September 2007 - Slingshot PDG Presents Roadmap for Innovation - Southeast Association of Facilitators (SEAF)

Slingshot Product Development Group's Material Scientist, Nigel Flynn, recently presented in a "Creativity & Innovation" session for the Southeast Association of Facilitators Annual Conference (IAF). The following is an exerpt from and overview of the Creativity & Innovation session:

Facilitating innovation within an organization is about much more than a series of helpful techniques and methods to assist brainstorming! It is a disciplined, cost effective, holistic approach to value creation that transcends individual markets or products. Slingshot PDG presents in this session a road map for innovation within any company, and with it the opportunity to bring lasting value to any organization.

Much of the world of New Product Development focuses upon hard product Innovation. Products that you can see, touch, and hold in your hands; but innovation is as important within the Service sector as it in hard product development.

Slingshot wants to challenge and mobilize the session participants to think more broadly and use its techniques to innovate not only within consumer or medical products, but also within the service sector. In this session you will be challenged to solve the one of the most intractable problems faced by the City of Atlanta as well as develop a product that each one of us holds in our hands every day.

The Slingshot holistic approach will be illustrated through the essential ingredients of: Identifying the problem to solve - Sometimes referred to as: "the fuzzy front end."; Research & Initial Concepts; The valuable place of Brainstorming; Techniques for Merging & Selection; Precipitation of decision; & Establishment of Design Direction.

The session will also elaborate upon the integration of these processes with techniques of hard product and service sector product development development-Engineering, Design Detail through, Prototyping / Dry, run testing, Analysis & detailing.

Slingshot learning does not like it's audience to sit in one place for very long. Through a competition involving your participation with cash prizes, we hope to illustrate the techniques outlined above. Prepare to become a wealthy entrepreneur and a session celebrity, as you commercialize new products through the Slingshot learning's holistic approach, as well as surprise the world and yourself with your team's hard product development success: ahead of dead-line and below budget.

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About Slingshot Product Development Group

Slingshot is one of the Southeast's leading product design and development organizations. The company's development teams utilize unique and proven strategies to rapidly launch products for clients in a variety of industries, including consumer products, medical, electronics, military/security, automotive, aerospace, toys, and other categories. Slingshot has developed products with dozens of corporate clients including The Coca-Cola Company, Plantronics, Conair, Kimberly Clark, CharBroil and Lockheed, as well as with innovation-based start-ups.

The company offers a full range of product development services including ideation, conceptual design, prototyping, engineering, design for manufacture, packaging and program management. Additionally, sourcing and manufacturer coordination services are offered through Slingshot's Asia office near Shanghai, China.

Slingshot Product Development Group was founded in 2001 by Sam Zaidspiner, President; George Hatzilias, Vice President of Engineering; and Noah McNeely, Vice President of Design.

About the Southeast Association of Facilitators

The Southeast Association of Facilitators is a branch of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). Facilitation is a profession rapidly taking its unique place alongside those of consulting and training. The International Association of Facilitators was formed by a group of professionals desiring an avenue for interchange, professional development, trend analysis and peer networking. A formal association was proposed and adopted at a networking conference in Alexandria, Virginia, in January, 1994. More than 70 people signed on as charter members. Since then the IAF has grown to... over 1500 members in more than 63 countries. Our members work in government, nonprofit, educational, community, and corporate environments and hold positions as consultants, teachers, in-house facilitators, negotiators, organizational specialists, coaches, and more

As a participatory organization, the work of the IAF is reliant on volunteer leadership and the contributions of its members. The IAF encourages and supports the formation of local groups of facilitators to network and provide professional development opportunities for their members. Regional groups from around the world are invited to become affiliated with the IAF to help promote the profession of facilitation as a critical set of skills in the global society of the 21st century.