New Rules for Creative Work:
2023-2024 Experiment and Conferences
In 2023, New Rules for Work began an open research project exploring how a meeting’s location and technology affect team creativity. The project was initiated by Dave Mastronardi from Gamestorming Group and Elise Keith from Lucid Teams. The experiment was overseen by a diverse board of advisors: Dr. Joseph Allen, Dr. Myriam Hadnes, Keith McCandless, Samantha Dubrow, Ph.D., Dr. Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon, and Dan Levy.
Every part of the program received generous support from our advisors, researchers, facilitators, technologists, and sponsors interested in developing new rules for creative, hybrid-ready teamwork.
Kickoff! 2023 Online Symposium to
The project began with the January 2023 Online Symposium, a three-day kickoff event featuring more than 56 facilitators, business leaders, technologists, global change agents, and published scientists. Sessions explored creativity, meeting science, hybrid work, workplace design, facilitation, technology, play, neuroscience, climate action, and team collaboration.
Presenters included New Rules for Work hosts, Charlie Hoehn, Matt Chadder, Dr. Melanie Brucks, Elizabeth Zavodsky, Keith McCandless, Nancy White, Dr. Michael Platt, Chris Bent, Genein Letford, Dr. Myriam Hadnes, Judy Rees, Steve McCann, Jules Gilleland, Niels Anhalt, David Chislett, Thomas Lahnthaler, Dr. Samantha Dubrow, Loren Edelstein, Bruce McIndoe, Wayne Turmel, Heather Martinez, Annette Gregory-McArthur, Tricia Conyers, John Norcross, Mark Russell, Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon, Brenna Simmons-St. Onge, Shishir Mehrotra, Nathan Coutinho, Kevin Joyce, Betty Ray, Anca Castilo, Cary Lopez, Cate Czerwinski, Hassan Ghiassi, Steve Bather, Anamaria Dorgo, Dr. Maha Bali, Michael Lee, Mark Dodsworth, James Frankis, Rowan de Bruin, Ryan Anderson, Bruce Honig, Kristin York Brennan, Jim Kalbach, Mark Tippin, Dr. Joseph Allen, Henry Hall, Marysia Czarski, Michael Arena, and Ben Crothers.
Recordings from the event are available on YouTube. Here are some highlights.
The Experiment
.From February through May, facilitators submitted workshop designs for the experiment. Two designs were selected, tested, and refined while the project awaited IRB approval. From June through October, the team ran 26 one-hour creative problem-solving workshops in in-person, hybrid, and remote formats, involving 191 participants from around the world. The project collected survey responses, workshop content, and video recordings.
We’d hoped to run at least 50 workshops to create the volume of data needed for better analysis. That didn’t happen, but despite failing to hit tidy research targets, we learned an enormous amount. These articles share some of those early insights.
Intent to Impact: 2024 Conference
.In January 2024, New Rules for Work hosted Intent to Impact. This one-day online gathering shared early results from the 2023 Experimental Workshops alongside talks on team creativity, AI, leadership, workplace wellbeing, and collaboration design. Featured sessions included Annie Murphy Paul on The Extended Mind, research findings from Joseph Allen, Sam Dubrow, and Roni Reiter-Palmon, and practitioner sessions from Logitech, Liberating Structures, Artificiality, Google, MillerKnoll, Mural, and New Rules for Work hosts.
Recordings from the event are available on YouTube. Here are some highlights.
Sponsors and Supporters
The project was supported by Logitech, , CrowdComms, Stormz, Spryng, Feedback Frames, QiqoChat, and Superhuman.
Now what?
We have an archive of the experiment results that can be made available to research teams. If you have a research question that this data might help answer, contact us. We’ll let you know what we have and connect you with the folks who can get your use of this data approved by the presiding IRB.