I attended Carnegie Mellon as an Industrial Design major. One critical component of this major was spending time 'in the studio.'
A painting on the wall greeted every student while entering CMU's ID department. Rendered in homage to Roy Lichtenstein in a pop-art motif, the words in its speech bubble: "He became ill and couldn't leave the studio."
(Well, not exactly this image, but one in it's likeness. Despite my best google detective work, apparently finding a real photo of the painting is the digital equivalent of Bigfoot.)
For industrial designers (and really all types of designers), the Studio approach has long been a part of innovation. You've likely seen various versions of this on television, here, here, here, and occasionally here. But definitely not here.
The inside joke of the painting, of course, was whether the studio made him ill, the work itself, or that (yes, dear student, work harder), he was too consumed mentally that he couldn't bear to leave.
If you've ever witnessed an aforementioned 'build off' on TV, you'll know that endless late nights of dedication are synonymous within a studio. I can tell you from experience that there is a deeper emotional connection to your work when you're in a studio environment.
You want others to see your success, to showcase your results, yet also gain guidance from others who excel at different skills. It's competitive, brutally honest, and life-changing. There are no sacred cows. There is no crying in baseball.
In a word, it's infectious.
And, it's why for the 100's of years that craft-based skills have been part of modern life (metalworking, letterpress, upholstery, and so on) they have happened in a studio-like environment. From Frank Lloyd Wright, to the Eames, to Harvey Earl — they became ill and couldn't leave.
Sorry excel jockeys and Jersey-housewife 'designers,' the studio is where innovation happens.
The general formula is always the same:
Massive Talent + Compressed Timeframe + Unreal Expectation + Pressure Cooker = Magic.
While the skill sets have migrated away from anvils and lead-type to Crowd-funding and Photoshop, the principle of the studio equation remains unchanged. Let's dig a little deeper into the rabbit hole:
Massive Talent — A studio is only as good as it's talent mix. A truly holistic set of experts that represent all the critical arms in a business are required: Business, Brand, Marketing, Design, Development. This talent recipe must be as diverse as it is cohesive. It needs to draw on disparate experiences (say like launching nearly 300 companies) in order to uncover those truly remarkable insights in the next program.
Compressed Timeframe — If there is no deadline, you are called an artist. No new venture has the luxury of time or complacence in this day and age. A compressed timeframe forces decisions and it forces rank importance. Time is a critical enforcer. It reduces iteration churn and separates the truly valuable ideas from the irrelevant.
Unreal Expectations — You might think this is all for the 'magic' of TV. However, these expectations are critical to driving emotional connections. Quality, time, cheap, or scope — or in consulting speak: Good, fast, cheap, or big. Here, it's not the usual 'pick-two,' it's almost always 'I'll have all four.' The key to creating an immersive and engaged team is you're about to pull off the impossible. Launch a company in 90 days. Sure. Unseat the 800 lbs gorilla. Yes please. If it was easy, someone would have done it already. Sign us up.
And you know what they say... "If you can't take the heat..."
Pressure Cooker — Here is where most innovation dies. The true reason studios produce results is intensive immersion and participation. The team has to live and breath the same air. They need to be entrenched in the nuances of the business and the end consumers. Whenever there is a gap in that understanding failure becomes an option. The entire team — clients and partners — has to share in the journey, its urgency, and the potential reward. Most importantly: everyone has to do the work. Together.
True innovation in healthcare can only come from a studio approach. And, only a studio environment can add value each stage of a company's growth.
Innovation requires dedicated high-power resources unshackled from corporate or institutional bureaucracy. Traditional models of race-to-the-bottom-price freelancing, outdated outsourcing models, and mentor-type networks simply don't address the nuances of a healthcare initiative. In fact, many of these approaches add more noise than signal to the system. They produce uncompelling results, take too long, or cost too much.
This is why Thinktiv has always focused on in-sourcing teams directly into the C-Suite of a company — building outcomes for the Fortune 500 all the way to the earliest-stage entrepreneur.
Maybe it's time you caught the studio bug.