One of the things I like about social media is that they remind me of past events. More than a decade ago on a very hot July 1st 2010, we launched a new concept. Little did we know how much ripples it would create …

I’m talking of the launch of the first “Patient Room of the Future”, or PRoF1.0 as we would call it later. The concept room is still there, accompanied by additional concepts that received inspiring names PRoF2.0 up to 5.0 ;-).

However, for me it was not just about the rooms: while creating the concept we kickstarted a vibrant ecosystem of profit and non-profit partners, combining the strengths of industry and care. The PRoF consortium became my personal discovery path on how to create and manage partnerships and turn projects into a sustainable ecosystem.

The initial idea that Jan Van Hecke presented leading up to the launch seemed like a fun project to me that could create valuable insights and exposure for Televic Healthcare Solutions, the company where I was general manager at that time. It was demanding but also fun to create the first ideas and build the concept to show to the press on July 1, 2009. The launch was great, the mood, the atmosphere and even the temperatures were very high.

It was only 4 months later that I really grasped what we had done: at a professional care fair everybody was talking about the concept. Those who visited explained how innovative an interesting it was, resulting in even more becoming eager to visit. The participating organisations were proud, those who did not (yet) participate wanted to join.

It became clear to me that we established more than a mere innovative concept or project, it was a partnership that could grow beyond the project and evolve into an ecosystem. We had to take a smart collaboration approach.

Over the past decade the initial partnership has grown. As more and more partners joined, we had to figure out how to structure the ecosystem, set out rule for participation, roles of the partners, financial consequences, contracts, legal structure (or not).

All those lessons learned are now part of my book Win-Winnovation (available on Amazon) so that others can learn from my experiences. This summer I’m launching “The collaboration academy” and my masterclass win win collaboration so that more of us acquire the skillset to create smart collaborations, partnerships and ecosystems.

Let me know when you want more info.