The First Pressure Cooker in The Hague with FMO

On the first of december the first Pressure Cooker took place in The Hague. One of a kind, the first edition launched in the headquarters of FMO; the Dutch Financial Bank for Development.

FMO is a bank which invests in sustainable entrepreneurship in developing countries. A nice and interesting first timer, to kick off the PC Project in The Hague aswell. And with succes. Now after nearly a month, some volunteers got invited to work out their ideas which were presented on the 1st of October.

In short, the case of FMO was build on their organisatorial approach which will have a major difference in strategy in the upcoming years. As they handle their approach by countries at the moment, the future will be clustered to an approach in three major branches; housing, finance and energy. This results into that a lot of the FMO employees will be working in new teams, so the question of FMO was; "How do we communicate to our employees that we will be working in this new strategy ?"

I invited storyteller Steven van Lummel for some good inspiration on the event, and with succes as I have been told that he was invited afterwards to speak on the FMO conference on the 18th aswell. The photography of the day was done by a serious photo artist named Kim Vermaat and the whole evening was step by step written down watchfully by Froukje Cleton.

The results of the group in total were outstanding with solutions like a market on location, a climbing wall and interactive video art installations. And these are only a few of the possibilities which turned up on the event itself. For a full review, read the full document of the first pressure cooker in the hague which I send this saturday to all the volunteers.

'Enlight' Pressure Cooker

The night falls again and in Rotterdam 25 creative minds with different backgrounds gather, this time the Hub, where they are received by the Pressure Cooker team and members of 'Enlight'.

It's the third 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.

Though this time it was slidely different because 'Enlight' is in fact a codename. A new voice is emerging and will be on the market soon, and the Pressure Cookers had the pleasure to invent new promotional stunts for them!

Which resulted in a wonderfull night with a magnificent outcome, the company was so pleased with the results that some of the people who joined the evening are still in contact with them right now for some future assignments!

I've been working on the rapport and some video, which will be online soon! Though it will be... uhm kind of... censored...


For Pictures:

http://www.pressurecooker.nu/2008_Enlight/website-fotoboek/

8UO: Working Overtime. Voluntarily.

Send a postcard to a child without a home address, hand over a business card which belongs to a professional drug dealer, spread an interactive flyer with the image of a child holding a box where you can choose if it is a lunchbox or a package of cocaine…

These are some of the ideas created while brainstorming for the Juconi foundation, a foundation that gets street children off the street. Juconi works with children from Latin America (focus mainly on Columbia) and is characterized by Unesco with one of the most effective method of approaching street children providing them a better future.

Juconi was one of the foundations joining 8UO better known as ‘working 8 hours late’) an initiative of the ‘Nieuwe Garde’ (-‘the New Guard’) which was held on Friday the 28th of March in the former Caballero factory in The Hague. Also in Rotterdam, Groningen and Arnhem collaborations were made and worked overtime for foundations like Greenpeace and Red Cross.

After some drinks and a good meal the creative minded were divided to groups and escorted to their working space where an introduction round was held. As everybody introduced themselves the foundations clarifies the case and the problem they are facing, and like a lot of foundations like Juconi donations necessary. How can Juconi get more donations and create brand awareness?

The foundation indicates on a promotional campaign like flyers, banners , newsletter and then leaves us to our first round for some lucidity and possible brainstorm. At first we clarify their goal; which is creating more donations. We ask ourselves how the foundation wants to reach their potential ‘customers’ and why they are choosing classic and familiar ways to reach their target group. The answer to that question is that a promotional campaign proves to work and everybody knows this kind of advertizing, it is well known fact. But it is a well known fact as well that this instrument is widely used, flyer holders are overloaded and you have to find more ways of how to create your awareness. Stickers? Please.

We want to create a buzz, and in this short time the AIDA method is a great thing to create and categorize new ideas. For those who are new to this, AIDA stands for creating an Attraction which should create an Interest which should make a Desire bringing it back to an Action.

So how do we create more brand awareness, how do we stimulate the contact between the foundation, their clients and their potential customers. You can think of a wide range of ideas like flying those children to The Netherlands putting and throwing them on the biggest shopping street here, insane? Yes, but it would definitely result into attention creating awareness by the shocking effect which could reach television and newspaper without paying for it. Shocking with a blink…?

Interactive Flyers, a ‘real’ video on the movie theatre, exaggerate the problem, make it humoristic…

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/