So long, and thanks for all the fish.
They say that all good things must come to an end. Today we’re announcing that after six wonderful years, Jam is closing down.
To this day, we have thoroughly enjoyed everything we’ve done together. Our events were fun, different, and a pleasure to organise and run. You brought them to life and we couldn't be more grateful for all the great moments we enjoyed in your company.
In this announcement, we’d like to share the rationale behind this decision.
2020 has had a disastrous impact on society and the economy as a whole. From a business standpoint, companies operating in the events industry have been hit particularly hard.
Our revenues crashed, and we lost a considerable amount of money in deposits paid to venues – including Hawker House, who we were saddened to hear, are also in the process of closing down.
We successfully ran several online events throughout the year, but it quickly became clear to us that it was going to be impossible to recreate the experiences we'd created in the past, online.
But we didn't throw in the towel. At the end of the year, we attempted a pivot, and launched – Jam Club – an online community for our most committed members.
Our vision was to build a thriving space for growth-minded product leaders, offering intimate virtual workshops every month.
Pivoting from an in-person events company to an online community has proven significantly harder than we’d originally hoped, and the losses we accumulated in 2020 have proven too significant for us to overcome. And so now we’d rather stop here, celebrate the journey, and say a proper goodbye.
What now?
We’ll keep Jam Club open for the next six months. We won’t be moderating it or running any workshops, but you'll be able to access all workshop recordings, discussions, and member profiles. We hope you’ll be able to use it to reconnect with friends made at past events.
To claim your free invite just drop us a note at hello@makingjam.io.
You can also find all past talk videos on our YouTube channel.
Thank you
A huge thank you to our amazing team of staff and volunteers; Marta, Sunil, Jessie, Maria, Francesca, Stephen, Joan, Monica, Ecem, Steve, David, Michael, Mahtab, Eva, Gizem, Antoine, Jeff and all those that helped run our events every year. We’re deeply grateful for the friendship, shared memories, and support you’ve shown us over the years. We couldn’t have achieved everything we did without you.
Thank you to Doug and Chris at Intelligent People. You supported us from day one, and have always been a pleasure to work with.
Thank you to all our speakers and workshop instructors for all the brilliant content you’ve delivered over the years.
And thank you, for the good times we created together.
Seb & Mathilde
About
Blog
Design Sprints Done Right
Originally developed at Google Ventures, Design Sprints have been all the rage lately. A five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers, it’s a "greatest hits" of business strategy, innovation, behavior science, design thinking, and more—packaged into a battle-tested process that any team can use.
The workshop is fast-paced, hands-on, timeboxed, and immersive. We'll move from an initial product idea to a hi-fidelity prototype we'll use to test on live customers. You'll learn and practice different ideation techniques and the best methods to empathize with your customers, like Lightning Demos, Sketching, User Story Mapping, Prototyping and Customer Interviews.
By the end of the workshop, you'll have the right knowledge and process to drive hi-impact innovation inside your organization.
Who it's for
This workshop works best for creatives & product leaders from technology product companies that want to "learn by doing" the Design Sprint method.
Whether you're a Product Manager/Owner, Researcher, Marketer, Head of Innovation, CTO/VP of Engineering, Web Developer, UX/UI Designer or Creative/Art Director you will now be ready to have a seat at the table when designing products & services your customers really need.
This workshop is NOT for those wanting to sit back and hear the theory. You should come prepared to work hard in an intense, time-boxed, collaborative setting.
Key takeaways
How to lead a sprint, define and prioritize challenges, and choose the best starting point.
How to understand customers’ needs and map their journeys, and how to sketch innovative solutions in no time and make critical decisions fast.
How to spark ideas and answer crucial product questions within extreme time constraints.
How to motivate your team members and get the most out of their combined expertise.
About the instructor
John Vetan spent six years chartering the evolution of New Haircut’s design thinking process. Currently, as founder and strategist at the Design Sprint Academy, John is helping organizations around the world use and adopt design sprints as an effective way to innovate.