Unbound Innovation Festival: a celebration of pioneering ideas

The need to drive equality, co-operation, and recovery across the entire planet, as well as drive growth for companies and brands has never been greater. Responsible, conscious, inclusive innovation is the one true hope we have for the future.

Darren Burdock-Latter

Head of Innovation Geometry UK

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As I settled into my seat at Unbound London 2019, I prepared to be immersed in ideas, technology, start-ups, problems and disruptive solutions all being explored in the name of Global Innovation. I didn’t expect to be so clearly reminded of the need to continue to drive inclusivity, collaboration and shared learnings in commerce, regardless of size or focus.

It is perhaps exactly because of the exciting differences in philosophy and approach that we all encounter exploring brave new ideas that drive progress and growth, that now more than ever we need an innovation festival designed to weave those threads together.

Whether we are in design companies, big private-sector business, ambitious start-ups, creating technology for social good, or forcing investment into inclusive enterprises, the challenges we experience at different levels of scale are usually the same underlying problems, manifest in unique ways.

Start-ups have difficulty doing the hard things and truly finding their audiences in order to scale; scale-ups have difficulty protecting the spirit and vision of their early-funding days; and every mega-corporation yearns to ‘think like a start-up’.

We heard inspiration on how to drive positive, innovation-for-good from sectors as diverse and seemingly apposite as Fintech to Femtech, sometimes on the same panel. From philanthropic mega-corporations, to unapologetically for-profit start-ups solving very real social and economic problems, and everything in between.

The need to drive equality, co-operation, and recovery across the entire planet, as well as drive growth for companies and brands has never been greater. I still believe that responsible, conscious, inclusive innovation is the one true hope we have for the future.

I’m probably more than a little biased, but if there was one thing I’d have like to have heard more about, it would be the need for break-through ideas, collaboration and creativity inherent in Innovating. Maybe I’ll put myself forward to attend and give a talk on it next year!

Unbound looks to me to be a great way to get a multi-dimensional immersion into the world of Global Innovation. We need more Unbounds, all over the world.

KEY TAKE OUTS

Tech startups! The main floor was a reminder that whatever solution my Innovation Practice dreams up, I can relax safe in the knowledge that that tech exists out there somewhere! There has to be a better way for agencies, brands and technology providers to connect and problem solve together. We can’t wait until annual conferences to meet and find out about tech.
The problems with ‘scale’ don’t go away. If you’re small you want scale; if you’re massive you want to ‘think like a startup’. It was really interesting to hear so many moderators probe for insights from the panelists on how they had traversed these challenges. I’m not sure we learned how to do it, but we certainly heard a few cautionary tales of what not to do! A common theme seemed to be the need for HR in tech and start-ups.
The Innovation and tech industry remain unbalanced. It was refreshing to see so much discussion about the ethical implications in tech, but there was still some frustration among the panels and some of the audience around representation across gender and ethnicity. It was great to see the first panel of the festival field women and women of colour as 4 out of the 5 guests on stage, so things seem to be moving in the right direction. We’re all going to have to keep working on, because without that inclusivity, representation and equality of opportunity, we’re never going to progress society through our work in business.
Football Manager: 25 years on and still at the forefront of gaming innovation. It warmed the cockles of my heart to see Miles Jacobsen of Sports Interactive telling us how the national treasure, and still one of the most successful games franchises in the world, that is Football Manager continues to iterate, innovate and improve each year. It reminds us that even the most well-loved legacy brands and products need to continually adapt and shift their models. Sports Interactive is trying to add the women's game to Football Manager, but need a corporate sponsor to make it financially viable. Any brands out there that want to get involved, reach out to Miles on Twitter @milesSI

Guest Author

Darren Burdock-Latter

Head of Innovation Geometry UK

About

Darren guides businesses and brands to discover and embrace the unknown unknowns, to revolutionise their categories, channels and consumer offerings to create new predictable growth. His personal mission is to make brands and products people care about, not to make people care about brands and products.