Alone, Impossible.
Together, Inevitable.
We help human-centered brands solve their biggest challenges through counter-cultural collaboration and innovation.
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Our Offerings
01.
Innovation Sprints
We help teams solve big challenges and test new ideas through a four-day, immersive process known as an Innovation Sprint. Based on Google's Design Sprint, the Innovation Sprint is a structured, step-by-step system that empowers multi-disciplinary teams, accelerates innovation, and maximizes ROI.We use Innovation Sprints not only for product and service innovation, but also for helping teams co-create solutions to their biggest challenges across a variety of issues.Learn more about how we use Innovation Sprints to fast-track your team's work, collaboration, and impact.
02.
Lightning Rounds
We offer 1-2 day customized workshops that accelerate your team's strategic alignment and problem-solving.As a foundational step toward the full value of our four-day sprints, our Lightning Round workshops incorporate guided activities that kickstart your collaborative work and light the way forward in your design and innovation process.Learn more about how we use Lightning Rounds to help you quickly establish your strategic and creative foundation for innovation.
03.
Custom Workshop Design
Have a specific challenge or topic you need to address? We design and facilitate custom workshops that help your team co-learn and co-create on issues and topics that will elevate their knowledge and impact.Our customized workshops address topics such as:
Counter-Cultural Collaboration
Strategy
Leadership
Culture
Generative AI
Storytelling
Brand innovation
And more...
Connect with us to learn how we can design a customized workshop for you and your team.
04.
Speaking
We deliver fun, engaging, and provocative talks in every setting—large conferences to small gatherings, corporations to non-profits, large teams to small teams, and more—inspiring people to better collaborate, innovate, and elevate their impact.Led by Shun-Luoi Fong, our founder and CEO, we speak on the following topics, but customize every presentation to meet your needs and goals.
On Counter-Cultural Collaboration
On Listening: the Key to Powerful Collaboration
Generative Together: AI & The Human Experience
Building Your Strategic Brand
01.
Listen. Learn. Love.
We Listen.
Our collaborative work begins by asking questions and listening well so we can truly understand people—their aspirations, challenges, fears, hopes, dreams.We Learn.
By listening well we learn, and develop the knowledge and insights needed to co-create solutions that move the needle for your audience and organization.We Love.
When we take the time to listen and learn, we can then love—the problems, the solutions, and the people who will benefit from our collaborative work.
02.
Immersive Experiences
We craft innovation sprints and workshops that immerse your team into experiences that are fun, energizing, and effective. The return on your investment (ROI) is not only financial, but also elevates your team's:
Communication
Collaboration
Process
Productivity
Culture
Purpose
Innovation
Learning & Development
Our immersive experiences don't just lead to faster innovation, alignment, and high-performing teams. They also lead to more impactful solutions and delighted customers.
03.
Agile by Design
In a rapidly changing world, the best solutions are found through collaborative approaches that are responsive to each unique situation.We embrace an agile mindset, but also bring a healthy dose of flexibility to collaborate with you according to your needs, goals, and culture.
Open and collaborative culture
Love the problem
Pursue the outcome
Test, learn & adapt
Diverse teams & perspectives
Right approach to right problem
Care for the individual human
Great work is done in person
04.
Human Centered
We place humans at the center of our work—their aspirations, needs, and challenges—to ensure that together we lead the way in:
Creating and activating human-centered strategies and frameworks
Creating the right solutions to the right problems
Inviting our target audience into the co-creative process
Co-creating sustainable value for people, communities, and society
Building holistically human-centered organizations
05.
Collaborative To Our Core
We believe the most innovative and impactful brands are the ones who have nurtured deep cultures of collaboration. It’s in our DNA.As Reid Hoffman once said, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”We bring that deep, collaborative teamwork to every partnership, and love working with those who do the same. In that way we win together.
Ready to get started?
Our Approach
Brands we've worked with
Book an Intro
Have additional questions? Email us at [email protected].
Forge
Book an Intro
Have additional questions? Email us at [email protected].
Forge
We co-create
Collaboration. Innovation. Impact. Connection. Courage. Design. Results. Fun.
We co-create collaboration
We live in a world where people crave the kinds of connections and collaborations that empower them to do truly meaningful and impactful work. But creating that is hard.Like, really hard.Many leaders struggle to create collaborative culture in their organizations, and fail to help their people design and execute innovative solutions that move the needle.Forge was founded to solve this challenge.At Forge, we're passionate about helping leaders and organizations collaborate better, and through that to create stronger teams, healthier cultures, and greater impact.
Our Origin Story
For 25+ years, Shun-Luoi Fong, our Founder and CEO, partnered with brands across multiple sectors, industries, and areas. During that time he consistently observed organizations struggling to create and sustain collaborative and innovative cultures and work.His passion to solve this problem was ignited, and he turned his focus to leading organizations through innovation sprints, lightning rounds, and trainings to help them better collaborate and co-create solutions to their biggest challenges.And thus Forge was born.With a gift for galvanizing and guiding teams to do truly transformative work, and a passion for helping leaders and teams flourish, Shun-Luoi leads the Forge team, and actively works with client partners through the design and facilitation of sprints and workshops.
Our Founder's Story
Shun-Luoi is a highly relational leader, strategist, and creator, with 25+ years of experience leading organizations in strategy, brand, digital experience, storytelling, and collaboration design and leadership.He is also faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder, teaching design and innovation courses in the Master of Strategic Communications Design program.His thoughtful integration of human-centered design, technology, and shared human experiences work toward solving “wicked problems,” all while being led by his empathetic and strategic mantra—listen, learn, love, create.A colleague once had this to say, which captures well how he seeks to live his life:“You’re a killer strategist, incredible people manager and inspirer, and overall awesome human. You also always made me feel “safe” from the second we met, a descriptor I would give to few people in this world. That’s your superpower…approachability and trust and human connection. In short, you’re a badass.”And now the important stuff. He's husband to an amazing wife and dad to four beautiful, full-of-life children. He enjoys building creative community, travel, reading, art, musicals, baking, Thai food, games, hiking/backpacking, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.This is his story. But...
It's not really about us
It's about you and your story. You...
Reject mediocrity
Are a work in progress
Zag when everyone else zigs
Are always learning and growing
Want sparring partners at the table
Want your target audience at the table
Reject bullshit strategy, creativity, & culture
Cherish healthy conflict in the creative process
Have no patience for maintaining the status quo
Empower people to do the best work of their lives
Know you and your team must be bold or be ignored
Believe you and your team must collaborate or perish
And you’re committed to making your dent in the universe.If this is you, let's talk.We’d love to help you and your team do just that.
Book an intro today, and let's co-create a world as it ought to be.
Forge
Our Collective
We bring the best people to the table.
We're continuously growing a global team of expert collaborators and facilitators who we bring to the table to make every sprint, lightning round, and workshop a smashing success.Want to do meaningful, high-impact work with amazing teammates and client partners?Get in touch and let's talk.
Forge
Contact Us
Let's Connect. collaborate. Co-create. Work Together.
We're always ready to collaborate with great clients and partners.Reach out to us for new business opportunities, speaking engagements, press inquiries, or to learn more about our collective.
Prefer email? Reach out to us at [email protected].
Forge
Innovation Sprints
Your big challenges, ideas, and solutions. In just 4 days.
Our Innovation Sprints provide a structured, step-by-step system that empowers your team to solve critical business challenges over the course of four days.Compressing months of work into less than a week, our sprints are led by expert facilitators and collaborators who help your team co-create quickly and effectively using design, prototyping, and testing of ideas with real customers.It’s a bullet-proof process that can be used by any team, and be applied to your biggest challenges across multiple industries and areas including:
Technology
Education
Health & Wellness
Finance
Hospitality
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Social Impact
Leadership & Culture
Strategy & Story
And more…
The design sprint gives your team a shortcut to learning, without building and launching.
From ideas to learning. No expensive commitment required.
The typical methods of design and innovation are often inefficient, time intensive, costly, and leave teams feeling frustrated at the glacial pace of progress.Our Innovation Sprints solve this problem, empowering your team to rapidly design solutions that are tested with real customers, providing insights, clarity, and alignment for further innovation, all in four days.Or, as the official Design Sprints website states:"Instead of waiting to launch a minimal product to understand if an idea is any good, you’ll get clear data from a realistic prototype. The sprint gives you a superpower: You can fast-forward into the future to see your finished product and customer reactions, before making any expensive commitments."
The innovation sprint gives your team a shortcut to learning, without building and launching.
Innovation Sprints - How they work
An Innovation Sprint is a structured, step-by-step process that takes place over the course of 4 days, and requires only the following:
An important, well-defined "sprint challenge"
A team of 5-7 people
A decision maker (sprint sponsor)
A dedicated physical space designed for creativity
4 days cleared on your calendars
Our team of master facilitators, strategists, and designers will come alongside your team not only to facilitate the sprint, but also to participate, helping co-create the ideas, sketches, prototypes, testing, and learnings that will launch your team into the next steps in your innovation process.
Book an intro today, and let's accelerate your team through an innovation sprint.
Forge
Lightning Rounds
Strategic Alignment and Rapid innovation. In just 1-2 days.
Lightning Rounds are our strategic alignment and rapid innovation workshops that set the foundation for teams to proceed to the next steps in their innovation process. These intensive 1 to 2-day sessions are designed to jumpstart your team's creative problem-solving process and achieve strategic alignment in a remarkably short time frame. By distilling the foundational elements of our comprehensive four-day sprints, Lightning Rounds offer a powerful, condensed experience that can swiftly address pressing challenges or kick off larger initiatives.
Your foundation for forward momentum...it's fast, fun, and flexible.
In these dynamic workshops, we guide your team through a carefully curated sequence of activities, each designed to stimulate collaborative thinking and drive concrete results. From setting the stage and deep-diving into problem understanding, to reframing challenges and generating solution concepts, Lightning Rounds cover significant ground quickly. The process is both structured and flexible, allowing for customization to your specific needs while ensuring that every minute counts. By the end of a Lightning Round, your team will not only have a clearer strategic direction but also tangible ideas and action plans to move forward with confidence and momentum.
Lightning Rounds: A Structured Step-by-step Process
Our Lightning Round workshops follow a structured, yet flexible process, and can include the following:
Set the stage
Ask, listen, and learn
Understand the problems
Reframe the problems
Define the target
Define the outcomes
Map the journey
Lightning demos
Solution concepts
Strategic alignment
Book an intro today, and let's accelerate your team's innovation and impact.
Forge
Custom Workshops
Immerserive Collaboration Experiences
Every organization faces unique challenges and opportunities for their business, team, and audience. Our custom workshops are tailored to address your specific needs, whether you're exploring current topics like Generative AI or tackling complex issues in strategy and leadership.With each workshop we bring the right content experts and master facilitators to work closely with you to create immersive, interactive experiences that not only educate but also inspire action and drive real change within your team.
Tangible Results for your team and organization
Our workshops are built on a foundation of collaborative learning and hands-on problem-solving. We employ a range of techniques and tools to ensure maximum engagement and knowledge retention. From ideation sessions and strategic alignment to role-playing exercises and scenario planning, we craft each workshop to deliver tangible outcomes.Whether you're looking to foster innovation, align your team on a new strategy, or grow your team’s knowledge, our custom workshops provide a powerful platform for collective growth.
Customized to your needs and goals
Our customized workshops address topics such as:
Counter-Cultural Collaboration
Strategy
Leadership
Culture
Generative AI
Storytelling
Brand innovation
And more...
Book an intro today, and let's collaborate on your next team workshop.
Forge
Speaking
Shun-Luoi Fong, Founder & CEO
4 Presentations for 2024
01.
Counter-Cultural Collaboration for Culture-Creating Innovation
Many leaders and organizations say they’re collaborative. But are they really? Or is it another empty buzzword disconnected from the reality of the working experience for so many people?What if you could create and nurture a truly collaborative culture in your organization—a counter-cultural collaboration—that rejects the status quo, and gives rise to healthier teamwork, faster innovation, and greater impact.In this provocative presentation and Q&A session, Shun-Luoi Fong provides a new vision for organizational collaboration and collaborative leadership, and an actionable framework for helping your organization experience more effective and sustainable collaboration.Written around your specific context, needs and goals, this presentation typically cover elements such as:
The art and science of collaboration
Collaboration and the individual…mindset, skills and practice
Why collaboration requires both individual and collective work
The marks of a highly collaborative organization
Collaboration examples and case studies
How to stop wasting time and get sh*t done
A framework for counter-cultural collaboration
02.
On Listening: The Key to Powerful Collaboration
In the fast-paced world, we're often so focused on speaking, presenting, and pushing our ideas forward that we overlook a critical skill: listening. Yet, true innovation and effective collaboration hinge on our ability to truly hear and understand others.In this engaging and eye-opening talk, Shun-Luoi Fong reveals how mastering the art of listening can transform your team's dynamics, spark creativity, and drive unprecedented success. You'll discover:
Why listening is the hidden superpower of great leaders and innovators
How poor listening habits sabotage collaboration and stifle innovation
Practical techniques to enhance your listening skills and create a culture of open communication
Real-world case studies of leaders and organizations that have leveraged the power of listening to achieve breakthrough results
03.
Generative Together: AI & The Human Experience
We all know generative AI is fundamentally changing our world, our businesses, and our work. It’s happening, for better and worse.How then should we be thinking about it? How can we strategically approach generative AI in our own work and organizations. And most importantly, how do we ensure it's used in ways that is beneficial to the human experience—for our teams, our customers, and the world around us.In this presentation and Q&A session that's both provocative and practical, Shun-Luoi Fong provides a clear picture for how you can embrace generative AI to create generative human experiences that help people and society flourish.Written around your specific context, needs and goals, this presentation typically cover elements such as:
Technology for human experience and flourishing
GenAI: its past, present and future
GenAI in your organization…a strategic approach
GenAI use cases
GenAI examples and case studies
GenAI practices and tips
GenAI for a better human experience…opportunities, risks and ethics
04.
Building Your Strategic Brand
Can your organization be successful without strategy? Yes, it can. But without strategy, will your organization experience its full potential for growth and impact? That’s a hard no.In this presentation and Q&A session, Shun-Luoi Fong provides a clear vision and playbook for infusing strategy across all aspects of your organization in order to create unique value and advantage that will set your organization up for long term health, growth and impact…both internally and externally.Topics explored can include:
What strategy is…and what it isn’t
What strategy does…and what it doesn’t do
Why you need strategy…in both thought and action
Examples of strategic organizations
How to craft strategy for any situation
How to train your people to think and act strategically
Strategic frameworks, practices and tips