll try and arrange a working space at the apartment (in the living room). Yeah and of cause eat some of this lovely "Drømmekage fra Brovst" which Thomas made.Until tomorrow - Have fun, and good luck baking!
- Torben

The Gathering...

Okay, its wedensday we have got the two big "drøn" back from their research in Århus. Great! So now we have the whole group gathered - and we started of by checking us in and just setting the frames for the day. We have started the process of trying to narrow down what we are actually going to do. During Monday and Tuesday we got a lot of inputs and new ideas so today we put these in to use.
We are focusing a hell of a lot on our process as well, right now. Which is great. Picture showing: "The Old Man and his White board"

All in all a super day with many topics on the board, many things discussed and many great ideas! Oh yeah, and the Queen is coming to our offices tomorrow! Jæs sir! Both the Danish and the Swedish Queen and King I think - don't really know why but fuck it - we gonna get Royal visit! So it's going to be interesting if we can get in tomorrow morning or if there's going to be 7000 security guys... but we have Torben a.k.a. "Big Drøn" if all else fails!!

We will keep you posted...

AND... Right now our wonderful little group has a visit! The Borneo Group who are leaving tomorrow are staying at our place tonight and preparing the last things before they go to the jungle! It's great! They are all in good spirit but they seem a bit stressed - but who can blame them!? They are going to the fucking jungle!

Anyways it was really great to see some good people - it seems like ages since we've seen any of you!

So that will be all for now..

Hope your all doing well?

By the way: Love reading your different blogs - Pontus: I love you!

-Anders

Tuesday, May the 8th

Ok, while some of the guys have been in Århus, I have been in Oslo during the weekend because i had a meeting with Tommy Sharif second generation Pakistani, also known as the Baron of tires in Norway, and now also Europe !! He is innovative, creative, extremely full of energy and he has a huge passion for what he does. We had a good chat and I got some really good info to bring back to our incubator project in CPH, Denmark! And a success story to use when branding our project in Denmark.

Monday morning Jacob and Anders went out to interview Ibrahim, the previous owner of the shop in Stefansgade that won the price "most innovative shop" in Denmark 2004. He did sell the shop later on, but he kept his Pizzeria! He was a nice guy, and the boys got some views on his way of being innovative.


The next meeting that we had was with Torben in "Foreningen Ny Dansker". He was a little bit sceptic to our project (too big...), and he gave us some good information about what the need for the new Danes is these days. There are a lot of unsolved problems when it comes to the economical part of running a business, there is difficult papers to fill out and the help is not that help full... Torben also gave us the huge opportunity to help us get funding to the project, when it is done!

Today we have been to the meeting we have been looking forward to ...allot! With "Creative Ghetto" and they have certainly been both creative and have found a "ghetto" when choosing office. In the middle of the old harbour as far as you can walk, behind some bushes and in the middle of the building. We walked and walked in the rain, took a cab but still we weren't there.... but then the sun came, and we (with a little help from Pernille (from C.G.) who was so kind to pick us up on the wrong side of the building...) got to the office! We had a great meeting, partly by the fire and with hot coffee to dry us up and get us warm.

Creative Ghetto is focusing on how to get new Danes into the commercial and creative business in Denmark, to create some diversity and to get new input.
Pernille and Sebastian has sadly decided to close the Creative Ghetto project and education. This is a shame, because there is no creative education i Denmark anymore and because they have done a good job. Some of their "students" are trying to start up something on their own and we hope that we can be a part of this, at least help what we can.
Dough the Creative Ghetto is shut down Pernille and Sebastian is working to build up a Creative network for the "ghetto" instead. So there might be that it is possible to do something similar with their network later! We got some really good contacts and the opportunity to use the "research" and some tips on how to actually find the people we are looking for!

So.... now Anders, Jacob and Me are in the apartment making a S.W.O.T. on the interviews and talks that we have had during the last couple of days. The boys will back from Århus tomorrow at lunch time and then the HUGE decision making process will start. Figuring out where we are headed and how to narrow down out task into something that at least is a little bit smaller than what it is today, but we have 3 weeks left, a huge amount of energy!! We have an apartment, a office, a car and we are the FABULOUS 5 !

Tone =)

First Field Studies!

Finally the day came. Our first studies in our target group.

Thomas and I have been to some great meetings today in Århus. It was both a good and a bad day, because we realized that we might have to edit our vision of the end product. BUT we were assured that we are on the right track and that there is a market for what we are doing. We met up with the CEO of Bazar Vest, who gave very interesting angels on our ideas. After lunch we went down town and talked with MatchWorker. MatchWorker gave us other perspectives and confirmed some of the points that the CEO of Bazar Vest gave us. Finally Thomas and I met Waseim, who is an atypical person for this VOXPOP, as he doesn't fit our target profile, but he had a lot of interesting points that we can use in our further research.

Sorry no pictures to day... And, no food related topics!

Best until tomorrow.
- Torben

The 4th day of a magnificent project

Friday the 4th of may. "St. Bededag" in Danish - not the most productive day in Denmark, as most people are having a day of.

Well the team didn't have a day of! Thomas and I started the day by doing some field work in Copenhagen as we went to the baker. A strange sight met us. Empty streets in the city. The first guy we saw was snoring on a bench - Could it be that he had, had a wet night in town... ;) As we came to the baker Thomas found some lovely "danish" (Kanel snegle) in the window and took pictures of them. When I came in the store the shopkeeper was a tiny bit pissed as we were not allowed to take pictures - Well... We were luckily enough to get permission to buy some bread.

When we had had our breakfast we started with a structure meeting facilitated by Anders, so we could get the most out of the day. We worked on funding, humanizing our questionnaire and small topics in order for our interviews (mon- and tuesday) to run as smoothly as possible.

At 1300hrs the small tourbus started the tour back to Århus. Some of us had some stuff to do in Århus. On the way back we took a trip down "memory lane" and took the slooooow booooat from Kalundborg to Århus. The tourbus became a dwarf amongst giants as we waited to board.

The trip was lovely with a lot of sun intellectual talks and of course "1 Frankfurter med 2 Brød". We found that until now we have eaten more sausages than sharwama on this project.

Have fun
Torben

First day at the apartment

We started the day with strong coffee and a fabulous overall planning meeting. The meeting ended up with a more or less perfect (or ambitious) plan for the day which after the plan would end at around 2 o'clock. The meeting was a part of our strategy right now were we mainly work in solo/double groups with everything from funding, booking of external meetings and general practicalities. We then share the gathered info on the work in progress, on these random power meetings.

When ever great KaosPilots work hard and
focused, fuel for brain and body is needed. Jacob had bought the essentials in one of the big Danish discount shops, for a grand Danish lunch experience, with a twist of Turkish spice in the shape of a sausage. The kitchen facilities here are not like we are used to at the KP. It really works great and it is a real nice way to meet the others on the business floor of the IT University.

We have "made" our own little KP oasis in the corner of Startup Company's office.
A nice and intimate way of working in the big fancy building. After lunch we regained focus and sprinted for the 2 o'clock deadline only to find out that the clock was moving towards the magic number. We all finished our planned work and raced in the fantastic bus to Enghave Plads to finally receive the keys for Jane's
(Camilla's friend) amazing apartment.
And what a lovely place it is!!! Pictures will be posted the coming days...

The day was finished of with a grand dinner experience. Fiskefrikadeller with tomato salad, potatoes with parsley and butter sauce and remoulade to top it of!

Bon appetite...

Thomas