Three years in…what I’ve learned about launching and leading an innovation initiative within higher education

For the past two years, I’ve recapped what I’ve learned at the end of each academic year as a way of documenting the decisions, changes, and challenges we’ve undergone in launching a campus-wide innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) initiative. As a researcher and design thinker, these are my field notes and narrative thoughts to distill key themes.

As a reminder, the aim of the I&E initiative at CU Boulder is to provide opportunities for students, faculty, staff, industry partners, and the community to engage in and be exposed to innovative and entrepreneurial experiences and mindsets.

Photo: Unsplash, Frank McKenna

By capturing and sharing lessons three years in a row, I hope to shed light on ecosystem building in action. Innovation ecosystems are hard to start, hard to study, hard to replicate, and even harder to gather impact data on in short intervals to demonstrate sustainable changes are occurring. Yet, ecosystem building is a nascent field, thus it requires stories and examples for others to understand how it works. The problems of today are complex systems level challenges that require interconnected solutions, and more people are becoming “ecosystem builders” whether they know it or not.

Longitudinal data sets are critical in systems thinking, so this is my attempt to share my lived experience of three years of work at the center of an initiative that could be akin to efforts in small cities (CU Boulder is a campus of 33,000+ students, and the infrastructure is enormous). Although ecosystem building is a buzzword, and in my mind its cousins are community building and placemaking, this is truly what the I&E initiative is.

If you want to know what happened before, read my lessons from year one and year two.

(NOTE: This is the last post in my series about leading the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative at CU Boulder because I recently accepted a new position to launch another innovation initiative, this time focused on child development for kids across the state of Colorado and beyond. If you’re interested in that work, it’s called Futurebound.)

High Level Summary

The greatest marks in year three were an explosion of cross-campus activities, a swelling of early adopters, the creation of a robust shared mentor database, and the implementation (finally) of a campus-wide event data and participant tracking system (this has huge potential for long term impact metrics).

Here’s what I’m contemplating at the three year mark:

1. Growth- so much growth! Part I- Activities. In the 2017/18 academic year, we had approximately 40 activities campus-wide that we categorized as being innovative or entrepreneurial. These were hosted by different departments or groups, and typically included co-curriculars like talks, workshops, lunches, and venture development support. In the 2018/19 academic year, we had nearly 50 activities in the fall, and almost 80 in the spring, totaling 130+, more than triple the prior year. While this sounds impressive, it was actually exciting and startling. With this much growth, we wondered what the user experience was. Were we adding, detracting, or complicating it? The answer was all three. We knew we were confusing our target audience and competing for attention even though the programming was strong. Lesson: find the signal through the noise. How do we better communicate (across ourselves and our target audience) and help participants navigate offerings across different physical spaces and academic timelines. This led to the question, how do we hone in on our core activities and strengths? (More on this at #3).
2. Growth- so much growth! Part II- Staff engagement. We formed a cross-campus strategy group in year 2 (an evolution of a previously existing group once called the co-conspirators) to meet and discuss I&E related topics on a monthly basis. This was a critical group because it built internal community and cohesion. By year 3, this group expanded to include 40 individuals. Some of these were new hires — people with the word entrepreneurship in their title or job responsibilities — and some were referrals — voices we felt needed to join the discussion, or they had so much desire and pent up innovation energy that they wanted to join our tribe. Either way, we convened monthly, and usually about 25+ people attended. I used these gatherings as a way to share a synthesis of current issues that were criss-crossing our work streams, and it provided time in person to inform each other and get a step ahead. Often, we broke into smaller workgroups to address critical areas more in-depth for a couple months (such as building a mentor network or a data tracking system). The collective energy of this group was vital to keeping everyone motivated. Forty people felt like the upper limit in terms of the size of this group, but it is likely to keep expanding. In the future, I think as more staff buy-in, a quarterly convening would make sense for the large group, but additionally hold a monthly meeting with a smaller circle of those most dedicated and focused on executing the work.
3. Core programs- What are the bread and butter, “need to haves” versus “nice to haves”- As I mentioned above, we had an explosion of co-curricular activities. Even though CU Boulder is a campus of 33,000+ students, and can handle hundreds of events, it’s still hard to figure out what’s happening and what’s right for you on any given day. It’s a dense and busy place. Since so many more staff and faculty were interested in planning and programming I&E activities, we didn’t want to dampen their enthusiasm, but it was difficult to manage the landscape and watch out for conflicts or redundancies. At the end of the year, we discussed what it would look like if we created a focused co-curricular journey and helped participants know which activities were part of it. Of course, other activities would be added (as often happens during the school year) but these would compliment, instead of distract, from the core. Whatever solution is decided, it’s a worthwhile and necessary discussion at this point.
4. Finally! Data tracking of student participation- This was one of the biggest wins, a way to capture which students attended which events so that we could compile a longitudinal picture of student engagement over time. By having this data in salesforce, we could start to see how involved students were from which parts of campus, which students were attending the most events (a leaderboard), and how many unique students we were really touching. Most of all, this data supports our theory of action which is that if we provide a wide range of high quality I&E experiences and supports for students, then they will more likely become entrepreneurial-minded professionals and be more successful and savvy problem solvers as a result, especially if they ever launch a venture or become an entrepreneurial leader in the community. With this data, we can point back to everything a student took advantage of in the I&E ecosystem and show the power of those combined experiences. Note, I’m only talking about student experience because that was the only type of data we were able to track at this point in time. (Faculty data and other participant data is desired but no system is in place yet). We have early validation of this theory from students who are recent grads and were actively engaged in our entrepreneurial ecosystem (see Fletcher Richman and Halp and Steven Dourmashkin and Specdrums). As a side note, it was really tricky to get this systems live. It took a minimum of six months of effort with our IT department to work through how to do this. The next step will be getting more staff leaders to adopt and use it so the data set is more complete and robust.
5. A shared entrepreneurial mentor database is a must- Another thing we launched this year was an entrepreneurial mentor network. We created an online form that sourced data into a shared database. Instead of all the individual rolodexes and contact lists that different staff maintained, we finally had a common list that grew dynamically. We could filter by interest, skill, and area of industry expertise. It was a great first step to knowing who really wanted to mentor and how we could best track and engage them. It also made us realize we need a point person who is in charge of managing these contacts and relationships because mentor management is a whole role unto itself. We solved one piece of friction, and five more problems appeared :)
6. Taking big events off campus pays dividends in community awareness- Last year was the first year we held our New Venture Challenge Championships off campus, and the event was a surprise for many in Boulder. Community members didn’t know about the NVC program, even though it was the 10th year anniversary. This year, we held it off campus again at the same location, the Boulder Theater, and we noticed many community members brought a plus 1 or plus 2, introducing their friends and significant others to the event and increasing awareness across the community. This helped us showcase and spread awareness of the quality of entrepreneurial work happening on campus. We actually had more community members in attendance than students. Changing locations from on campus to off helped build a buzz and increase the University’s reputation. As a side note, we also launched a new program called Destination Startup, it was held off campus at a large hotel conference facility, and this also gained more community awareness.
7. Clarity emerged on what we do and what the role and function of the initiative is- For the two years, it was a bit fuzzy what the I&E Initiative was and what it was supposed to do for campus. While people desire clarity of vision and purpose from day one, the reality is that this emerged and formed over time. At year 3, I can say that the role of I&E is to: 1) be in service of others- help departments and stakeholders on campus understand how to be more innovative and entrepreneurial, 2) convene and inspire- bring groups together and host major convenings and events for large groups, 3) be the storyteller- help promote the university as a place of innovation by leveraging the collective stories of different stakeholders, and 4) help attract funding by providing a cohesive picture of how the campus functions as an innovation university, tying the pieces together.
8. Build presence to strengthen relationships- At the end of the day, this work is about people, and building relationships. Being visible is key. As much as strategic planning is necessary, being present and being in attendance matters a lot too. The more I ran into people at events, the more trust and bonds were forged. While volunteering to be on panels or accepting invitations to show up at offsite gatherings and meetups before and after work is a lot of time, it enabled me to become embedded, gain empathy, and build first hand knowledge. Sponsoring and running the University track at Boulder Startup Week for the past two years also helped build ties. To build an ecosystem, you have to be actively part of it, day and night.
9. Shifting culture is slow and steady- Oh boy, is it ever. In academia, we’re really good at talking and thinking, but changing beliefs and behaviors is slow and arduous. I know we are moving the dial, but it is one step at a time. Sometimes it felt artificial, and other times I saw sincere actions to implement what people said they were going to do. I learned to practice patience, maintain a growth mindset, let people adopt and enter the work at the pace that was right for them, give lots of public reinforcement of what’s working well (who doesn’t want to be mentioned in a news story?), take things off people’s plates as much as possible (remove the psychological barriers — a blocked mindset is a barrier), and point out examples of things we want to continue strengthening- “that, go do more of that! It’s good, keep going!”
10. It’s time to focus on underrepresented groups- who’s still not at the table?- The first two years are the low hanging fruit period where you’re trying to get things off the ground, figure out where to start, and capture small wins. But by year three, we could see gaps and pain points that obviously needed to be addressed. One of these was gender balance. We had a majority of male participants, and we needed to devise a strategy around how to reach and engage more female participants and minorities. This was also true of representation by academic discipline, we were heavy on engineering and business faculty and students, and lighter in other academic domains. Some of the reason was culture, some was marketing, and some was perceived lack of openness, but regardless, it’s time to push on the status quo and not accept these ratios moving forward.
11. Get better at aligning campus-wide messaging- I could probably write a whole separate blog on the power of marketing and messaging in this work. The importance of marketing in ecosystem work cannot be underestimated. An ecosystem is conceptual and intangible. People can’t see it or touch it, but they can feel it and perceive its value. The only thing you can grasp onto are the stories of what it’s doing (or not doing), how it’s affecting lives, and how people are working together in new, better, or different ways that benefit the whole. If there’s one aspect that really needs more juice, it’s this one. We knew of the great work the cross-campus strategy group was doing in their different parts on campus, but we struggled to put it together into a collective picture. This will always be a work in progress. If anyone has ideas, I’m all ears.
12. Someone MUST be the glue — no one stakeholder can fill that role. My role was called many things — the connective tissue, the air traffic controller, the connector of the dots, the glue, the spiderweb builder, the puzzle master, and more. What these terms have in common is that I possessed a special skill set and knowledge base that was unique because I was unbeholden to any one group or area on campus. (My position was in the Research & Innovation Office, so I reported there, but that meant I was not tied to any academic unit). Being “un-siloed” in my function enabled me to cross-cut and interweave across all parties, on and off campus. I had no motive, agenda, or desire other than to elevate what was needed by all. My role is the epitome of servant leadership. I studied and learned what others needed, and then rallied supports, policies, and action plans to move resources in that direction. Many times, this is a thankless role because you’re behind the scenes enabling others to shine and do what they’re meant to do, but I found this to be a critically important role and one that presented an array of mental challenges to unpack. I think of this role as the way Mother Nature acts in ecology. How can you build any thriving ecosystem without Mother Nature? I’m convinced that an agnostic third-party role is vital, and without a “glue” person, the parts will never stick and connect together. Funding and convincing leadership to hire this role is not always easy, but this is the ingredient that will lead to a tipping point.
13. Maintain an attitude of active curiosity- This is a reminder for myself as much as for others involved in the work. It’s easy to start getting complacent and familiar as time goes on, but remembering to stay actively curious was an important factor for me. Be on the lookout for new possibilities, collaborations, and projects on and off campus since the most obvious ones were probably spotted in years 1 and 2. There is still much more to learn and include in the I&E work.
14. Empower users, they’re core to the work- I created a group in year 2 that later became called the Innovation Action Team, but they really blossomed this year. I always knew student voice mattered (I’m a human-centered designer after all), and if we were aiming to create an “innovation university”, then I needed them involved, front and center. It’s not enough to design for students (they are the largest target population on campus), I had to design with students. I learned a lot of lessons from this group, but essentially, make intentional space for students, invest in them, and help them drive this work alongside the other ecosystem builders. Their perspective is vital and their energy is contagious.

If you have other thoughts on ecosystem building, or ever want to reach out and talk, I’d love to hear from you. And, if you’re interested in the new work I’m leading, it’s called Futurebound.