Following the announcement of the 2017 Tecoma Award, IBL Ltd wanted to continue its momentum in encouraging entrepreneurial culture and launched its first TILT evening on Wednesday 19 April 2017. The latter is an innovative networking concept, based on the SPIN method (first Serious Game company in Mauritius). Through this initiative, the IBL communication team wanted to break out of the established codes of networking and make it a new experience. This game-like concept is based on sharing, innovation and creativity, values shared by the IBL Ltd. brand.
In a relaxed atmosphere, with funky music, a hundred people formed groups of five to generate new ideas based on their various skills, exchange on their work processes, and expand their address books while having a good time. The editorial staff was lucky enough to participate in this first edition of the TILT and explains how it went.
During this TILT evening, the teams had to imagine an innovative company and present it. To help them in this reflection, two main sources of support were made available to the teams: a coach (a former Tecoma Award nominee) and “sprints” (a sprint is a timed activity with instructions, which help the team to move forward in its reflection). Each coach accompanied two teams.
Six sprints and one handicap took place during the evening
- Sprint 1: Team formation. For this, it’s a matter of chance meetings! Each participant had a card with a symbol and had to find four other people with a different symbol to form a team.
- Sprint 2: first impressions game. After training the teams, they were invited to take their place in the co-working spaces. Each team member was then given two minutes to individually answer a short questionnaire to give their feelings about their team members. Who, of the 5 people, would be the leader during the evening? Who would be the team strategist? Who would be the coordinator? It is interesting at the end of the evening to compare the results!
- Sprint 3: Frequently asked questions. In the form of a board game, the team members had to answer individually or collectively personal and professional questions about their daily lives in order to get to know each other better. Here are some examples of questions asked during the game: Which tool allows you to increase your productivity at work? What makes you happy in the morning?
- Sprint 4: Innovation race. Here we go, we were getting into the thick of it! The teams had to imagine an innovative project responding to a problem in Mauritius. In the form of brainstorming, the teams were able to come up with some very promising projects, such as the idea of an application providing real-time information on available parking spaces or a Tuk-Tuk system to relieve traffic congestion in the city.
- Sprint 5: the creativity. Time for the teams to let their artistic souls speak. On the agenda: drawing your innovative project on a slate. The final votes were based on the representation on this slate and the presentation of Sprint 6.
- Handicap: disaster, each team had to exchange its business project with another team! While the members were discouraged and thought their work was going nowhere, this is an opportunity for the coaches to boost their teams and introduce the notion of agility.
- Sprint 6: presentation of the advertisement. The teams had to present, in the form of a one-minute sketch, the project imagined by an opposing team. Laughter was guaranteed thanks to the creativity of the participants. And for good reason, the team that made the most memorable presentation, i.e. the one the audience remembered best, won a prize at the end of the evening.
It is planned to organize two TILT evenings per year, around the central theme of innovation. The theme of this first evening was “innovation through people”, while the second will focus on “innovation through values”.
