Blog

I have the honour of announcing the winners of the 4th annual RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge.

After months of hard work, from idea creation and brain storming, research, proposal writing, prototype creation leading to a no holds bared presentation to top RBC Executives in the RBC boardroom one team has made the most compelling case for their innovation to "transform the workplace to meet the needs of the evolving workforce…."

Congratulations to the 4th Fibonacci, from the Schulich School of Business!
Ms. Riddhi Sen
Ms. Shirley Soon
Mr. Jan-LukasWolf

I’ll publish more details on the proposals and presentations for the other finalist teams soon, but everyone did an excellent job and really did impress the judges with the skills and capabilities of the workforce of the future.

After a quick break for coffee and blackberry checking the panel returned and we picked up with Team Jelly Beans, also form Ivey. Mapping the Human Network was a favourite of mine from the start; I think data topographies and visual representations are a very powerful new tool. They looked to map the network first, identify the connections and the strength of those connections THEN use them as a conduit to get to business outputs faster and more effectively. They had a great set of use scenarios and get creativity points for referencing lawn bowling, and a great discussion on the "Facebook black hole" in productivity.

Closing up the presentations, The Technologists , our 4th Ivey team, brought a specific case to us. Instead of tackling the whole enterprise, they chose to anchor their innovation in the private banking practice. Their presentation showed us that in this sort of wealth practice, pound for pound, the connections and innovations for sharing and retaining knowledge are worth real dollars- to the bankers, to the clients and to the balance sheet. I have to cite this team for bravely taking on both a technology and a business model innovation in an area where the cultural change implications are very serious. It certainly ignited the passions of the judging panel!

With the presentation concluded we’ve moved to deliberations with our judging panel. The judges agree all the teams this year did an exceptional job- they’re all great innovators. Check out the blog later this evening to find out which team takes home the $20000.00 grand prize!

We are into the morning of the4th annual RBC Net Great Innovator Challenge, with out 3rd team already at the podium.

After opening remarks by Carol Poulsen, SVP Group Architecture, Innovation & Solution Delivery, we kicked of presentations with Team Dragonfly from Ivey. Dragonfly brought a strong start to our day, impressing our panel with their idea, presentation and professionalism. RBCBlu, even included a prototype to illustrate the functionality. They really hit home with insights into the potential losses due to failing to retain the tacit knowledge held by skilled workers, and the importance of connecting to the millennial workforce.

Second up was 4th Fibonacci from Schulich. 4th Fibonacci is unique not only as the only non-Ivey team this year but also due to the Jan-Lukas Wolf making his second appearance at the Challenge. Jan-Lukas was part of a finalist team in 2008. RBC Connect was showcased in a visually stunning and very professional presentation, and told us the human side of connecting the community of the workforce. RBC Connect proposes to turn those human interactions into compelling and productive business connections.

Midnight Express also from Ivey is up now (as of 9:45). This Ivey team is approching innovation with a different aspect of enterprise 3.0- a business simulation platform. This adapts the simulation methodology already well understood in areas like fight raining. Eagle 1.0 would allow teams within the business (and across functions) to use a combination of real life and online scenarios to simulate different events in business so we can learn by practice and be skilled and well prepared if the crisis happens. The simulation experience also builds the team linkages and collaborative culture.

We’re just about to enter the next Q&A period, more later! And you can get up to the minute reports from twitter.com/rbcinnovator

All of the finalists are bringing in great ideas, and this year all of the judges from the early rounds agree that the proposal writing was some of the best we’ve ever seen. BUT… that only gets you to the finals. In this round the teams have to bring their idea to life, convince the judging panel that it is truly innovative and do this better than 4 other teams! Here are some last minute tips:

Practice!

Mom said it, your coach said it, and it’s true. I don’t just mean run through your slides a couple of times- this is serious competition. Practice your content, timing, hand offs and if time allows practice some back up strategies too. (Like who can cover someone else's section, what happens if something doesn’t work, what if we run long etc). I’m a big fan of really knowing the material first and foremost, not just the presentation contents. That expertise allows you to be much more confident in the presentation material.

Know your audience:

Hard to do since we’re not revealing the judges until the morning of the finals, but a skilled team or presenter can make an educated guess about who might be in the room. Think about what that audience’s expertise and interests could be. Make sure you cover off the data, insight and “what’s in if for me” that they need and want to hear. In this case the panel are definitely experts in banking so I’d focus less on things like current state and more about the unique value in your innovation, how it actually works and how it benefits the target (workforce, the bank, the bottom line etc.).

Anticipate questions:

You might not be able to guess at what all the questions will be, but you can prepare for some. Have a coach or other students throw some tough questions at you and have some material ready to go to answer those. I’m a big fan of having a few slides in the appendix of my presentation to pull out in Q&A. It’s a very powerful thing to be able to say “great question, we thought of that and here’s the detail on the solution…” as you pull up the back up slide.

Test Audience:

Just as I recommended with the written proposal run the presentation through with trial audience who isn’t familiar with it. Afterwards get the trial audience to tell you what they thought the presentation was about and what your idea was. Maybe ask them about the key features or mosr compelling value points. If the audience version doesn’t match up with what you wanted to get across you need to make your presentation clearer.

Be a Pro:

Be ready, have everything proofed, packaged and tight, be confident, treat the panel like they are your guests, speak clearly and (respectfully) own the room. It’s your time; use it to win the big prize!

After a very exciting session with a panel of execs from across the bank we’ve landed on our 4 finalists for this year’s Next Great Innovator Challenge. (More on the top 4 later.) Now it’s your turn; you can tell us who the 5th finalist team should be.

Way back in the fall when the teams were crafting their proposals we asked them to write an extra summary section: the peer voting synopsis. We asked them to be brief, but this synopsis was to allow them to tell you about their idea or innovation in their own words if they were selected to be in the running for that 5th spot. The PV is important in a number of ways; it lets everyone participate with us (the students, teams, fans and followers of the competition), it sends us a clear message about what is important to people outside of RBC and finally it is a real mark of distinction for the team who takes the spot. For that team they know that not only was there proposal a top 15 contender it was the most resonant with the audience. Regardless of how they place in the finals that is something to be proud of.

Anyone can vote once per day here.

You can discuss the merits of the ideas in our forum. (Note to post a comment you must complete a simple registration, and only comments in context please!)

Now you tell us, who will be the 5th finalist?