As we work more closely with our colleagues in Berlin and Prague, our innovation tool kit grows not only in its size and capabilities, but also - dare we say it? - takes on the space-time continuum. 

How happy are you with your job? Do you start your Mondays with a big grin on your face or are you more in a Garfield-like mood?

The pandemic shone a spotlight on how we live, interact, and prioritise aspects of our lives, individually and collectively. Unsurprisingly, in line with this evolving situation, well-known methods of continuous iteration in design and innovation practice have been seen playing out in real time.

In light of the energy transition ahead of us, we had conversations with private citizens who generate their own green electricity to learn about their motivations and challenges.

Swiss strategic innovation agency, spinoff from ETH, merges with a venture builder‍Spark Works, Switzerland’s leading strategic innovation agency, has merged with Creative Dock, a leading European venture builder, effective from January, 2022.

Lime, Jump, Publibike, Smide, Bond, the list just keeps on going! It seems like many players are entering with concepts of offering convenient micromobility solutions giving rise to the question...How is micromobility changing? This article will cover three trends of micromobility that have emerged in Switzerland.

Five weeks of Spark Works means plenty of great clients and projects. We look back at some of our use cases and the innovative work we’ve done!

It’s been five years of Spark Works. Hear from our founding partners as they reflect on this milestone…

Unknown to most, the city of Zurich is home to an almost secret UNESCO-World Heritage site. Situated by Sechseläutenplatz, historic lake dwellings occupied the city almost 5000 years ago. A decade on and in line with the ten-year anniversary, the city’s archaeologists now want to make the findings accessible to a wider audience through an AR app and exhibition. However, very little was known about what citizens and tourists would expect from such application and how they would like to experience the 5000-year-old village. That’s where Spark Works came in…..

The United Nations proclaimed June 1 to be the Global Day of Parents "to appreciate all parents in all parts of the world for their selfless commitment to children and their lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship". In line with this date, we thought it was the perfect time to re-share our work with Pro Juventute, a Swiss foundation supporting the rights and needs of children. Here in Switzerland, parents receive the Pro Juventute Parents' Letters upon the birth of their child/children. This letter accompanies parents during the first six years of their child's life.

It’s been just over a month since I started to work at Spark Works. Before joining the company and in preparation for my interview I searched up Innovation, Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking. However, I quickly realised this wasn’t going to be a topic I could master over the course of an evening.

If this past year has taught us anything, it's that we should always expect the unexpected. How do you deal with uncertainty? You challenge what you know.

Our Spark Network is vast and often it's much easier to put a name to a face. We sat down with three women in the Spark Works community to ask for their take on International Women’s Day 2021 and carving out a professional career.

As part of my Executive Diploma in Organisational Leadership, I have recently thought a lot about organisational resilience. That is “the ability of an organisation to anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper” (Denyer, 2017) or in short: how do we bounce back from a crisis and – even better – be prepared for the next challenge? If history tells us one thing, it is that there will be a next time. It might not be a pandemic that shakes our status quo, but maybe geopolitical changes, demographic shifts, technological inventions or new customer preferences.

COVID-19 has bound the majority of organisations to work and collaborate remotely. In particular, the second wave has obliged everyone to take a deeper look into the ocean of fancy tools available, including us. Nonetheless, although we prefer to collaborate with you in one room, we have experienced many benefits whilst engaging with remote teamwork and collaborations. 

We live in a world where change shapes everything around us. At the same time, we are globally witnessing the impact of a pandemic on our planet, society and organisations.

Organisations today act within a highly competitive and global environment. Embracing a creative mindset is therefore key to survive. Nonetheless, the common understanding that within organisations there are solely two kinds of people, the “creatives” and the “non-creatives”, still exists.

Organising for innovation has always been challenging! In theory the task is quite clear. However, the reality has never been that simple. And recently it became quite a bit more challenging. The current pandemic has taught us multiple lessons about the way we work, both as a team and as an organisation as a whole.

Most people know what innovation is, and most understand that they need to be doing it. But understanding what it looks like in practice, or what the steps are that you need to take to achieve it, can be much more difficult. Saying you need to innovate is all well and good – but where do you start? That’s why many companies turn to innovation consultants to help them get started.

Learning the Spark way – Exploring the path: I started my journey as a Prototype Trainee at Spark Works without knowing what I was getting myself into – Indeed, I had my thoughts, imaginations and expectations, but it was definitely incomparable to any of my previous experiences. Even Google did not have a definition of what a Prototype Trainee is!

Is five users always enough to effectively test your new digital product or service? Across product and UX designers, it is widely accepted that user-tests with solely five participants is sufficient for insightful results.

The desire to understand how people will commute (will they?) and travel by 2040 made us conduct a study about the Future of Mobility. In order to get a holistic view about what is ahead of us, we followed the STEEP method.

As a designer Spark Works is a really interesting company, because it is not a classic design agency, but Human-centered design and general design thinking is part of every project. These topics play an existential role in my field of expertise. And I learned what I hoped for.

Backed by the Financial Times, Sifted media is a new-media platform for Europe’s innovators and entrepreneurs. With Headquarters in London and a network of journalists across Europe, Sifted’s mission is to tell untold stories in engaging new ways and give a voice to the European start-up entrepreneur community.

Millennials are a breed of their own. With a different perspective of how the world should be, they are actively and continuously changing the way things used to work for older generations. For them, technology is essential part of life, and nothing would work without it.

My lifelong dream was to be a classic car mechanic, still hope I can make that happen someday. However, I grew up in a country where what you do professionally is limited by your social and economic status. This meant being a mechanic wasn’t up to my middle class parents’ idea of a career path. So when I started my engineering degree, I enrolled (and payed for) myself into a technical school which had a weekend program.

A week in the mountains armed with skis, post-it notes and a fully stocked fridge – a winning combination for our annual team retreat. Strategizing on key projects and team building, paired with winter sports and fondue was just the tonic to set us up for a successful year ahead.

Have you ever worked on a project you were very excited about, only to have encountered numerous challenges along the way? Did you give up in the face of adversity or did you accept the challenge? Many companies consider any kind of restrictions and a lack of resources as the main obstacles of innovation. This belief suggests that getting rid of all boundaries and rules will increase creativity and innovation. Is this really true?

The future of work can only be anticipated. By the year 2030, working habits will have radically evolved due to trends such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation, demographic changes and globalization.