An interview with Drew Jones

Drew Jones (right) is, along with Todd Sunsted (left), cofounder of Aquifer Design LLC. He and Todd also publish NotAnMBA. Among other projects, Drew is working on a book about coworking, and he and Julie have been working together to make InnovationCamp and Innovation Labs a reality in Austin. I caught up with Drew recently to find out what he does, how he does it, and what’s up with all this innovation stuff.

Spike Gillespie: Tell me a little about NotAnMBA.com — how and why did it start? What is its purpose?
Drew Jones: About two years ago Todd and I began collaborating on building an educational application that could cut through the mounds of crap that constitute the world of business education. That was called cafeen — an application that Todd built and still sits on the shelf. NotanMBA is a prose version of our rant against the soulless, stultifying world of business education (where I come from).

Spike: Let’s talk about Innovation Labs and Innovation Camps. First, what is an Innovation Lab? How does it work? Can you give me a hypothetical scenario?
Drew: First, I’ve just discovered that InnovationLabs is actually a company in Walnut Creek, CA, so using that name might get a bit dodgy. It (as well as InnovationCamp) is inspired by creativity mashups that I’ve noted over the past several years. Particularly, I really like IDEO’s space called the GYM, which is an innovation center where they bring in small corporate groups and take them on a creative journey. They also send groups out shopping for theirs and competitors’ products to collect ‘artifacts’ from the field. The idea is to get out of familiar spaces and relationships, and take on new roles in other people’s shoes. It is an empathy-building process akin to what anthropologists experience in the field.

InnovationCamp and Innovation Labs are purely experimental, but in the same spirit as the type of experience that IDEO tries to create for its participants. The Camp concept is lifted straight from BarCamp — an unconference with very few rules, where everyone is encouraged to be a participant, not just listener. Innovation Labs is similar in that we look to create cross-pollination mashups, but for one particular company.

This is what Aquifer Design intends to do as a followup to the camp: We will meet with a few senior people at company X about a particular problem domain they have — a question about extending or canceling a product line, a query around consumer insight research to probe for a new service offering, a need to reposition an existing brand through a fresh corporate identity treatment, an HR problem where employees are so risk averse that no one is willing to take chances, etc. We will then invite a few young designers (many of whom currently live and roam in coworking spaces), who tend to approach and solve problems in entirely new (i.e Millennial) ways. We see the ultra pragmatic, tech-tool laden young designers as a go-to source of creative outsourcing for lumbering companies who currently can’t get out of their own way. We call this process ‘innovation outsourcing.’ We hope that InnovationCamp is the first of many efforts at this.

Spike: You and Julie are putting on an Innovative Camp in June. What do you hope to accomplish?
Drew: Austin is the perfect community, and GSD&M Idea City is an awesome space for Innovation Camp. Julie and I share a GenX/Boomer fascination with the creative energy that is out there among designers young and old. While we don’t know for sure what will happen, we hope that the interest, conversations, and projects that are sparked there will continue. Our hope is that, going forward, Innovation Labs can extend this energy at Launchpad Coworking. If we can splice this first one together just right, Julie and I are hoping that LPC will be Austin’s GYM. We want it to be the place where creativity and talent meet up and where tangible things are envisioned and created.

Spike: Is there a “best mix” when bringing types of people together to solve problems?
Drew: I’m not sure if there is a best mix, and we are still trying to figure out whom to call in. Each community has its own cultural/economic signature, so we should go with that. In terms of Austin, obviously the tech community will hopefully be well-represented. Also, I hope for the sustainable architecture community to turn up, those interested in public transportation would be great, and those interested in innovative approaches to education would be really helpful. Also, I would love to have the “low-tech” (i.e. real) artists — installation artists like you see at Burning Man and Flipside, as well as film and video folks. Bring them all on!

Spike: Is this a free system where people simply join in to help others and gain what knowledge they can? Or are some attendees paid?
Drew: InnovationCamp is free and totally open. It is a Woodstock for collaboration and innovation. Innovation Labs will be part of Launchpad Coworking’s and Aquifer’s business, and we will bill for those. Ideation and strategy creation is (sometimes) a rather high-level thing, and companies already spend significantly there. We envision a new model where we play a leading role in the discovery phase of successful innovation (Discover, Define, Develop).

Spike: Do you, personally, have a favorite process for problem solving?
Drew: Having spent many years in academics, my routines to date are very solo and very selfish. This is partly why I am drawn to do work that is more collaborative than in my past. Right now, I am really into covering all the walls of my office in poster size post-it notes, so that I visually write out what I’m thinking. This gives Todd and me a common visual to work from. Also, we use Google Docs extensively for just about everything we do. It is the ultimate platform for collaboration when not in the same place. I’m almost done with using Microsoft stuff (including Word) altogether.

Spike: I’m a freelance writer. What’s an example of a problem I might present to a group, and who might be included in that group? What might I expect to gain from the experience?
Drew: We have encountered freelance writers in most of the coworking spaces/communities we have visited in our research. So it is a central trope in the scene. As for what can be gained there, I think a process where people actually shared pieces, read each other’s pieces, and tried to collaborate on writing about a specific topic would be illuminating. Really hard, but productive. I find collaborative writing really tough, as I’ve written academic things by myself for years. But when Todd throws in a really rich section or chapter, I have a deep sense that the project is definitely better than if I did it all by myself. Getting this kind of boost from others is empowering. It is a process of letting go, but the return on that is a strange but great feeling.

From a different angle, I would think that in a session where writers gather there might exist some synergies in terms of interests, editorial, etc, which might spark ideas for a shared publication or blog. Many of these exist already, obviously, but so much of it is crap. There will always be room for good writing, especially good writing in one place. Harper’s had to start somewhere!

photo by Amit Gupta