For over 50 years, the team at frog has harnessed the power of in-person collaboration to help their clients bring new products to market and transform their businesses. Their process and the incredible outcomes they produce have earned them a reputation for excellence. There’s a reason brands like Porsche, GE, and Pfizer turn to Frog to inject new levels of innovation into their product design.
The role of in-person collaboration in frog’s process can’t be understated. When frog signs a client for a new project, they host them and their team at one of their 16 global studios for engaging workshops designed to help each other understand the challenge with new, diverse perspectives and empathy. Then, together with a shared sense of purpose, they generate ideas and find an innovative path forward, together.
At least — that was their process until COVID-19 hit and halted their ability to collaborate in-person. Jona Moore, Global Vice President of Technology at frog, states the challenge bluntly.
We had this very effective process that frog has done for the last 50 years that was in-person, highly collaborative, and in-room. At the start of the pandemic, we had three weeks to shift it entirely to digital.
Jona Moore, Global Vice President of Technology at frog
The challenge they faced wasn’t just one of replacing the whiteboard in their offices. They needed to recreate the energy and feel of being in a room together. “That energy is infectious,” says Amanda Villareal, Business Development Manager at frog. “And that was something we were concerned would be lost.”
It was a daunting task, and frog had no choice but to put their heads down and get to work. Miro had been used a bit within frog before the pandemic, and their team quickly saw its potential to recreate the feel of in-person collaboration. “What was exciting about Miro,” says Laura Baird, Frog’s Associate Design Director, “was that we were able to create virtual team rooms that felt a lot like our real team rooms.”
What makes frog unique isn’t just the work they do but the company’s global culture built around creativity and strategic thinking. Keeping that culture alive during the pandemic was also a priority. Mike Prusaitis is a program lead for frog’s global culture initiative, and he says Miro also helped maintain the culture. “Helping build community and bringing people together is where I believe the magic happens.”
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Throughout the pandemic, frog’s usage of Miro evolved. At some point, they realized they weren’t just recreating their old processes in Miro, but actually improving upon them and leveraging the strengths of virtual collaboration to create a new way of working for their team. “Initially, we thought that Miro would be a band-aid that would allow us to replicate some of the things we used to do in person,” said Laura Baird. “But as we used Miro we moved from skepticism to belief to innovation, and now we have a tool that’s at the core of what we do and will continue to extend into the future.”
Check out the Frog team in action, innovating with Miro:
