New Innoventions Coming to EPCOT from IBM
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
No cast members could provide details about what to expect from behind the walled in area of Innoventions West. When asked, one even said “they never tell us anything”. The only clue I got was that “it’s something to do with computers”. Well… since the sponsor is IBM, it didn’t take a whole lot of thinking to guess that would be a part of the coming THINKplace.
You may have been familiar with the predecessor to this new exhibit. It had an interactive tic tac toe game and you got to do the digital snapshot/email thing. There was the “PlanetRider” that evolved in recent years to an invention game. 
It had a nice projection system, but never seemed to get a lot of attention from guests. It wasn’t exactly cutting-edge technology. Maybe it was because it didn’t really come from Disney Imagineers, but from a company called Thinc Design. (yes it’s spelled that way) The Thinc Design website shows a ton of great projects they have done for other museums and science centers. You can also see the details of the old THINKplace exhibits.
But it seems that now IBM has recently embraced the ThinkPlace as a new business model. That may give us more of a clue about what might be coming soon. A check of the IBM Research and Innovation site reveals that the ThinkPlace is a pretty cool new business practice from IBM that involves all of their employees. They say their ThinkPlace is “where inventive ideas mature into innovative solutions that can be rapidly developed and deployed”. If they can create an interactive exhibit area that demonstrates that in such a way that it gets visitors to stop on their way to the character greeting area, it may be the first in recent years to show really new innovations for a future world.
