Objective:
- To encourage students to work effectively in teams
- For the learner to develop creative thinking and problem solving skills.
- For the learner to develop their communication skills, though negotiation and pitching.
- To expose the learner to working in a time pressured environment.
Overview:
This idea generation activity is fun and engaging and enables students from all courses/ faculties to come up with new enterprising ideas. Students are asked to write an object on a post- it note, then working in pairs they combine the two objects to come up with a business name, business concept and business pitch. Students have 5 minutes to do this and will then pitch their business to the rest of the group.
Activity:
This activity could take from 15 minutes to two hours depending on the size of the group, how many people pitch, what reflection happens at the end and if you use the extensions. Hand out a post-it note to everyone in the class. Ask them to write one object on the post-it note. Stress that it can be any object in the world, and ask them not to write' table', 'chair' or 'window' otherwise you could have 30 of the same objects. Tell them they have 20 seconds to do this. Once everyone has written an object, tell them that shortly they will stand up and pair up with someone that they are not sitting next to. They will then show their partner their object, and with those two objects they will need to come up with a business name, business concept and business pitch. Then give them an example. For example, if you have a pencil and a shoe, your business concept is that you sell beautiful high stiletto shoes in which the heel also doubles-up as a pencil which is removable. This is for that creative woman who has so many ideas that she needs a pencil wherever she goes, or it is for the arty woman who loves to draw with her feet. Ensure that the example is fun and silly as this will set the tone. Tell them that they have all technology at their fingertips as this will enable creative thinking. Give them 5 minutes to do this. As students are busy working in their pairs walk around the room and ensure they are on the right track. Creative thinking is key to this working, it doesn't matter if their idea is far-fetched or unrealistic, the main idea is to get them thinking outside the box. After 3 minutes tell them that they should be practising their pitch. Get them to think about who is their target market and why and to include this in the pitch. Get students to pitch, stating their two words, their business name and their concept. You will have to assess how many pairs can pitch depending on the size of the group and the time you have. If you are in a lecture theatre then students will need to work with the person they are sitting next to. They can work in threes if there is an odd number. Extensions: If working with particularly creative students for example, stage and screen, you can ask them to perform an advert as part of their pitch. An effective extension especially for humanity subjects is to get the learners to come up social enterprise ideas. You run the above activity as a warm-up exercise for creative thinking. After the activity you then talk to the group about social enterprise, what it is, and give examples. Then ask the learners to work in groups of 4-6 people and ask each group to shout out different social issues, e,g homelessness, food waste, obesity etc. Write all of the issues on the white board. Then in their groups they choose a social issue and come up with a solution in the form of a social enterprise. Give them 20 minutes to do this. They then pitch their ideas. You can then introduce a budget, tell them that they have £50k to spend of their social enterprise, what would they change? After this introduce the learners to a Business Model Canvas, or a back of an envelope business plan and ask them to fill in.
Skill Development:
After this activity students will have a greater self-belief in being able to come up with new ideas. They will be able to reflect on how well their can perform in a time pressures situation. For the reflection I ask them to think about what enterprising skills, capabilities and attributes they have used during the activity. I then show them the 'enterprising skills, attributes and behaviours' slide.
Resources:
- Post-its or similar sticky pads For the extension:
- Back of an envelope business plan or Business model canvas sheet
- A white board