Welcome back to Event Experience Design News!
In this edition, a quick reminder that Tech Open Air is running this week.
As well, we’ll take a look at Design Sprints and share a crazy public experiment that involves a Junk Mail Machine.

TECH OPEN AIR 2017

Tech Open Air (TOA) started as a crowd-funded festival and has grown significantly since 2012. This year, TOA runs from July 11 to July 14. Guests can expect more than 200 speakers and 20,000 participants. TOA is a festival meeting and conference format that unites diverse branches of technology, music, art and science. Besides its main location, the Funkhaus, TOA will spread out across Berlin with its Satellite events (many of which are free to attend).

Besides its summer festival once a year, TOA is also making an effort to extend its activities all year around with TOA Life, where the organizers share curated community stories and journeys as well as behind-the-scenes learnings and news. 

TOA is part of Tech Open, which includes the co-working Space Ahoy Berlin, the online platform TechBerlin and the startup service provider Openers.
 

METHODS IN FOCUS: DESIGN SPRINT

Even if you're not are hanging out at TOA, you may have heard about the Design Sprint as a method to solve problems and test ideas in five days. The process combines methods from business strategy, innovation, behavioral science and design thinking, and was developed by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures. If you want to learn more about the method, you may find their online resources or the how-to book on Sprints helpful. And, if you are keen to learn how to facilitate Design Sprints from its creator: Jake Knapp is running a workshop in London this September!

PUBLIC HUMAN INTERACTION: JUNK MAIL MACHINE

The Extrapolation Factory is a design-based research studio for participatory futures studies that develops experimental methods for collaboratively prototyping, experiencing and impacting future scenarios—especially with the creation of hypothetical future props and their deployment in familiar contexts. One example is the “Junk Mail Machine”, an experimental futuring prototype which prompts visitors to envision new and augmented needs, as well as the businesses or services that might arise in response. The Junk Mail Machine was publicly installed for two days, rapidly translating visitors’ future-visions into “future junk mail” to be sent to an address of the visitor’s choice.

If you have any questions or suggestions for topics that should be covered please drop me an e-mail!

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Thank you!
Yours, Claudia