Futucortex is innovatively solving a problem faced by organizations globally. Every new organizational tool in organizations increases the information overload and complexity. Our unique approach to solving this problem is consolidating the data that is already being generated by various systems in different parts of the organization. This innovation provides instant value to users with relevant information and data-based recommendations while exposing them to new knowledge and parts of the organization. Additionally, the idea of a Connected Company helping globally reimagine the ways of work, communication, culture, knowledge sharing, and organizational structure with data makes this entry.

We conducted user research that led us to better understand the disconnections at hand. We found out that the major disconnect is to reach specific knowledge. As the amount of information increases continuously, finding the relevant information becomes harder. To succeed in one’s work, one must be able to tap into the knowledge of organization and community. Yet with the myriad of different systems, the information is easily dispersed all around the organization.

We learned that every employee, regardless of their role, spent hours finding knowledge to help them in their daily tasks. We recognized the problem worth solving was, "How can I find X knowledge in the organization efficiently?" This knowledge could be files, decisions, project materials, reports, and so on from all different sites. The goal was to enable employees to have meaningful conversations and make use of knowledge instead of laboriously looking for the right document.

As companies grow in size, they also grow in complexity and work gets divided into functional silos. Leaders are separated from frontline workers, clients, customers, and communication starts to break down. The true problem here isn’t size, it’s disconnection. The solution? A Connected Company, where data and AI build bridges between all the leaders, employees, clients, and markets.

We initiated our journey by using internal organization data and ran eight experiments to widen our understanding of disconnections. This led us to several concept testings of our possible directions and the idea of Futucortex - a connected platform came about. This platform would empower employees, optimize our ways of working, expose us to familiar and new knowledge while helping us get closer to our goal of a Connected Company.

The project started with the preliminary user's need validation by running multiple experiments in January 2020. Once the need was validated, the team moved on to the ideation phase in February, where multiple design directions were considered for the problem we were trying to solve for the users. After the team had decided upon the most suitable design direction for Futucortex, we started creating a high-level concept and created a clickable prototype to be able to test that with our user groups in March and April. This user testing allowed us to get feedback early on and helped validate the overall product and design direction we had taken for Futucortex. The feedback informed the design decisions and further iterations were done before the development started in June 2020 and continued till September. On 23rd September 2020, we had the first release of the minimum viable product of Futucortex. Since then, we have had multiple iterations, optimizations, and we have been expanding Futucortex with new data based on user’s feedback.

Timeline:

User's need validation by running experiments (January 2020)

Ideation stage (February 2020)

Concept creation and prototyping stage (March 2020 - April 2020)

Concept validation with users (April 2020 - May 2020)

Design iterations based on user feedback ( June 2020 )

Development (June 2020 - September 2020)

Minimum viable product, the first release (23rd September 2020)

Ongoing further iterations and optimization with releases ( September 2020 - present)

Once the user's problem was validated, we had multiple ideation sessions on how that problem could be solved which led us to the idea of innovatively using the organizational data to fill in the gaps and disconnections which come when organizations grow in size and complexity. The key to this innovation relies on syncing Futucortex with the organizational tools you already use (Gmail, Slack, Calendar, and so on). This allows Futucortex to fetch that data and present it in a contextual manner to help the employees, companies, and their clients to be data-informed at every step of their experience.

The majority of the design process focused on creating relevance. In order to do so, we employed machine learning and AI to populate the user interface with multiple internal data sources. We conducted further research to understand the user's intent and approach when finding knowledge; then used the findings to design interaction patterns that would complement their existing behavior. The design also focused on how new knowledge created in the organization can be fetched automatically from operational data sources and how its relevance, plus the ranking logic, can be automated to enrich the user experience and provide better value.

We have been mindful of how this transformation would enable us to have an impact on various levels. By connected data using AI, employees can better tap into organizational knowledge, get rid of meaningless repetitive work, increase efficiency, improve quality of work while being more opinionated, and expose themselves to new information. On an organizational level, transparency and effectiveness increase as people, materials, and topics are better connected. Data allows serendipitous knowledge discovery and collision of internal silos between people and material. On an industry level, this has the potential to disrupt the current model of organization management and connect organizations by omitting silos that percolate when an organization grows.

With a Connected Company, there is an opportunity with immense potential to globally reimagine the ways of work, communication, culture, knowledge sharing, and organizational structure.