GeoVation: How can Britain feed itself? camp summary

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‘from problem to pitch’
A summary of the iScout facilitated support of the GeoVation
challenge: ‘How can Britain feed itself?’.

November 2010

In this document

• What happened before the GeoVation camp (pg 3 – 19)
• What happened at the camp (pg 20 – 64)
• What happened after the camp (pg 65)
• Appendices (pg 66 – 106)

What happened before the GeoVation camp

• We planned for a problem framing workshop: a ‘Pow Wow’
We visited Church Farm in Hertfordshire and met with Sam Henderson of Agrarian
Renaissance to understand the context of the challenge. This also allowed us to start thinking
about questions we could ask of thought leaders to help unpack key issues for Camp
attendees to respond to with their ideas.
Further information on Church Farm and the work of Agrarian Renaissance can be found in
the following slides and at
http://www.churchfarmardeley.co.uk/churchfarm/agrarianrenaissance.html.

What happened before the GeoVation camp

• We ran a problem ‘Pow Wow’
The goal of a problem Pow Wow is to ‘unpack’ a challenge, such as Britain feeding itself, and
discover within it, a range of valuable problems; those which if met provide value for all
parties. We spent time with people who have perspectives on farming, government policy,
supermarket dominance, biological systems and much, much more.
We spent fours hours at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, discussing and capturing a whole
range of issues. At the end of the session we had 165 ‘raw’ problems. We subsequently
clustered these under six broad themes (farm production, process and packaging,
distribution, economics, education and communication) and distilled them into 23 new
problem statements. These stated what the problem was and why it mattered. They were
used at the camp to help the innovators really think about how their ideas connected to
issues that mattered.
In the images that follow, a sample of the 23 problems are shown. Please see the appendices
for the full set.

Sample from the ‘farm production’ theme

What is the problem? Why does it matter?
How do you increase the We need 10 times as
number of farmers and many farmers as we have
farms (of all sizes) in the now but: farmers are
UK? getting older and retiring;
agricultural colleges are
closing and fewer people
are becoming farmers.

Sample from the ‘education’ theme

How do you better Not enough people
integrate learning about (young and old) know
food into all the enough about how food
educational stages of our is produced, where it
lives? comes from and the
inherent links to being
healthy.

Sample from the ‘economics’ theme

How do you influence Consumers are more than
how consumers spend ever cautious about what
their ‘precious’ they spend their money
disposable income? on and price remains a
barrier to entry for
sustainably grown food.

What happened at the GeoVation camp

• Over 50 ideas were submitted to the GeoVation website
• These submissions were written descriptions of the idea
• The judging panel invited a shortlist to develop them further
• Five teams then took part in the camp itself

What happened at the GeoVation camp

• We structured activities around the components of
innovation
We believe that innovation is a product of finding the best problem, responding with an
excellent solution and then executing it in order to scale it and make it viable from a business
perspective. Our summary equation for this is I = P x S x E.
As innovators had previously submitted ideas to the GeoVation Challenge website in written
form only, we felt it important to create activities that brought those ideas to life. At the
same time, we wanted to challenge participants to ensure they really had thought about
problems and were given an opportunity to build on their ideas. Where possible, we also
wanted them to prototype aspects of their thinking in order to demonstrate to the judges a
degree of robustness.
Over the following pages, there is a selection of images that show, in chronological order,
how the camp unfolded from the initial gathering on the Friday night to the pitches on
Sunday afternoon.

We assembled at The Hub, Kings Cross on Friday 5 November.

Chris Parker from Ordnance Survey welcomed everyone.

David Townson from iScout reminded us of the structure.

We got to find out a little about each other…

…by asking each other what our favourite foods were…

…and lining ourselves up in alphabetical order…

…Chris’s favourite is mango (David’s is haggis).

We created a map of the UK based on where we came from…

…then chatted with those we now knew a little about.

Saturday morning began with a brief intro from each team…

…before David reminded us of the structure (again).

We explored the problems that had come from the Pow Wow…

…such as ‘How to increase the number of farms of all sizes’…

…then shared our thoughts on how our ideas related to them…

…here, showing where the idea was part of a wider system.

We then began sketching out ways to improve our ideas.

This enabled discussions that, in turn, gave rise to new ideas.

Arranging sketch sheets allowed us to see the bigger picture.

Having project ‘sketch books’ meant we could show others.

We shared our ideas with the other camp participants…

…generating constructive feedback from others to evolve ideas.

Discussing ideas was in some ways a precursor to pitching…

…testing how well we understood and communicated our idea.

After lunch, we began to prototype elements of our ideas.

Some worked at super scale, making flip-chart sized apps.

Others made paper prototypes of web sites using A4 dividers.

A found hamper was used to package an educational toolkit.

We kept problems in mind at all times (some built a shrine!)…

…and practiced pitches to make sure we used five minutes well.

‘City Farmers’ kicked off the formal pitching at 2.30 pm sharp.

They were followed by ‘Food Nation’.

Presenters only had five minutes (a red card meant ‘stop!’).

Judges only had five minutes too and had to ask carefully.

‘The world’s a village: ontology link to data’ were next up…

…before ‘Ugly Grub’ completed the attendees’ pitches.

‘Integrated community food mapping’ beamed in by video.

After an hour’s debate, the judges returned. They said…

…Two ideas were invited to next year’s GeoVation
Showcase and the chance to pitch for a slice of £25 000:
City Farmers
Peter Boyce and Helen Steer

Food Nation
Louise Campbell and Michael Ferguson

The judges were impressed that the Food Nation idea could be brought to market
quickly and deliver impact. They felt that City Farmers had a well articulated
problem that could link to other projects.

Both the judges and the team from GeoVation were very impressed with all teams.
As ever, it was a shame that there had to be winners but GeoVation will be working
with each of the pitching teams in taking their ideas forward and doing what they
can to support them.

What happened after the GeoVation camp
• Feedback sought to improve future camps
In addition to the very positive informal feedback given by participants at the end of the
weekend, we also followed up with a short online survey. Feedback was extremely good,
with some small suggestions for improvement made.

• Lessons learned for next challenges
In addition to gathering feedback from participants, the GeoVation team also reflected on
the weekend. For example, this experience of both the camp, and the Pow Wow that
preceded it, had a direct bearing on the decision to readjust the time frames for future
challenges.

• Camp activity refinement
As this was the first time the camp had been run by GeoVation, we learnt much about the
structure of the weekend and the activities within it. While the overall structure worked very
well, we spotted a few things to adjust. For example, how to communicate prototyping more
quickly and ‘get in to it’ faster and how to make the five minutes of questioning at pitch time
work fairly are two of the areas being considered for next time.

Service

Appendices
Appendices that relate to the iScout facilitated support of the
GeoVation Challenge: ‘How can Britain feed itself?’.

November 2010

Service

Full output from the Pow Wow
The following slides are what was produced following the
problem Pow Wow at Stoneleigh Park. It is what was shown to
Camp participants (and was on display all weekend).

It was interesting to see the links between the resolved ideas
and this material. All were influenced by it to some degree.

Service

How can Britain feed itself?
Output from problem Pow Wow

3 November 2010, Stoneleigh Park

A workshop to identify important problems that innovators should
consider as they develop solutions to help Britain feed itself.

Participants:
Colin Tudge, Biologist and science writer
Ruth West, Director, Campaign for Real Farming
Richard Barnett, New Forest Transition Network
Sarah Church, Food Policy Unit at DEFRA
Chris Parker, Ordnance Survey
Sean Miller, Innovation Scout
David Townson, Innovation Scout

7 people
4 hours
165 ‘raw’ problems
23 insights
6 themes

Farm production

Key problems associated with how land
is used and managed for the growth of
crops and the rearing of animals.

1 Farm production

How do you increase the We need 10 times as
number of farmers and many farmers as we have
farms (of all sizes) in the now but: farmers are
UK? getting older and retiring;
agricultural colleges are
closing; and fewer people
are becoming farmers.

2 Farm production

How do you sustainably If we need more people
maximise the potential growing things, then they
output of produce from need to know if the land
the land given the terrain, is suitable and how to use
fertility and access to it sustainably.
land?

3 Farm production

How do you align what People desire a variety of
the farm can, and should, produce in and out of
produce with what season throughout the
people want? year, yet a single farm
may not be able to meet
all of their individual
needs.

4 Farm production

How do you access the Growers need resources
right resources (people, and know-how
tools, technology, appropriate for their size,
know-how, skills) to get but this can be costly and
the best out of your farm systems do not exist to
or even back garden (big make sharing of
or small)? resources easy.

5 Farm production

How do you ensure Pressures to farm
animal welfare is at its commercially successfully
best when balancing may result in welfare
being sustainable with corners being cut, despite
running an efficient farm an increasing desire from
that meets demand. consumers to buy
produce that has been
well looked after.

6 Farm production

How do you make more Only 0.5% of land comes
land available for those onto the market per year
that want to farm and and navigating the
grow stuff? planning permission
system is challenging.

Process and packaging

Key problems associated with how
produce from the land is made ready for
distribution

1 Process and packaging

How do you reduce waste ‘There never used to be
produced as a result of any waste on farms, it
growing and consuming? was all fed to animals’.
How do we efficiently use
what we grow whilst
minimising wastage?


How do you ensure all Most farms do not have
livestock slaughter is easy, local access to a
humane? suitable abattoir or have
the capability to do it
on-site themselves.


How do you ‘marque’ People are bombarded
your farm’s produce so with choice of ‘marqued’
that the attributes of the produce and find it hard
produce (locality, great to make a purchase
taste, high quality) are decision.
effectively
communicated?

Distribution

Key problems associated with how local
produce reaches local consumers

1 Distribution

How do you improve the Some of the larger farms
delivery infrastructure to only supply big
get produce to the right supermarkets and not
person at the right quality local communities, while
whilst minimising the some people want
environmental impact? produce that can’t be
sourced locally.

2 Distribution

How do you improve Not all farmers and
relationships within the growers work
supply chain and bring comfortably across the
stakeholders closer entire supply chain and
together? this may be to the
detriment of their
business.

3 Distribution

How do you replace Supermarkets currently
supermarket dominance perpetuate an
by mutually-beneficial unsustainable
relationships from farmer agribusiness rather than
to consumer, based on an agro-ecological
sustainable principles? approach to growing and
utilising food.

Economics

Key problems associated with the costs
of creating produce for consumers, the
prices charged to consumers and what
else consumers spend their money on

1 Economics

How do you make it Even if you choose the
compelling to use land for farming option, you face
farming when other land additional financial
use options are barriers (for example,
potentially easier and free market economics,
more profitable (for rising cost of fuels and
example, golf courses)? stringent contracts with
supermarkets).

2 Economics

How do you make the link There is a perception that
between price and value people are ‘better off’
(quality, locality, taste, buying from a
environmental supermarket rather than
considerations) more a farm but it could be a
compelling to a wider false economy.
audience?

3 Economics

How do you influence Consumers are more
how consumers spend cautious than ever about
their ‘precious’ what they spend their
disposable income? money on and price
remains a barrier to entry
for sustainably-grown
food.

4 Economics

What are the innovative Existing business models
enterprise models that for growing, buying
need to be developed to selling, consuming and
grow and use food using food perpetuate
sustainably? because the potential of
alternative models is not
widely recognised.

5 Economics

How do you transition Failure to do so may
from existing business perpetuate the status
and enterprise models to quo and a retreat to what
more sustainable ones ‘works’ (albeit
over time, whilst unsustainably).
maintaining resilience
and stability?

Education

Key problems associated with how
people of all ages, knowledge and
background learn about the benefits of
how Britain can feed itself.

1 Education

How do you better Not enough people
integrate learning about (young and old) know
food into all the enough about how food
educational stages of our is produced, where it
lives? comes from and the
inherent links to being
healthy.

2 Education

How do you make it easy Many people do not have
for people to learn how a strong enough
to cook locally-sourced relationship with food:
food? making time for it,
knowing where it comes
from, learning how to
prepare and cook it.

3 Education

How do you enable those Many people have land of
keen to grow their own all shapes and sizes that
food (at all scales) learn they would like to grow
the skills to do so? things on but don’t know
what to do next.

Communication

Key problems associated with how to
engage hard-to-reach people in Britain
feeding itself sustainably.

1 Communication

How do you help people There is much
navigate the excess of misinformation and
information available on badly-designed
approaches to information about issues
sustainable food people need to better
consumption? understand but it
competes with well-
designed information on
other types of food.

2 Communication

How do you create a Sustainability means
common definition of many different things to
what sustainable food many different people,
production and which may devalue the
consumption means? efforts required to help
Britain feed itself.

3 Communication

How do you compete Consumers are exposed
with the messaging and to thousands of brand
communication from messages each day;
multinational food unfortunately not from
companies and those who can help
supermarkets? Britain feed itself.

Service

Online camp survey
In the two weeks following the camp, an online survey was
distributed to all participants (idea developers, idea supporters
and judges).

The following slides show some of the feedback taken from
their responses regarding various aspects.

Service

On the design of the camp and the support received

‘The time spent was invaluable and they taught
me a lot which I did not know and the
facilitation was brilliant.’
‘Given the rather open-ended idea we arrived
with I felt that we got a lot of direction at the
start when we needed it but were given enough
space to develop our idea ourselves once
preparing the presentations.’

Service

On the venue

‘Absolutely wonderful! Fantastic light and
space for working, great atmosphere and
superb food & refreshments.’

Service

On what was the ‘Aha!’ moment from the weekend

‘Defining the real problem workshop on the
Saturday morning.’

‘Problem exploration, solutions sketching,
planning and prototyping.’

‘Seeing lots of fuzzy workings being resolved to
initial pitches for the first time.’

Service

On how to make it better

‘Maybe suggest a couple of the books ahead of
time. Lots of books were at the camp but really
no time to read them.’

‘Maybe a few more stretch breaks as there was
a huge amount to take in and I think the brains
would have appreciated a little more 'chill'
time.’

Service

On how to make it better

‘I can find nothing to improve upon, genuinely a
great experience.’

‘The framework, structure, energy and
facilitation were brilliant. I've not seen it done
better, anywhere!’

Service

On advice you’d offer future participants

‘Go with an idea, listen to people with
experience, have an open mind and be
prepared to adjust both your approach to
pitching and the parameters of your idea.’

Service

On advice you’d offer future participants

‘Enjoy!!! a thoroughly amazing experience which
I would not have got anyone else. It was so much
fun bouncing ideas off people and making the
most of the opportunity which we had.’
‘Get a good night’s sleep beforehand and come
prepared to be flexible with your idea and how it
can be developed.’

Service

On whether you’d recommend the camp to others

‘Yes’ = 100%

‘No’ = 0%

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‘It was fun and I felt like I learnt lots. Nice
atmosphere and I met some interesting people.”
“Very high standard of training in innovation.”
“An idea environment to encourage and build
on ideas, a very nourishing experience not just
just for idea winners but for supporters and
whose willing to give their time.”

Service


‘It was, quite simply, a fantastic experience and
I would happily bring my skills along to other
Challenges to help other teams bring their
innovative ideas out into the World. I've already
spread the word about GeoVation…’

Thank you
For more information on any of the information and approaches contained in this
document, please contact:

David Townson

david@innovationscout.co.uk

07974 741315

For more information on the GeoVation Challenge in general and this camp in
particular, please go to: http://www.geovation.org.uk/geovation-camp-how-can-
britain-feed-itself/ or contact:

Chris Parker

chris.Parker@ordnancesurvey.co.uk

07867 553091

GeoVation: How can Britain feed itself? camp summary

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