Start with your means.
Who you are, what you know, and whom you can reach.
AN EXPERIMENT IN COLLECTIVE INVENTION
Better ideas.
Built together.
Bring your experience. Borrow the room’s intelligence. Build something worth testing.
For confident daily AI users ready to do more. Combine effectuation, AI, and the room’s experience to advance a professional outcome—not just build something because you can.
ONE PERSON BRINGS A PERSPECTIVE.
THE ROOM CREATES A NEW POSSIBILITY. ↗
LIVE LAB
40 participants · 25 students + 15 alumni · 10 pods. Friday, January 29, 2027 · UVA Darden Sands Family Grounds, Rosslyn.
Explore the day →THE EXPERIENCE
One day. A new way to work.
Learn to combine AI capability, human judgment, and the experience in the room. Leave able to choose your own next move.
01BEFORE · THREE SHORT SESSIONS
Bring your means.
Define a professional outcome, answer a reality check, and bring a saved brief into the room.
Open your preparation ↗02DURING · SIX HOURSInvent with the room.
Combine independent thinking, unexpected expertise, rapid builds, and honest tests.
Enter the live lab ↗03AFTER · YOUR CHOICEChoose your next move.
Try another experiment, contribute to a peer, learn more, or stop. You set the pace.
Make a personal plan ↗THE DARDEN ADVANTAGE
A new perspective.
A useful challenge.
A possible first user.
Darden convenes and equips. Participants initiate, contribute, and follow through. The room expands what each person can learn.
Explore the first-user exchange ↗- 01
Think independently first
Record a solo idea before the group or AI steers it. Preserve the baseline.
- 02
Combine complementary means
Build on at least two people’s expertise, access, or lived experience.
- 03
Trade useful friction
Another pod tests a real task. Record behavior and failures, not applause.
- 04
Choose a contribution
If you choose to help, name the action, owner, date, and user fit. Participation creates no ongoing service obligation.
THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION
Effectuation, put to work.
Begin with available means. Act within affordable loss. Let willing stakeholders change what comes next.
Bound the experiment.
Agree the time, money, and exposure you can afford.
Co-create the direction.
Let committed partners reshape the opportunity.
Learn from surprise.
Use new constraints. Treat AI errors as errors until verified.
Keep human agency.
Make judgments and take actions. AI does not decide what matters.
THE COLLECTIVE ADVANTAGE
Make the community your multiplier.
Bring your firsthand experience, test with real peers, and discover what unexpected collaborations become possible when 40 creative practitioners build together.
Start your preparation ↗01 / BEFORE YOU ARRIVE
Start with
what you bring.
You already use AI. Spend 15 minutes defining a professional outcome, today’s baseline, and the experience you can contribute.
BIRD-IN-HAND INVENTORY
Your means, made visible.
Use non-confidential examples. Describe contact roles, not personal contact details. This stays in your browser.
Your ideation prompt
Paste into your institution-approved AI tool. Review what you share before using it.
02 / JANUARY 29 · THE LIVE LAB
From individual insight
to collective invention.
Turn daily AI fluency into a useful new capability. Define the user, professional outcome, baseline, and cheapest test before deciding what to build.
Ask the AI coach ↗The same conversation, using your saved preparation. Day-of workspace records are not sent to the coach.
RECIPROCAL TESTING · TWO 20-MINUTE ROUNDS
10 Pods · 5 Reciprocal Pairs
Pods are paired to provide structured peer testing without pitching, defending, or inventing validation. Each pod gets 20 minutes to observe a peer attempting their task, followed by 20 minutes testing the partner pod’s task.
Round A · 20 Minutes
Pods 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 operate their prototype.
Pods 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 attempt the task and record evidence.
Round B · 20 Minutes
Pods 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 operate their prototype.
Pods 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 attempt the task and record evidence.
01 · OperatorRuns the tool and gives the scenario. No guiding, explaining, or defensive coaching.
02 · Domain ChallengerProbes realistic workflow edge cases, messy data, and unstated domain assumptions.
03 · User ObserverTracks silently: where did the tester hesitate, misunderstand, or stop?
04 · Evidence StewardRecords what was tried, tester fit, what actually happened, what changed, and what remains unknown.
Final Demonstration Requirement: At least one part of each pod’s 3-minute final demonstration must explain what another person changed and why.
INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER TASK · BEFORE 4 PM
Apply what you learned to a fresh problem.
Before leaving today, apply what you learned independently to a fresh professional problem from your own work. This demonstrates your individual capability to define the user, baseline, cheapest test, and judge usefulness beyond the group demonstration.
The run of show
DON’T CONFUSE THE SIGNALS
A peer test improves usability. A target-user test examines fit.
Record whether the tester matches the intended role, task, and context. A friendly opinion, AI persona, or polished demo cannot establish demand.
03 / THE FIRST-USER EXCHANGE
Be useful to
someone else’s idea.
A willing tester. A relevant introduction. A real constraint. Offer a specific contribution if it fits your own goals and capacity. Continuing participation is optional.
This is a working exchange prototype. Saved in this browser. Export a packet to exchange with your pod; entries are not sent to other participants. Live cohort accounts and shared records are a launch decision.
MAKE A SPECIFIC ASK
Add your project
TURN GENEROSITY INTO ACTION
Record a voluntary offer
ACTIONS, OWNERS, DATES
Your commitment ledger
Record recipient acceptance, then completion or an explicit renegotiation. An offer is not yet an accepted commitment.
04 / AFTER THE PILOT · OPTIONAL
Choose your
own next move.
You are the engine of your goals. Use what you learned, find your own collaborators, and decide what is worth doing next.
Continue with the AI coach ↗Return to your preparation conversation if it helps you choose your next move.
Darden convenes and equips. Participants initiate, contribute, and follow through. There are no required clinics, ongoing project-service promises, or post-event participation targets. These tools are here if they help you.
Make one move.
Choose one experiment, learning task, or contribution you can initiate yourself.
Try a real task.
If you keep building, invite someone who fits the task and observe what happens.
Change your mind.
Use the optional journal below to record a surprise, revision, or decision to stop.
Contribute voluntarily.
Offer a bounded test or introduction. Seek consent and respect each person’s capacity.
A PERSONAL NEXT-MOVE CARD
One action you own.
OPTIONAL EVIDENCE JOURNAL
If you test, capture what changes.
Your evidence journal
Observations before conclusions.DESIGN STUDIO / FOR THE PLANNING TEAM
Define the day.
Design what follows.
The most consequential choices are about what participants learn, how they contribute, and what they can initiate for themselves.
YOUR PLANNING BRIEF
Make the key choices.
FROM PROTOTYPE TO COHORT TOOL
What needs an operating decision?
Account preparation and live-day work use a saved personal workspace. Participants can choose to share their name, offer, and ask in the cohort directory. Project packets can be exchanged directly. Organizers still need to confirm invitations, visibility, retention, and day-of support before launch.