Techdirt Greenhouse: An Idea Workshop

This event which is organised by Alba Innovation Centre and Edinburgh Stanford-Link will take place in the Alba Innovation Centre, Livingston on Friday 25th January from 11am - 4pm. Registration from 10.30am.

At Techdirt, our core belief is that ideas are living things -- and that by getting smart people to think about and discuss various ideas, they can often be made much better. It's what we try to do on Techdirt -- presenting ideas and getting people to discuss them -- alongside customers of our Techdirt Corporate Intelligence service. We now want to take that same concept and try it in a live environment... the Techdirt Greenhouse.

Techdirt Greenhouse is a different kind of event. It's designed to be fun, interactive and thought provoking. It requires participation, rather than passive listening, but has enough structure that it's not a total free-for-all. In fact, the structure is quite similar to the Techdirt blog. A group of pre-selected companies and MSc students in Informatics will present ideas in quick, five minute presentations.

Unlike a standard product showcase, this is not the "final word." After a group of presentations, the attendees are split up into breakout groups, and given a specific issue from one of the presentations to "workshop." For a company with a new product, this could be anything from "what new features should be added" to "what target market should they focus on" to "is there a business model here?" Other presentations may not be about products, but ideas, and the workshops will be related to those ideas.

After a short period of time, everyone will reconvene and discuss some of the findings and takeaways for the presenters (and the attendees) to consider. Think of each presentation as a Techdirt post -- and each breakout group as the comments around that post.

This allows us to create an event where many different interesting topics gets discussed among a diverse group of people with a wide range of perspectives and opinions -- all in a short period of time. Leave the PowerPoint and the sales pitches at home. Here's a chance to interact with some of the smartest folks around, while helping to solve real and interesting challenges facing the technology business today. Register now to secure your place at this event by emailing albareception@innovationcentre.org T

echdirt was ranked #2 for the best technology blogs recently by Forbes Magazine http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/13/cx_ah_techblogslide_2.html?thisSpeed=335544320000