Budding entrepreneurs can now watch imagine it!, a documentary showing students building killer products from simple Post-It notes, for free at the movie’s website.
I had a chance to see the movie before its premiere at Stanford University today, and it’s a fun overview of some basic principles for innovation and leadership. Most of the advice is familiar (know what problem you’re trying to solve, don’t be afraid to fail, etc.), but watching the students at work is a great illustration of an important point: even if you’re facing substantial constraints, you can still produce something valuable.
In the case of the students featured in imagine it!, the constraints are considerable. As part of Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Week, each team had to come up a product based on an everyday object — the Post It note. And they only had six days to do it.
Each of the teams that made it into the film came up with a great idea, focusing on everything from In-N-Out Burgers to international microlending. And I think the best groups — like the one that built a piece of music from the contributions that many others made on individual Post-Its — tried to turn their constraint into an advantage, by using the Post-It note’s casual, almost throwaway quality to tap into a pool of talent and create something bigger. It’s like social software at its most low-tech.
In this clip (see audio file above) imagine it! executive producer Richard Tavener talks about the movie and some of the most interesting teams.
7 Comments
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Nick said:
Please fix link.
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Ian Hsu said:
The movie can be downloaded in its entirety at http://imagineitproject.com/events/signup/index.htm. Filling out the form takes you to the download page.
I just got back from the movie premiere, and this year’s innovation challenge is to create as much value as possible with rubber bands. Should be pretty interesting to see what the kids come up with, and I think that they’re doing a follow-on documentary, too.
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Sanjay Vijayakumar said:
Please refix links - http://imagineitproject.com/events/signup/index.htm.
is not working either :)
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Ian Hsu said:
good catch, need to remove the period from the end of the url: http://imagineitproject.com/events/signup/index.htm
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geld lenen said:
What a struggle to download it, but I got it and guess… Not working :( not on YouTube or somewhere yet?
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Anthony Ha said:
Hey everyone, sorry about the broken link. It’s fixed now.
Also, if you’re having trouble with the download, or don’t want to have to fill out a form, you can watch the entire film in Flash instead.
In fact, the movie in Flash is what comes up automatically when you go to the main site (which is what I linked to), although you may be confused because it’s broken down into separate chapters. But the movie player will run through all 15 chapters automatically, so you can just sit tight and watch.
