Recently, OpenInvo hosted an amazing brainstorming session that truly embodied what we as a company are all about.
Fordcastle, a new consulting firm started by Stephen Johnston, Formerly Nokia’s Senior Manager of Business Development, came to OpenInvo looking for innovative ideas to enhance and reposition a well-known worldwide hotel chain with both low-end and high-end brands. We assembled an eclectic and energetic team of creative people, three of whom are also instructors with the OpenInvo Studio.
Led by our fearless CEO, Emily Lutzker, two visual artists, a musican/writer, an actress, a comic/sci-fi writer/entrepreneur, and a well-traveled photographer spent a full day imagining and outlining what the future of the hotel experience might look like. We talked, we drank coffee, we talked some more. We used post-it notes great and small to cover the walls and the conference room table with our ideas and outlines and drawings. Stephen and Conrad of Fordcastle asked important questions and we answered, a lot. The day began with what was almost like focused riffing/daydreaming on various hotel concepts, flaws, and potential improvements, but as we honed in on more specifics, we hammered out our brightest ideas into more concrete, executable options that Fordcastle could then bring back to their hotel client.
Only time will tell what concepts will be shared between Fordcastle and the hotel chain, but we know that by the end of the day there was plenty to work with on the table. We all were spent, Stephen and Conrad included, from the hours of brainstorming, but we had a blast doing it. As far as hotels are concerned, we all know that there are some elements of the hotel experience that could be updated and/or greatly improved, so hopefully OpenInvo’s brainstorming session will have some direct impact. Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, you (or I) will stay in a hotel that makes use of one of the ideas born right here in our offices! Good stuff, and precisely our mission—to bring the corporate and creative together and achieve true innovation by way of this union.
