Experiential Innovation Activities

Prototyping is proven to have the potential to transform the speed, quality & impact of instructional design: can AI finally make prototyping a standard part of our process? For years, studies have shown that rapid prototyping in instructional design: 📊 Significantly shortens development cycles (Gerber & Carroll, 2012) 📊 Improves instructional quality (Daugherty et al., 2007) 📊 Enhances the quality of stakeholder collaboration (Nixon & Lee, 2001) Despite 20+ years of evidence & tools like Balsamiq and Figma, instructional design has remained stuck in waterfall workflows with little if any testing & iteration. The question I've been exploring this week is, will AI prototyping tools change this? In this week's blog post I share what I learned prototyping a recent training design using AI. TLDR: → AI tools like Claude, Vercel & Loveable are finally making rapid prototyping in instructional design practical, fast, and accessible—transforming abstract learning concepts into testable, shareable experiences in minutes → While AI isn’t a silver bullet (it struggles with complex visuals and multi-page journeys), it does a good job of generating realistic, evidence-based scenarios, assessments, and case studies—*provided* the designer brings strong instructional expertise and prompt precision → The future of L&D lies in combining deep pedagogical expertise with AI fluency. Check out my full guide to AI prototyping for L&D, complete with prompts you can try for yourself, using the link in comments. Happy innovating! Phil 👋

𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎+ 𝐡𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐰𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝… 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞. 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫!! Not flashy. Not code. Just 3 shared docs that made our team 𝟏𝟎𝐱 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 + 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝. Here’s exactly what they are (and how to make them work for you): 👇 📄 𝟏. “𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚 𝐃𝐮𝐦𝐩 + 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐱” 𝐃𝐨𝐜 Before building anything, we brain-dump 7–10 ideas + rate them on: -Relevance to theme -Personal connection to the problem -Uniqueness -Feasibility in 24–36 hours ✅ Helps avoid “cool idea but impossible to finish” traps. ✅ Keeps the whole team aligned from Hour 0. 📄 𝟐. “𝐓𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 (𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭 😅)” No fancy Trello — just a doc with: - Backend tasks - Frontend tasks - Logic/ML tasks - Demo + pitch prep Each person picks their area early, so we don’t overlap or wait on each other. We color-code: Doing, Done, Blocked. Simple. Clean. Stress-free (well, almost 😅). 📄 𝟑. “𝐏𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩” 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 (𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨!) While building, one teammate starts documenting: -The “Why” behind the project -1 line summary anyone can understand -Bullet points for the final pitch By the time we demo, we’re not rushing to write slides. We already know what story we’re telling. These 3 docs saved us from: 🚫 Confusion 🚫 Last-minute scrambling 🚫 Messy project direction And took us to: ✅ Better teamwork ✅ Clearer builds ✅ 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐬 🏆 💡 Next time you join a hackathon — create these 3 docs before the first line of code. You’ll be shocked how much smoother everything runs. If this helped, tag your team or drop your own hackathon rituals below 👇 Let’s all stop reinventing the chaos 😄 #HackathonTips #TeamProductivity #HackathonDocs #BuildBetter #PitchReady #CodeWithClarity #InnovationInTeams #TeamCodeBlue

Here is how I helped pull together a Horizon Europe full proposal in two weeks. (The answer is not AI) It was during COVID and I took a call from an old friend. He wanted me to help with a proposal - due in two weeks. Normally, I would say no, but I did not. It is estimated that it takes more than 400 hours of effort for the Coordinator to develop a full proposal for EU funding. Who has an extra 400 hours to spare? We only had 240 hours in total. Here is what I learned. Good proposals are not about reaching a consensus. They are also not about magically melding text from 10 different authors. How did we do it? Design thinking. Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative approach to innovation that emphasizes: ⤷Empathy, ⤷Problem reframing, ⤷Ideation, ⤷Rapid prototyping, ⤷and Testing. It works as way to accelerate the process. It leverages the collective creativity of a group and, . Prototyping and testing are also great ways to rapidly communicate concepts. By first reframing the problem and then rapidly iterating concepts we were able to get the proposal done on time. The result? The proposal was successful. The experience changed my perspective on what is possible. Want to avoid a 400 hour investment in effort to develop a Horizon Europe Consortium project? Adopt a design thinking approach. 

Client: Can you build a prototype in 3 weeks? Me: Yes... but only if we build a prototype in 1 day. We're jumping in to help one of our long-term clients. The challenge? Build a fully functional prototype to test with a major client. They did not have the short term capacity. They needed us to step in. So why build a prototype in 1 day if we have 3 weeks? Because we need focus. We can't afford to go back to the drawing board after 3 weeks. We need to make sure we are working in the right direction - from Day 1. That’s why we built a one-day prototype based on the initial design brief. It is made of cardboard, 3D prints, and duct tape It looks terrible But... it’s amazing Day 2: Everyone is playing with the prototype. 👍 "I like this!" 👎 "I don’t like this!" 🤔 "Do we even need this?" ✅ "We need to check this feature with our client." ↘️ "It feels like too much effort - we need to minimise user effort." These are critical insights that can make or break a prototype. Better to find them on Day 1 than during the pilot. This helps us to refine the design brief, requirements, and device flow. Now we all know exactly what to build. And we have a working prototype from Day 1 The next 3 weeks are all about fast iterations, testing, and optimization Hardware and software development can run in parallel to save time. We leverage rapid prototyping, laser cutting, 3D printing, off-the-shelf components. And we use parts with a max 3-day lead time to stay agile. Speed without direction is wasted time. Speed with focus will get you there. 🚀 The result? Client: Better than expected!

Stop waiting weeks for prototypes! build, test, learn, repeat. FASTER! Story time... I needed to make some thin gauge sheet metal parts. for prototyping, the dimensions and tolerances are not figured out yet. I just need to see if this idea works. I sent out the files to a few different vendors and got 1-3 week lead time... I ain't got time for that. if I wait around for two weeks and find out it's a bad idea, them I've just lost two weeks. with SendCutSend.com I can have flat laser-cut parts in a few days! (Protolabs , Protocase and Xometry are also viable quick-turn sheet metal vendors that provide simple bending ops) while my parts are being cut, I can design and #3Dprint some forming dies using Formlabs GrayPro resin, and pressed in alignment dowels from McMaster-Carr that I had on hand flat parts show up and I have functional prototypes in 3-4 days. (PRO TIP) because I ordered flat parts, I can print a few different variations on the forming dies and play around with the same flat parts to find the geometry that works the best. BUT WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT SPEED? is it because we're impatient? no it's because we can't buy the schedule back once the time is gone... and if you are designing something new to the world, the faster you can disprove your assumptions, the faster you can find ideas that work. the faster you find ideas 💡 that work, the faster you can get to testing the faster you get to testing the faster you get user feedback and user feedback is the holy grail in product development. people do weird and unexpected things with our products and so it's best to learn what they are going to do with it get out there and build something! #3dprinting #additivemanufacturing #rapidprototyping #design #engineering

Every year, the entire Clueso team locks ourselves up in a villa for our annual hackathon. The goal of these hackathons is quite simple: to rediscover how 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁, and how 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 it can be to ship. During a normal workweek, shipping a feature can involve a long, sometimes formal process — design handoffs, reviews, QA, releases, and check-ins or standups. During the hackathon, all of that goes out the window. You’re forced to execute a feature end-to-end on your own. The design process is still crucial, but you may not have a designer available. It’s up to you to take your own decisions on how to structure the UI and UX of the feature. It’s up to you to make the calls — how the UI looks, how the UX flows, and how it all comes together. A frontend engineer will often find themselves writing backend code. A backend engineer will find themselves writing frontend code. Everyone is forced to become a generalist. What I really love about these hackathons is that they let me step back from the usual day-to-day and do something I rarely get to anymore: 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲. Every hackathon gives us one or two projects that eventually make it into the product, and a few more that serve as deep research, unlocking whole new directions for us to explore. At the end of three days, you 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 to have something to show. You’re not allowed to get blocked. If you do, you adapt, pivot, and move to something else. Hackathons are a great way for any company to spot bottlenecks and unnecessary inefficiencies in their shipping process. Here are a few things I’ve learned from doing this every year: 1. 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀. In the normal day-to-day, it’s easy to fall into the trap of over-optimizing. When everyone is forced to present at the end of the hackathon, you need to cut some corners in order to ship. 2. 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗹-𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿. Actively familiarize yourself with the work other people in the company do and how they think, so that you can adopt these learnings and take decisions yourself when the need arises. 3. 𝗨𝗹𝘁𝗿𝗮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. If you’re not clear about your approach, you’ll hit roadblocks fast. You have to anticipate challenges, think a few steps ahead, and be intentional in how you execute Building this way, even occasionally, can save days or even weeks on projects. 𝗣.𝗦. Before someone asks, I promise there was way more space in the villa. We just couldn't help but stick together in the same room anyway.

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗻 𝟴 𝗵𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗻𝘀. At Hack the North, Satyam Singh and I spent more than half the time brainstorming, exploring, and prototyping. We finished our project in under 8 hours - and still won. One of the most frequent questions I get in DMs is how to win at hackathons. After 8 wins (including UofTHacks and Anthropic), here's what I learned: 𝗮 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲. Most teams lose before they write a single line of code. They pick the first idea that sounds cool, sprint for 24 hours, and wonder why the judges weren't impressed. The winning teams spend time figuring out what to build - and why it matters. Here's the framework I use! 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 Before ideating, ask: what would make a judge stop and lean in during a 3-minute demo? 𝟮. 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 Spend 30–60 mins throwing out anything. No filtering yet. Then cut with one question: can we demo this compellingly in 3 minutes? 𝟯. 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 The clearest problem → solution → impact narrative will win over a muddled narrative. 𝟰. 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 Map out exactly what you're building and what you're cutting. A polished MVP beats a half-finished ambitious project every time. It's definitely uncomfortable watching other teams code while you're still at the whiteboard. But do it anyway - the hours you spend on the right idea save you from 24 hours building the wrong one. With AI, coding is no longer the bottleneck - ideas are. 👇 Got questions about the brainstorming process? Drop them below :)

Prototype. Everything. With tools like VEO3, IMAGEN, and rapid dev platforms like Replit, there’s almost no reason to jump straight to production-grade work anymore. Whether it’s a landing page, ad concept, product feature, or internal process, the fastest, smartest path forward is to build a prototype. Why? Because when you give an idea form, people can see it, interact with it, and give meaningful feedback before big resources are committed. If you’re on a marketing team and want to create an ad, don’t start by writing a brief. Start by asking AI to generate 20–30 visual concepts. Then bring those to the team to narrow it down to the best two or three. From there, design can refine and polish. It’s faster, more collaborative, and higher quality. The tools are here now. This should become standard. This doesn’t just apply to product or marketing, either. Even business processes can start with a prototype — a visual or structured representation that everyone can react to. It's a better way to align early and often. In the past, we often skipped prototyping not because it wasn’t valuable, but because it was too slow. Now, AI has changed the economics. And with that change, the way we work should change too. This isn’t about saving time or money — it’s about increasing the quality of what we ship. So… what are you going to prototype this week?

Anthropic just launched #ClaudeDesign today and it slots directly into the workflow I wrote about in my Sorted Pixels guide on Claude Code for designers. Quick context: back in January I published a step-by-step breakdown of how designers can use Claude Code + (GSD) to go from Figma designs to deployed, production-ready prototypes. The full loop: design in Figma, extract tokens via #MCP, build with GSD's spec-driven multi-agent system, deploy to Vercel. No handoff. No sprint queue. https://lnkd.in/d_AZ-JiS Claude Design now fills a gap I didn't even fully articulate at the time. Before, the workflow assumed you started in Figma. That's fine when you know what you're building. But what about the 20 directions you never explore because there's no time? The rapid concepting phase where you need to see ideas before committing to a design system? That's exactly where Claude Design sits. It lets you explore widely (prototypes, wireframes, mockups, decks) with your brand system baked in from day one. Then when a direction is ready, it packages everything into a handoff bundle for Claude Code. The boundary between designing and building keeps collapsing. Faster than most of us expected. Full guide on Claude Code for #designers: https://lnkd.in/d_AZ-JiS Claude Design announcement: https://lnkd.in/d36KDe_c

Uber published something that matches exactly what we're seeing at Nearmap: AI prototyping is collapsing the gap between "idea" and "shared understanding." Their best line: "Two hours of prototyping unblocked four weeks of discussion." That's not hyperbole. When you put a clickable thing in front of a stakeholder instead of a written description, the conversation changes immediately. You stop debating what something might feel like and start debating whether it's the right thing to build. What resonated most for me: The PRD isn't dead — it's just no longer the starting point. At Uber, they found that prototyping first produces a sharper PRD, not no PRD. Problem framing → early prototype → informed spec → final design. That sequence matters. Exploration got cheap. One of their PMs explored six concepts in 20 minutes. That's the real unlock — not speed to ship, but speed to learn. When trying a direction costs almost nothing, you stop converging prematurely on the first idea that feels safe. They opened it up beyond product and design. Engineers, ops teams, even sales built their own tools. This is where it gets interesting. When the cost of making an idea tangible drops to near zero, the best ideas win regardless of who had them. We're living this at Nearmap. Our product team uses Claude Code and MCP to build working property intelligence demos — not mockups, actual data flowing through actual systems — in hours. It changes how we pitch, how we align internally, and how fast we can test whether a product direction holds up against real customer needs. The companies that figure out how to prototype with real data, not just pixels, are going to move at a fundamentally different speed. https://lnkd.in/gWAZGB3m