Boris Naguet de Saint Vulfran, moved from FABERNOVEL INNOVATE (Paris) to PARISOMA (San Francisco).

FABERNOVEL: Since when and for how long have you been in San Francisco?

BORIS: I will be working at the San Francisco office from April 30th to May 20th, and will return for the whole month of July.

F: What kind of projects are you working on?

B: I'm essentially working on the innovation platform project we're doing for a publishing group.

Deliverables are quite varied, strategic intelligence, POC ideation and production, brainstorming workshops with a community of internal innovators…

The rest of the time (~30%), I help the San Francisco team on their missions or commercial proposals.

We do a lot of Innovation Outposts and Digital Academies, these are very common project formats here. But these are not the only types of missions, Stéphane and Charlotte are for example selling design experience for Khushi at the Vadodara airport in India.

F: What are your first impressions? What surprised you the most when you arrived in San Francisco?

B: I think what struck me the most was Parisoma: journalists, start-ups, an accelerator, FABERNOVEL.  It's hard not to immerse yourself in the San Francisco atmosphere!

Even with 9 hours of jet lag and 9000 km away from Paris, you can feel the FABERNOVEL spirit. The team is young, passionate and very welcoming. There are Friday breakfasts, Faberlunches, speedmeetings… Finally, one of the biggest differences is that the local bakery serves a little less pies or salads and puts a little more meat in its sandwiches!

F: What do you expect from this experience?

B: In addition to the different missions, meetings and collaborations, I would like it to become easier and more systematic to collaborate with the team here.

We are lucky to have a lot of people to rely on for our missions but it is not yet in our habits to help each other punctually between business units. Sometimes, at INNOVATE, we look for information on start-ups, on Techcrunch or The verge while the San Francisco team sees them 2 or 3 times a year in learning expeditions. They even come to pitch their latest products and services at Parisoma events. I think we can do better!