These events have economic models based on the involvement of many partners and bring together participants who seek to feed on ever richer content. However, in the race to update knowledge, just as the event is barely over, it is already difficult to take advantage of what we have learned and connect with the people we met.

Establishing a long-term link is therefore fundamental for nurturing the relationship and making it grow, because while new technologies are indeed the ideal tool for instantaneity and multi-tasking, the human brain still needs a long time to establish a lasting bond of trust. That’s why these events must be designed as real communication scheme deployed over time, with the event as the highlight of the campaign.

Multi-player programmes make it possible to forge this link between public and private players, large or small, and from different sectors around a common cause. These associations very often generate added value: opening up to new prospects, attracting talent, creating business opportunities, setting up businesses, etc.

Multi-stakeholder programmes mobilise communities in the long term by offering them different kinds of meetings and forums for discussion, and often, a high-end event can create maximum media impact. For example, the programming committees that are held every two months bring together the major partners and so they can initiate co-construction for the fundamental points of the scheme.

This opportunities accelerator aside, these marketing and communication programmes that are made-to-measure, agile and adaptive have other key benefits, including:

• Bringing together different communities who have rarely had an opportunity to meet so they can reflect on innovations for societal issues

• Sharing costs and thanks to the economies of scale achieved, reach a bigger, different and broader audience

• Providing information on solutions provided and benefits for users instead of “pushing” a product/service

• Being perceived differently by the communities we are addressing by taking a position on a topic of societal innovation.

Opportunity generators, community “barrier-breakers”, creators of economies of scale, multi-player programmes, the expertise of the Hopscotch Group, compile and combine numerous benefits companies are all too often still unaware of.

In 2018, the Usine Extraordinaire – Extraordinary Factory – brought together a group of more than 400 manufacturers to talk about their professions and share their passions with more than 40,000 visitors, including 18,000 school pupils who came to the Grand Palais for the occasion. Fun, conviviality and the pleasure of being together in the midst of monumental machines made it possible to take the first step towards boosting the image of industry.

This could only be achieved thanks to the strength of the network and the collective. This collective, which has been active since December 2017, is organised through a Foundation that is pursuing its programme of actions in 2019, particularly in the regions.

This is further proof that these networked programmes are more relevant than ever in time when we are transitioning from a cut-throat competition system to a system of solidarity economy of flows and exchanges. The collective creativity of multi-player networks for the common good is a powerful engine for finding innovative solutions and for thinking outside the box.