Blue sky strategy: The secret to innovation and standout events

The old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is solid wisdom. Unless we’re talking about your company’s next big event or industry-leading conference.

Hear me out.

Let’s say you’re pulling thousands of people together for a galvanizing, market-making, industry-shaping event. You have a rockstar team that plans and executes the marquis moments:

• Executive communications
• Speechwriters
• Designers
• An events marketing team
• Event catering and vendor partners

And guess what? It’s a major hit. The internet is a buzz, your sales team has more leads than they can count, and people are already registering for next year’s follow up event. So, what’s next? How do you top it? How will you maintain your edge?

A lot of companies may decide to not change a thing. After all, it worked! Why fix it if it isn’t broken?

But the most innovative companies? They willingly tweak what is for the sake of what could be. And they do that through Duarte blue-sky strategies for their events and mentorship.

What is blue sky thinking?

The meaning of blue sky thinking is basically: “the sky is the limit.” And even then, we’d argue, now take your ideas and shoot for the moon! It is a strategic brainstorm, usually with a group of creatives or boundary-testers, who are focused on unearthing any and all out-of-the-box ideas. There is zero thought at a blue sky strategy session given to budget, capability, or practicality. It is a time for true, uninhibited brainstorming, and the potential can help an innovation-focused business not only succeed, but leap to new bounds and levels.

Brands like Disney and Google are famous for pursuing the impossible. Even Google has made a division dedicated to blue sky thinking, named Moonshot Factory.

Back on earth, while we here at Duarte are not staffed with engineers, physicists, and software developers. We are stacked with the world’s best presentation designers, speechwriters, communication consultants. And from our talent pool, resources, and leadership, we have also birthed our own communication training and workshops to help the masses become better communicators.

How do you run a blue sky thinking session?

Anyone can run a blue sky thinking session. But the basic requirements include:

• Allowing room for failure
• Removing all barriers like budget and resources
• Not worrying about current capabilities or approvals
• And for the best outcomes, they include the most creative people you know (from higher ups to individual contributors)
• For a bonus amount of diversity of thought, consider including a unique representation of ages, backgrounds, and work experiences as well

From there, pick your mode of execution to conduct your blue sky thinking session. You could lock everyone in a conference room with caffeine, snacks, and lots of color-coded stickies. If you’re a remote company, blue sky thinking could be as easy as sending everyone a food delivery service gift card for lunch, and then setting up your virtual meeting with a sticky note-type software like perhaps Miro.

Or if you have a team of writers, have everyone think up ideas for a week asynchronously. They can jot their ideas down in a note, and then come to a meeting ready to review and share their ideas in real time.

Whatever you decide, running your blue sky session should fit your company needs and organizational structure.

3 reasons to partner with Duarte for your blue sky strategy

So now that you understand the concept of blue sky strategy, why is there a need to possibly outsource it? Why bring in an outside team to do blue sky thinking for your next big initiative, like an industry-leading conference or a new product launch?

Blue sky strategy reason #1

A blue sky strategy session with Duarte will help you look more like your aspirational brand heroes. How do you increasingly function like the brands you admire most? You bring in their partners. From Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conferences to Salesforce’s Dreamforce, we conduct a lot of blue sky thinking for the world’s highest-performing brands to help them ensure they stand out. And let’s just say, while their events are extremely high-profile, they equally need to be memorable and industry-changing. For an important need like this, you’ll want a professionally developed blue sky strategy every year.

Blue sky strategy reason #2

You want to keep it fresh, surprising even. You know that creativity and new ideas sometimes require a break from routine, an outside perspective. And few things help like a brainstorming session with seasoned facilitators and creatives. Want to test the boundaries? Want to do the impossible? Want to do something that’s never been done before? We’ve got you, and our portfolio speaks for itself.

Blue sky strategy reason #3

You want to challenge your in-house team to keep innovating. And bringing in an outside team isn’t about replacing your in-house team. It’s about enhancing their creativity. As the saying goes, “iron sharpens iron,” this is about partnering with a group of fellow creatives who will bring out the most innovative ideas from those closest to the project.

Our art directors, writers, and executive speaker coaches work directly with some of the most powerful tech titans and executives in the world. They come to us because we’ve collected and grown talent in the highly specialized craft of high-stakes moments. They come back because we ensure leaders drop jaws, shape industries, and move markets.

What separates Duarte’s blue sky thinking?

We get it. Paying someone to think outside-of-the-box can sometimes be a hard pitch to your CFO. But again, citing Disney and Google – industry titans who swear by these principles, try presenting the impact of a missed opportunity cost to them.

What if your blue sky thinking helped the first iPod become widely adopted? It wasn’t the first mp3 on the market, and yet it’s product launch was memorable. It resonated.

Or how about when Salesforce unveiled Einstein, one of the first AI tool’s before AI became cool? (Yes, we helped with that one by the way).

Here’s what you get when you partner with Duarte for your next blue sky strategy needs.

Leverage a proven methodology

When you hire Duarte, we don’t just art direct your project to uplevel your visual expression, we coach and mentor your team in the process used by the most innovative brands. We call it The Duarte Method™, and it is a research-backed and time-tested method rooted in empathetic communication (ie audience-first)!

From there, we give a white-glove and high-touch experience, and your satisfaction is of the utmost importance. Have we spent all-nighters fixing high-stakes presentations in time for the final hour or to agonize over the delivery of your next product launch? Yes. Are we happy to do it again, for your company? Yes and yes.

Lean on our experience

We have over 35 years of experience in the events, product launch, and rebrand space. We are highly-accustomed to blue sky thinking for both small and large-scale projects.

Gain from our insights

Learn insights from the group responsible for crafting the keynotes and visuals to the world’s biggest brands on the world’s biggest stages. From Hubspot’s INBOUND to Salesforce’s Dreamforce, these repeat customers keep coming back for more, and we can share some of our publicly-available learning to help your next event or conference be a standout and memorable one, too.

Discover trends

We see a lot of presentations. Sales decks. Keynote presentations. Product launches. Internal decks. You name it, we’ve made it. We have an ongoing pulse on all types of presentations and where presentation design is heading. Curious what’s new in event keynote design, approaches, or visualization? Curious which technologies the biggest brands are using? Curious which design trends could take your keynote visuals to the next level? We’ll share everything we’re seeing when we work on your blue sky strategy.

Ready to get started on your next blue sky strategy? If it’s a low-stakes moment, try taking our tips and tackling it with your in-house team! But if it’s a high-stakes moment, like a big event or product launch, where your message must land, talk to a Solution Architect about what a blue sky thinking session can do for you.