TIMTHIANTHAI
SF Design Week 2017 @ SAP AppHaus
SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center has recently been rebranded as SAP AppHaus. To spread the word about our new brand and what we do, we hosted an open house event during SF Design Week. I volunteered to be the event organizer in 2017 as I saw an opportunity to start a new kind of event at SAP.
Events at SAP usually involved speakers and presentations. The goal of our new event, “Create Your Own Design Adventure,” was to allow participants to get hands-on experience of our daily collaborative design activities. We had different activity stations set up that included storyboarding, prototyping, improvisational warm-ups, and portfolio-review. Each station was monitored by at least one of our team members.
Participants got to know one another and worked as a team through design activities at the prototyping station.
My colleague, Amol, taught participants improvisational warm-ups—a typical co-innovation workshop activity used as an icebreaker to get participants energized.
My Role
Event Planning
I designed the theme, developed the activities plan, and assigned tasks that catered to our team members’ strengths (e.g. our experienced workshop facilitators would take charge of workshop-related activities, our visual designers would create event map, customized name tags, and marketing materials.) I also researched and secured the event sponsor, caterer, and internal SAP partners who were interested in collaborating with us (e.g. SAP Talent Acquisition, SAP Silicon Valley Next Talent Program, other SAP design teams). Other minor tasks included identifying the needed items for the event and making purchase orders.
Marketing and Communications
I wrote the marketing content and promoted the events through different channels such as the SF Design Week website, social media, emails, flyers, and professional networks. I also acted as point of contact for the SF Design Week organizers and participants.
Participants learned to storyboard by creating and sharing their own stories using our physical storyboarding tool, SAP Scenes.
Our visual designers contributed by creating event maps, customized name tags, and marketing materials.
Challenges & Takeaways
Competition
When we selected the event date, we didn’t know the number of other SF Design Week events that would be happening on that day, which ended up to be 54! Additionally, our event was located quite far from other events and costed money to attend (to offset our expense). With all these variables at play, it seemed like an uphill battle. To make the best of the situation, we edited our ads and adjusted the activities to make the event stand out, and extended our targets to more diverse groups of participants (e.g. Chinese Bay Area UX community, MBA students who wanted to experience Design Thinking). Once the participants bought tickets, we followed up with them via personalized email.
Expectation Alignments
It was a rare opportunity for us to work with multiple SAP teams the same time. Each team had a different goal for the event (e.g. recruiting, sharing experiences with millennial audiences, promoting AppHaus, etc.) To ensure all expectations aligned, we met, communicated our needs, and set boundaries beforehand. Transparency and trust were key.
Learning Through Experimentation
Because we were trying many of these activities for the first time, we learned through experimenting. We collected external feedback from the participants onsite and via email, and internal feedback from partners via post-event meeting. Even though we received compliments from both internal and external design communities, there was still room for improvement in areas like time management system for portfolio review. We took feedback seriously and are committed to making the event even better in the upcoming years.
We turned our internal storyboarding tool, SAP Scenes, into life-size event props. They have become the permanent installation and attraction for AppHaus visitors after the event.
Once participants visited four activity stations and collected signatures of station owners, they could screen print customized AppHaus t-shirts of their choice to take home.
Results
Over 100 participants attended the event, which was double the amount from the previous year. Participants were engaged in our activities, and many of them stayed for hours after closing time to chat with our team. Our partners also enjoyed the event and are interested in coming back. As a team, we felt that the event has helped us build better relationships with both internal and external design communities.
“I gained great feedback from the portfolio review. Hearing insights from a variety of designers at different stages of their careers showed me how they see different aspects of design. The event was fun—I got to meet awesome designers and learn about SAP.” - Participant
“It was great to see how many people took part and enjoyed it. I have to say everything was great—the booths, the moderation, and the t-shirt printing as well.” - Participant
“Thanks for the opportunity! It was a great experience to share our SAP journey with millennials!” - Partner, Silicon Valley Next Talent Program
“The event was a wonderful experience for me, so thank you so much for the opportunity to participate! It was amazing to see the enthusiasm of the guests and help them to the best of our abilities in that short time. I commend you all on the amazing work that you put into making this event possible, and I hope to attend more such events in the future.” - Partner, Innovation Center Silicon Valley