Do You Think Entrepreneurial Thinking Can Change Lives?

That moment when you're 17 and you win seed money for the business you just started. It happened at the library.

We asked Izzy Hernandez (pictured on right): Do you think entrepreneurial thinking can change lives?

Izzy said:

"I do believe that entrepreneurial thinking can help change lives. Look at Phoebe, Faith, and me, with all the work that we did in 48 hours. We are making a step into helping our community's teens by getting out financial knowledge that is definitely gonna help our youth have an idea of what to do once they finally "leave the nest" or so to speak. [she laughs.]

"If we get teens more interested in this topic we can help prepare them and help better there lives so they won't be left out in the dark. After all, we teenagers are the future. We are going to be the decision makers in our world and that is why it s so important that we help each other out when working on this project and hopefully this curriculum that we have started.

"It is to help benefit our teens, to help benefit our community, and most importantly, to help benefit our world."

Izzy was one of three teens who took part in the first programming funded by the Idea+Space grant. She spent 2 days of her fall school break with Robin and Brooke from LeadLocal, learning how to explore and test financial curriculum ideas for teens, using the lean startup methodology. Their proposal was so strong that Izzy, Faith and Phoebe were awarded $750.00 seed money to test their ideas in the real world, for classes given by the YWCA.

You'll be able to meet Robin, Brooke, Faith, Phoebe and Izzy at Tuesday's Catalyst Cafe. You don't want to miss this one!

When: Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 5:30-7:00pm
Where: Main Library Lower Level Meeting Room 2nd floor Idea+Space, 101 N. Stone.
Parking: Parking under the library is free after 5pm.

How We Innovate, a Presentation by Aaron Eden

Aaron Eden, Innovation Coach

At the May Café, innovation coach Aaron Eden talked to us about how Intuit is building innovation and entrepreneurial thinking into their workplace, and using creative brainstorming techniques to explore solutions.

He led us through an exercise where we interviewed a partner about a product: ladders. We had a couple minutes to ask lots of "why" questions about their most recent experience using a ladder.

Next? Go broad. Think of as many ideas as you can, independently from your interviewee. Aaron handed us fat markers and post-it notes and we scribbled ideas about how to improve ladders -- some crazy, some not.

Then you sort, from most useful to least useful and sketch out the concept using his simple form:

This is a very simplified version of the process. We learned a lot about how to listen to the problem, then capture the broadest set of ideas possible, and then narrow by different criteria.

If you want to know more, Aaron shared his "How We Innovate" presentation with us.

The next Café will cover Grantwriting for Businesses (yes, businesses), and Nonprofits.

New Ideas for Helping our Neighborhoods and Public Spaces

Neighborland in action

What do you want in your neighborhood? A grocery store? A bike path? a community garden?

What if we could easily share and sort through ideas for our neighborhoods, and then organize to make them reality? Recently two new webservices have formed that are focused on empowering community members to work together to improve our neighborhoods and public spaces.

One such website is Neighborland, where people can "share ideas and insights for their city, support neighbors’ ideas, and connect with people who share their interests." How does it work? I will let them explain it: http://handbook.neighborland.com/how/

And just today I came across Spacehive, an initiative from the UK that adds in the possibility of crowdsourced funding for projects. [Article on Shareable]

The bad news is that neither Spacehive nor Neighborland have extended coverage to Arizona yet. We'll keep our ears open!

Gamestorming highlights

Our networked "Affinity Map"

Thank you, Andrew, for the great Gamestorming introduction yesterday! For those who couldn't come, his notes area available online at his blog: 52 Communiques, including a copy of the handout, information on how gaming aids learning and communication,  and his list of sources.

On the right is part of our "Affinity Map" where we made little avatars of ourselves and mapped how we were similar. Andrew explained that this is a typical icebreaker game, and can be helpful when a workgroup forms of people who don't know each other well.

Our last demo was of a "3-12-3" game where you take 3 minutes to write ideas on cards, break into groups that are dealt 5 cards and take 12 minutes to discuss ideas that the cards inspire. If the mix is wrong a group can ask for a "hit" poker-style and get a replacement card. Finally, each group takes 3 minutes to present their grand ideas. On the left are the notes Andrew took of our reports.

Ideas for downtown, summation of our "3-12-3" game

So what ideas did we come up with? First, here's what idea cards we came up with, grouped by type of approach: [scroll down]

P.S. This is a verbatim transcription of the cards and includes a few political statements. The views of the workshop participants in no way reflects the views of the library.

SPECIAL EVENTS

• Treasure Hunt
• Sponsor a scavenger hunt, visit businesses to gather items
• Street Fairs nearby
• Free entertainment (city pays artists to perform at businesses)
• Organize [and film???] flashmobs at businesses
• Large-scale moveable feasts
• "Light the Night" avenue walk
• Have a contest to come up with a song about the construction -- winner plays the song at different businesses
• Music on the street
• Orchestrated viewing "shows" of heavy machinery
• Streetcar "caroling" expedition (like bar crawl but not)
• Weekly street parties
• Food events on the street
• Provide street block party environment for merchants to showcase their businesses
• Street performances
• Entertainers on the street corners
• Encourage group events by making more holidays, ie: Star Wars Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day
• Make navigating the construction a game
• Hold an "un"-street fair with the artisans on the sidewalk
• Expo (tent city)
• Holiday shopping in June
• Make shopping downtown into a game, ie earn tokens that can be traded later for prizes
• Sidewalk-n-Dust Festival
• Meet and greet the construction vehicles
• Sponsor community work projects where artists donate art or make tiles or signage
• Create a game where people have to visit businesses and win prizes
• Talk to Warner at City Recess about using crisis to demo the software
• Tours of the construction
• 2nd Saturday-style event when RTA is finished

PERSONAL ACTION

• Organize your friends and shop together
• When you (yourself) have a choice about where to go, choose downtown
• Provide job help as temporary workers

PUBLICITY AND AWARENESS

• Marketing outreach "Go downtown"
• Publicize the "MOOB"ers widely
• Highlight a business of the week
• Marketing of affected businesses and advise [that] they're still open
• Free maps of how to get around construction
• Business-specific signage on streets

HUMOR ALWAYS HELPS

• Free dust masks
• Ziplines connecting the rooftops
• Free parking, free rent, free candy

FINANCIAL RELIEF

• No taxes during construction
• Sales tax holiday
• Exempt them from charging/paying city tax
• No-interest loans only to be repaid when RTA opens
• Grant money to assist businesses with operational costs
• Tax credits
• Grants or other outside assistance to help sustain 
• [Supplier] discount card for [business] expenses
• Relocation assistance x2 (away then back)
• Write grants to help businesses make it through the slow time while the streets are closed
• Produce funding to subsidize biz during construction
• Give merchants free rent during construction
• Hire them to cater other events

INFRASTRUCTURE (might have longer lasting effect)

• More connections between businesses in coordinating visibility and offers
• Organize help for redesigning merchant websites and improving their SEO
• Help them renovate their sites during construction
• Create alternative venues for biz. Partnerships? Expansions?
• Teach businesses about nontraditional publicity methods like social media
• Encouragement to try catering (and get away from the street)
• [For the restaurants] subsidized mobile kitchens

RETAIL INCENTIVES FOR SHOPPERS

• Loyalty card
• Sales every weekend
• RTA could give gift cards out to community for affected shops (people would get a $5 gift card but spend more)
• Random customers selected for giveaways
• Have lots of sales
• Week-long sales events - one biz each week
• If you spend a certain amount of $ during RTA construction those translate into credits you can use later or post-construction
• Subsidies to those using those businesses (restaurant coupons, etc.)

THE "UGLY" FACTOR

• Yarn-bomb the chainlink, especially on Congress
• Decorate the chainlink

THE PARKING/TRANSPORTATION/SIGNAGE PROBLEM

• Free parking downtown during construction
• Lots of info on parking in ALL media
• Start a shuttle to Congress/4th from a big parking lot to other parts of town
• Pre-purchased rider cards at discount, funnel some % to affected businesses
• Shuttles to bring people up from far away parking
• Provide free parking everywhere
• Provide transportation to get there and back
• Make passageways across closed areas so it is easier to cross streets
• Make public transportation free to downtown destinations
• Create more access to public parking
• Better pathways for walking/running/biking
• Bus people in so they don't have to find parking
• Create signs to identify business from a main traffic area
• Work-around travel options
• Passageways across closed areas
• Free parking in downtown Tucson 1 weekday a week
• Create alternative access & parking
• Use empty lots for free parking
• Bike rickshaw "street line" to transport people
• Rider incentives to frequent affected businesses
• Parking validation

SYSTEMIC

• A new city council
• Work after midnight until morning
• Sell [personalized] bricks
• No modern streetcar
• Construction work doubles on weekends to hurry progress
• Work in smaller sections so large pieces of roads aren't closed
• Do the construction in phases
• Work days, nights and weekends and use larger crews to shorten construction time