When planning an innovation event, it’s useful to explore what other companies call them and how often they occur. These events, often held by large tech and R&D teams, focus on collaboration, showcasing innovations, and driving business forward—especially for distributed teams. The benefits include maximizing ROI, spreading best practices, and energizing employees. While in-person events are valuable, virtual ones can be just as effective with lower costs.
Frequency
Aim for at least once per quarter to maintain progress. But many organizations may host them every month or two.
Format
A low structure Science Fair format is ideal for these events. This allows individuals to seek out the content and relationships that are most valuable to them.
Who's invited?
Quarterly Demo Day events may begin as an internal product development conference, but as the organization’s maturity grows usually all business stakeholders, sponsors and key partners are invited. This may include sales and customer service partners as well as finance, legal and other functions too.
Activities
They typically involve introducing the team’s product strategy and OKRs, presenting recent work, sharing learnings, explaining upcoming product roadmaps, and celebrating impact.
Examples of Event Names
- Demo Days – Target, Tesla
- HackWeek – Rocket Companies
- Dev Days – Electronic Arts
- Digital Days – IKEA
- Engineers Week – CVS Health
