This research project has three academic partners and bunch of companies developing their business. We have been asking is how can we combine the skills from academia and companies to increase the flow of information?
I was the first one to step down from our ivory tower and headed to work with Digital Lessons for few days. Well, I was still quite high in the clouds during that time, worked on papers, read articles and other usual academic stuff. So, I wasn’t doing any real work.
However, my expertise in software engineering and some highlights from user experience and social systems. I think the most useful exercise for everyone was the one-hour paper prototyping we did together (or, rather: they did and I mentored). We focused on the concept of participation and how to bring the elements of participation to their existing offering.
On the next day, I took the lead to actually develop the paper prototype towards a real working prototype with the help of web technologies and I’ve send bunch of code to them for future use.
My key learning from this trip is that software is integrated into everywhere. I’ve been this far working only in software-orientated organizations; but I see that certain important practices which we have already adapted, are vital for the future for any organization in this domain, and those skills must be fostered in companies, such as Digital Lessons.