What's this Masterclass about

A moment of training and strategic thinking at the same time: two days in which you will learn - either independently or in a team - to use the Platform Design Toolkit, the most comprehensive set of tools for the design and prototyping platform strategies, used by thousands of practitioners around the world.

You’ll be able to apply it directly to your product, a process or whole organization, a new service, a startup idea or to explore a market that you care about.

After building your strategic vision, we will help you prepare an implementation plan to validate your idea of platform and test it through a lean prototyping approach that will avoid mistakes and waste of energy and money.

We will help you to get straight to a Minimum Viable Platform that will validate the appeal for your reference ecosystem, and we will prepare you to grow after.

These two days will:

• save you from bad investments and wasted expenses

• take you from zero to a clear execution plan for the coming months.

Why are Platforms so important?

Thanks to the increasing impact of technology and networks, platforms are transforming markets and dominate the business of the 21st century. The giants of the web such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Salesforce have been joined by new unicorns like Uber or Airbnb, and lately by many smaller platform players: all these players succeeded to transform their target markets, generating insane amounts of new value from interaction, personalization and efficiency.

But what it is a Platform in the end? To create a platform strategy to connect users - being them individuals or organizations - in the ecosystem is just the best way that companies have today to generate organic growth and gain a key position in a specific market they’re targeting - or to achieve their objectives as organizations.

The numbers show that the platform strategies can generate exceptional results and enable organizations to meet the growing need for customization coming from their customers, allowing them to do it effectively and sustainable cost.

Platform strategies help startups and large companies to create new products and services by investing less and leveraging on the energy and resources in the ecosystem - by creating a marketplace.

>> Read more about innovating your business with platforms in this selection of posts <<

Platform thinking can also allow you to rethink existing processes - such as HR, open innovation, supply chain, competences development - or completely https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/platform-business-innovation/home itself by following these principles, transforming it in a Learning Organization that evolves and learns.

>> Read more about the Platform Organization in this selection of posts <<

Even nonprofit and public institutions are using the platform strategies for mobilizing their users and create greater value with lower cost, creating customized and effective solutions for their communities.

What will you learn in this workshop

• How to recognize the entities and the main role in any ecosystem, built around a platform potential

• How to design channels to monetize transactions and help the community-ecosystem to produce and exchange value in the platform

• How to create support services for the ecosystem, that help participants improve their performance and create new opportunities

• How to set a step-by-step validation and prototyping plan that aims to waste less resources as possible in the realization of the first prototype platform

• How to grow the platform by experimenting possible growth strategies

• How to use a practical and open framework (Creative Commons) you can use dozens of times in your professional activity

Program

Understanding the reference ecosystem.
The first phase of the workshop will help you better understand your target market, to map all available roles for actors of the ecosystem and the reasons that they have to join your platform strategy: you will learn how to motivate everyone to join and participate, relying on clear and operable incentives.

Create a platform prototype model.
We will create a clear vision of how your platform will provide the channels for transactions, and a range of services enabling the ecosystem: by doing so the platform will create a special advantage for the participants and will give them exponential growth opportunities.

Prepare validation, prototyping and growth
We will then help you prioritize the features and key stakeholders of the platform and will set up the most effective methods of validation of your strategy. We will create a clear plan to validation and prototyping, and we will study the first possible strategies for hacking growth to grow the adoption of your platform strategy in your target ecosystem.

Topics of Day 1

We will give you a context to the theme, we will discuss the technological and social enablers that led to the revolution of the platforms.

We will use practical design tools such as the Canvas that are part of Platform Design Toolkit in parallel with key information on trends and technological innovations to generate a powerful vision.

Topics of Day 2

We will talk about how the key concepts of lean validation and prototyping fit the context of multi-side platforms, and we will use the special Canvases in the toolkit for setting up a validation path for the key assumptions and an ideal MVPlatform.

Note: If you do not have a platform project we will use a market opportunity to explore, an existing platform or a fictional one in the modeling exercises.

Also the Team will be available before the course to help you identify your project work in such a way as to maximize learning and operating results for you.

Expect to get your hands dirty

The masterclass is based on a 20% content transferred by the teacher-facilitator in short pills - instructions and reflections - and 80% work on project works. The teacher uses a model based on recurring cycles of briefings-exercise-reflection that will help you easily stick the new capabilities into your set of skills.

It will be possible to work in a team (teamwork is highly recommended), in single or even to find a "partner" at the beginning of the master class.

There will be many moments where - if there are no constraints of secrecy in the project that are brought the masterclass - you’ll be able to exchange ideas and views with the lecturer and participants, greatly enriching your learning and design experience.

Who is this course for: Target Audience

This workshop is designed for:

• Managers who deal daily with innovation in companies large and small, who need to create new products and have to deal with restricted investment capacity;
• Startuppers who, individually or in teams, want to work to create their hypothesis of product and market and then quickly begin validation;
• Designer and Consultants who want to learn how to master a set of design tools that are simple to apply, to design effective strategies that are in line with the times;
• Community managers from digital platforms or even collaborative spaces such as incubators, makerspaces, coworkings;
• Public officials and social entrepreneurs who want to understand how to increase the social impact of collaborative services with less investment.

FAQ

I have followed the one-day workshop, why should I follow the 2-day Master Class?

It will be for you a good opportunity to return to face - perhaps with a new idea or project - the design phase, enriched by the feedback that the team has collected around Europe, or simply to join the second day, to figure out how to put in practice an executive validation and prototyping strategy: in short, to get into action!

How should I prepare for the course?

We will send participants, about two weeks before the course, a series of links for that will not be needed, however, for the successful participation in the course. The best way to prepare is to choose and refine an idea of platform strategy that you want to accelerate during the course also with the proactive support of the teacher.

It is a course for beginners or experts?

This course is on advanced material - the creation of new products and services or the rethinking of organizations - but does so in a practical way and leaving to the participants the tools and references to use, so it is a course for participants that understand the context, but it is not required any previous knowledge on the subject of platforms, innovation or design.

The Platform Design Toolkit: the next generation design tools

Born in 2013, the Platform Design Toolkit is used worldwide by successful startups and and social enterprises. Large international groups and public entities are also among the customers that designed platform strategies with Platform Design Toolkit.

European and American Business Schools have used it in their courses and seminars. Designers and entrepreneurs from around the world have used it to shape and improve their business ideas and impact.

You can see some of our adopters here: http://platformdesigntoolkit.com/create/

To better understand the opportunities behind the Platform Design, download the free white paper sponsored by SWIFT Innotribe, the innovation team of one of the most important players in global finance.

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TESTIMONIALS on the PLATFORM DESIGN TOOLKIT

"In an increasingly networked world we're going to need more tools like the Platform Design Toolkit"

John Hagel - Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation

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"Platform Design helped us craft our vision and get into YCombinator with a scalable business model"

Tin Hang Liu - OSVehicle CEO

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"When the hype was the Business Model Canvas and everyone was crazy about it, Simone came up with the toolkit that Sharing Economy entrepreneurs like me had been searching for a long time. I used it to create Sharing Academy and I recommend it now to entrepreneurs in the Collaborative Economy."

Jordi Esteve Llonch - CEO Sharing Academy

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"We used the method and this led us to the thinking and reasoning that was necessary to clarify many complex issues in our ecosystem. I want to suggest the methodology because we tested it and it works! Highly recommended!"

Andrea Cattabriga - Chairman SlowD

TESTIMONIALS on the PLATFORM DESIGN MASTERCLASS

"A day full of content, continuous stimuli, tailored suggestions. It is an approach that widens the prospects delivering a method for the management of complex ecosystems."

"I came into contact for the first time with the theme of Platform Design. I believe it is now a requirement for those wishing to extend their business or make it more effective."

"It is difficult to find someone as knowledgeable as Simone when it comes to Platforms and somehow he manages to convey a lot of this knowledge during the course. Moreover the tool that is presented is very powerful and helps focusing on the important aspects when shaping/re-shaping platforms."

TICKET INFORMATION & CANCELLATION POLICY

Please note that the workshop will be confirmed in October, at least one month before the event. In case the workshop is not confirmed you'll receive a FULL REFUND.

In case the trainer has to cancel due to non controllable reasons you'll receive a FULL REFUND.

Be sure you select the right option if you're a EU VIES registered VAT holder: you will save 22% VAT in that case and your ticket will be much cheaper.

CANCELLATION POLICY: If you decide to cancel your ticket, you'll be able to ask for a full ticket refund until October the 15th (circa one month from the event) and a 50% refund until October the 28. No money refund will be offered after that date: you'll be given a free admission ticket for any of the European Platform Design Toolkit Masterclass in English organized directly by the Platform Design Toolkit team in the following months.

Note that NO REFUNDS WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR Earlier than Early Bird tickets.

TICKET INVOICING: Ticket invoices will be issues after the event andn send it to you, be sure you enter all the requested information.

The Trainer

Simone Cicero

Product and Service Designer, strategist and self starter interested in co-design, design thinking and innovation. Simone deals with several large international groups strategy - from telco to retail, from transport to finance - and is advisor to startups that have been selected by leading accelerators and international investors (as YCombinator, TIM's Working Capital, etc...).

Simone is Connector at OuiShare, the largest global organization that promotes collaborative economy and is an internationally renowned expert on the issues of the collaborative economy and peer-to-peer platforms.

Simone also deals with Open Source Hardware and business models of the future of manufacturing: he was chairman of Open Source Hardware Summit in 2014.

He has origirnally designed and implemented the Platform Design Toolkit, the world's most adopted tool for the design of multi-sided business models and platforms.

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