Idea Machine

Idea Machine - a community brewing social impact ideas.

Back in 2012, I wanted to create (as a side project) a community of people who would meet and collaborate on their ideas and design projects. The experience I was interested in creating was that of a design band, which just as music bands do, 'jams' in the weekends.

So I kicked off this project by collaborating with a social entrepreneur, Rajiv Marteau, to co-create a concept for the City Hype Competition of the Vienna Business Agency. Our concept, "Idea Machine Wien", was about a platform enabling people to follow through their ideas, showing them pathways to implement them and connecting them with resources and people. On September 2014, we received the Public’s Choice Award by Vienna Business Agency and we were approached by young NGO founders who believed in our vision and wanted to join.

Although “Idea Machine Wien” was based around a digital platform, I proposed to start instead by creating a (physical) community in Vienna. I envisioned a community that enables synergies and fruitful exchanges between its members. Behind this decision, was my concern that many startups fail because they put all their resources into developing tech frameworks before really understanding the end users. We wrote down our mission and also described the physical stance for the community, which we called "Idea Factory", aimed to serve as “a landmark in the city, a point of reference for collaborative and trans-disciplinary learning and making”. We then presented this concept and received an official endorsement from the City of Vienna. The work was compiled in two concise tomes: ”Idea Factory Book Chapter I: Ubiquitous Social Impact”,  and “Idea Factory Book Chapter II: Invitation for Collaboration”. I coordinated the process by distilling the team’s ideas, structuring and writing most parts of the final documents.

In the following year, our community was growing as fast as we could process the requests for collaboration. Our target audience included small NGOs, freelancers, social and art projects and social startups. Such projects carry ideas in their infancy or ideas which have not yet reached full potential and would welcome a supportive community as they are in need of expertise, resources and collaborators. 

While running the project, I have contributed in various ways within the network we  created: organizing and marketing workshops for creatives, writing proposal for a tech-art project in collaboration with artists (e.g. Bauen Mit Bäume), supporting with marketing strategies and design services for small companies and freelancers (Green Shirts, Galerie Nuu, kuliyani, Green Shirts), made UI mockups for a fundraising app and participating in various fundraising activities together with NGOs and other initiatives. For each of the above mentioned activities, we made an exchange agreement with each stakeholder; in some cases (e.g. artistic projects), we were just joining as partners, taking part in the risks and gains; in other cases, we were given access to resources, e.g. we got to use a gallery space for our meetings.

The project was basically evolving into a small bootstrapped incubator, with many small projects running, interacting and learning from each other. At some point, with an increasing number of projects coming in and looking at the resources available and the intentions of the team members, I felt that the project was driven towards a direction that was not sustainable in the long term. So, after a year and a half, I left the project. 

"Idea Machine Wien" was a experience in communication, entrepreneurship, leadership and collaboration. I learned that my openness to new ideas had to be balanced with strong leadership and intuition. I got into an entrepreneurial spirit that I channeled to my main occupation. I learned to work in a lean way. I met and negotiated with young ambitious project holders and had fruitful coworking sessions with people. I got to grow and shape my professional image and ethos.