Rabobank PressureCooker

When the night falls on Rotterdam, 25 creative minds with different backgrounds gather on the 16th floor of a big office building, where they are received by local employees of one of the biggest banks of The Netherlands, the RaboBank.

It's the second Pressure Cooker event organized by the 'Nieuwe Garde' ('New Guard') in Rotterdam. The meaning of Pressure Cookers is to come with the best result within a very limited time. To be precise; create with a group of young creative’s a solution for the problem a company is facing with.

The RaboBank needs inspiration to conquer the cities new minds, maybe it is possible to create more creative, smarter and more challenger ideas than what the Bank is offering to youngsters at the moment. Referring to the green student couch of ABN, one of their competes.

Before we take off an inspiring member of Syndicat takes the lead by mentioning to think of letting go your boundaries for a while, looking directly at the bank employees, and give creativity a chance. Approach the product from emotion, what do people want? Is the product low involvement ? Well, how can we make a boring insurance company, less boring then ? Where is the user, how does he/she feel? What would the user do? What are their Needs ?'

After these inspiring words groups of five random creative’s are directed to several rooms where the paper blanks, pencils, post-its and most important of all CHOCOLATE are waiting to be used. Thoughts of exploring, game involvement, communities, events and contests are flying through the rooms and landing on papers, and before you know it is time for dinner.

After dinner the groups return to their rooms to the most important part; creating order in chaos. The second round is used to clear your mind, make a choice and criticize from all those post-its and working the best ones out. Some ideas create more ideas, others are rock solid. In the last minutes everything is written down and thought of how to promote this in front of the company.

It ends where it started and the results of today’s effort are soon to be revealed. When everybody is seated the teams are given one by one a presentation. Five enthusiastic groups are given the time tp present one, or more possible ideas in front of the company. Laughing and Chatter is widely present, and the barrier between company and the creative minds nearly visible and in time the jury gives a brief comment from the company’s point of view.

“We never had this amount of great ideas in such a short time”

Rabobank Report:

http://www.pressurecooker.nu/download/Verslag-PressureCooker-Rabobank.pdf

More Pictures:

http://lauranet.nl/pressurekleur/