Note to Self… NotAnMBA Studio?

Innovation doesn’t just happen. Despite popular myth, innovation rarely results from light bulbs going off over the heads of isolated individuals. Rather, it is most often collaborative. Consider the IDEO Way, which consists of five basic steps

• Observation
• Brainstorming
• Rapid Prototyping
• Refining
• Implementation

Each step requires teams of people collaborating. Likewise, check out the design methodology at Gravity Tank and Jump Associates. Same goes here. Teams of researchers dive deep into user experiences, researchers then work with designers (and customers) in the brainstorming and rapid prototyping processes, tapping into collective imagination and perspective all along the value chain.

Design firms build these collaborative communities around specific client briefs and personal passions, most often within the context of a physical design studio. Following the open-ended imagination used by the innovation agency What If?, what if the dispersed creatives that make up the global coworking movement (Indy Hall, Citizen Space, Workspace, Launchpad coworking, Office Nomads, Indoor Playground, Station C, The Hive, PariSOMA, Hat Factory, Berkeley Coworking, Sandbox Suites, etc etc) could collaborate via an online studio, where they could post, share and provoke via:

• sketches/drawings
• pictures of models, mock-ups, prototypes
• consumer ethnographies/use scenarios
• new business concepts
• reflections on ongoing or recently completed projects
• lessons learned/lessons to be taught

Many of these fora already exist in other types of places. But I’ve yet to see a co-design studio meant to cohere the creativity of the globally dispersed creatives living in the coworking space right now.

Key words: Co-Design, Google Labs, Green Design, _____, ____, ____, _____ ?