Lightning Demos: How to Steal Powerful Examples like an Artist

- How can you make Pablo Picasso proud and still powerful examples like an artist? In today's video, we're gonna talk about lightning demos when working remote. And lighting demos are a quick and effective way to do research and collect lots of inspiring samples with your team from companies like Apple, Spotify, and Instagram.

And this comes from the mental model that "Great innovation is built on existing ideas". You can remix and improve existing examples and then create the best possible experience for your customers. Ready? Let's go. (upbeat music) Oh hey, sorry. I was scrolling through the YouTube channel. I can't believe this is gonna be video number 10 already.

If you are subscribed then thank you for subscribing. And if you have not, then you can subscribe down below. Please like and subscribe. It's gonna help us to grow the channel. In today's video we're gonna talk about the lightning demos. And I've talked about lightning demos before shortly in a previous video but today we're gonna do a deep dive.

And if you already know what lightning demos are then feel free to skip to the next part in the video where I will show you how to run an effective lighting demo session while working remote with your team. So what are lighting demos? Lighting demos come out of this book, "Sprint" by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz.

And it's a quick and fun exercise to do research. And it's on the Tuesday here. This Sprint is a five day process to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. I'm a big fan of this if you didn't know already. But the idea of the lightning demos is to remix and improve existing ideas. Lightning demos are called this way, because they're quick you got three minutes per demo.

And the demo is something inspiring that the rest of the team can use to solve the problem that you're facing. And usually what you do is you make a list of inspiring examples, and you run by them one by one. And in this way in an hour, in 60 minutes you have 10 to 20 great examples which you can use for the next part of your workshop.

And the book describes how you can do this on site but in the next steps I'm gonna show you how to do a lightning demo session while working remote with your team. And the best part of it is that you don't even need to do it in a meeting. You could use this workshop fully asynchronous. So let's move through the workshop slides, they're over here.

Lightning demos, How to Steal Powerful Examples like an Artist. If you want to download these slides then you can find the link down below and you can also download them as a PDF or as a PowerPoint format. And in this way you can import them in different programs, for example, in Miro or Mural. But let's have a look at the agenda.

So we're gonna make a list of inspiring examples. We're gonna write mini-scripts and we're gonna record two minutes videos and then watch all the lightning demos. So this is the workshop format. There's a short description about what a lightning demo is. A quick inspirational example that helps unlock creativity to solve complex problems.

The idea is that you look at different domains that solve the same problem or you look at solutions within your own company or you look at other similar products. But the most value are in these two, so the different domains that are solving a similar problem or within your own company. It could be that something that didn't work in the past, it can be a great inspiration for something you wanna do in the future.

So let's make Pablo proud. We're not gonna copy, we're gonna steal. Great innovation is not per say something you refund from the ground up because if you look at the first iPhone, all components were already there. Mobile phones existed. Touch screen was there. Cameras were there, GPS, everything was there already.

What Apple did, pretty decent I must say. Remix and improve by combining those components. So putting them all in the same device and then creating a great user experience. And that's exactly how we want to make use of lighting demos. So let's start by making a list of inspiring examples. And we start with the challenge.

If we have that defined then we take 10 to 15 minutes to find examples that you think solve similar challenges in an inspiring way. And you can have a look at examples from within your own company, both failures and successors. Different domains that solved a similar problem or other products that are in the same industry.

And usually this part gives the lowest benefits. So try to make sure that your lighting demos are mostly in these boxes. In this case, we want to figure out how we might only have six hours of meetings every week. So let's make a list of inspiring examples and you can do that by simply writing down the name and then the three big ideas you like and the more specific you are, the better.

So in this case, I like that you can collaborate with voice that is Async and that it's transcribed. And this is super specific for a reason, because if you make it more general that you say for example, I liked the design of the app, this is really hard to copy from. But the specific elements are easier to copy from.

If you want to do this workshop asynchronous then simply share the slides with your team and then ask them to fill in the slides. They need 10 to 15 minutes for this research part and they can just simply fill in the post-it over here. And then the next step we're gonna write a mini-script. A mini script helps you to record your video which you're gonna do in the next step.

So let's have a look at this example. I copied the example over here. So Yac, in this case. What I did, I used these questions to fill in this post-it over here. So what is example in one or two sentences? And I did it over here. And then what problem does it solve? Actually, it's already described over here.

What three big ideas do you like from example? And that's just simply a copy paste from the previous step. And then how can this help solve our challenge? And that's over here in the bottom and this mini script will help you to record a better video because now you have already thought about what you want to tell and what you wanna show.

So do this for every example that you have you can do it over here. But what I like to do is to write it down in my personal notes app because then it's easier to use in the next step. And now the moment that we have been waiting for to record the actual lighting demo. And we have two minutes for that per lighting demo instead of the three minutes from the book.

And that's because we can save one minute thanks to the mini-script. There's a step-by-step guide here on how to record a video. It starts with installing Loom. Loom is a tool which you can use to record the video. So there's a link over here, click on it and then it opens this page. You have a desktop app or a Chrome extension.

You can also use it on your mobile phone. Have your mini-script ready. I like to have it on my second screen and then set a timer for two minutes. This makes sure that you don't run out of time. Record the video. I will show you in a bit how to do that. Name the video and then shared a video. Okay, let's start with recording the video.

You can go over to Loom. You can choose what you want to show over here. So screen and camera, screen only or camera only. In this case my camera is not connected to my computer because I'm recording on this device. So that's why it doesn't show over here. But trust me that it works. You can select Full Screen.

This is perfectly fine. And then select the camera source and also check if your audio is working. And then you start the recording. There's a five minute limits for the free version which is okay because we only need two. Start recording. And then the countdown timer starts three, two, one and now you can go over and show your actual lighting demo.

So in this case, I would show the website of Yac. I would start over there and then I would switch to the mobile application of Yac. And then next to me I have my mini-script In the near future, I will be releasing a couple of example lightning demos. So subscribe and be the first one to learn about that but let's stop the Loom recording, and press Stop.

And then automatically you go to the webpage where the video is already uploaded and you have a URL, which you can share with your team. So in this case, because the program I use is called CleanShot. This is title it gave but I want to give it the title of the app and then Lightning Demo. So it's easily recognizable.

And then what I can do is copy the public link, go over to the workshop slides and go to the next slides where I copy and paste the URL over here. So in this case, I already did it. But what you do is you select the text and then CTRL+ K if command K in my case and then paste in the link. So do that for all the lightning demos that you have.

And maybe some tips, the first time it can feel awkward. And that's normal. It's really strange always to look at yourself on screen and also hear yourself talking. So what I recommend for your first five recordings is to record for first time then watch your recording and then record the second time because then you will see yourself talk and you see where you can improve.

And as a bonus, this will also help you to become a better presenter in general. And then the last step is to binge watch all your lightening demos. So all the previous steps and this step can be done asynchronously. So if you want to you can watch all the lighting demos on your TV. You simply go by the examples one by one.

You can see everyone else's example and then click the Loom video link and then watch it. And when you're doing that then make sure that you don't judge yet. Don't make decisions yet, just observe and see what others think can be used for inspiration and to capture anything that might be useful. So it takes screenshots of parts you like and also take notes of how it can help solve your challenge.

Because what you will notice when looking at the lighting demos, that inspiration will start to boil and you will make new connections and we'll see new possibilities. So capture that by writing things down and maybe drawing already a little bit. Because you want to use that energy for the next steps in solving your challenge.

And actually for this workshop, this is the last step. So you have binge watched all the lighting demos but what's next? What are next steps you could possibly take? In the book they go for the Four-Step Sketch. So they've gathered all the inspiration through the lighting demos and then they take a four step approach to sketching solutions.

An alternative could be dot voting, so that you, as a team give a signal on what lighting demos you think work best for your specific challenge. Or depending on a challenge you already could move to the prototyping part. If you want to learn more about these next steps, then click on this link, go to the Agile Product Development overview.

And here you see if page or 65 plus tools and best practices that you can use to wow your customers. As you can see, Four-Step Sketch and Prototype are there. I will add details videos in the near future for them as well. So if you want to be notified of those videos, then like and subscribe below. Hit the notification bell if you want to be the first to know.

That's it for now, thank you for watching. And see you in the next (indistinct) (upbeat music)