Creative Hubs
Moulding the workplace for innovation generation
In an increasingly challenging world emerging from the global financial crisis, corporations face competition as they have never seen it before. Innovation and speed to market are critical success factors for any corporation. This decade will see great opportunities and challenges in the workplace, both at the level of the individual trying to use the scarce resource of time more effectively; and at the level of the organisation trying to manage a dispersed workforce while creating the spirit and teamwork necessary to generate new ideas and to thrive. One of the critical corporate challenges is how the workplace can stimulate creativity and innovation. This question is not so much about space, but rather how corporate culture can be developed and the role that the design of physical environment can play to drive that change.
Conventional workplaces are more likely to inhibit creativity and innovation than support it. In Asia, many cultures have traditionally not encouraged free-thinking and creativity in the workplace to the same degree as other cultures around the world — and this needs to change if Asia is to grow its own dynamic, world-leading brands and “breakthrough” products.
What then is the role of the corporate workplace in stimulating creativity and innovation? A consistent trend in commercial and government organisations is that more emphasis is being given to spaces, both formal and informal, that support interaction and collaboration and overcome organisational hierarchies.
Supporting innovation and creativity
One specialised type of space for interaction and collaboration that is forming part of progressive corporate working landscapes is the “Innovation Centre” designed to ‘hothouse’ or accelerate the development of new ideas and concepts into new products or services. These Innovation Centres can also serve as community hubs for dispersed organizations or for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) belonging to a particular market sector or geographic location.
The fostering of innovation and creativity is also supported at a regional, national and international level. It is seen by policy-makers in knowledge-based economies in Europe and in particular as a way of securing competitive advantage and of supporting sustainable economic growth. The manifesto of the 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation stated “The world is moving to a new rhythm. To be at the forefront of this new world, Europe needs to become more creative and innovative.” The Cox Review (2006) in the UK stated that “for UK plc to succeed in tomorrow’s competitive world, we have to base our success on design, innovation, creativity, exploitation of technology and speed to market. There is no other attractive, viable future for the UK economy.”
Innovation Centres were defined in 2006 by the Open Futures group (established as part of a European Union Framework program on collaborative working environments) as workplaces specifically designed to encourage creative behaviours and support innovation. Open Futures suggested that Innovation Centres should:
- emphasise the dislocation of innovation processes from day to day activity,
- eliminate organisational hierarchy,
- encourage participation and
- focus on collaboration, face-to-face communications, mind/body and physical activity including play rather than on technology.
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First generation innovation spaces have tended to either be design- or technology-led. In ‘design-led’ centres, described as the ‘New economy funky office’ by Van Meel en in 2001, the main aim seems to be to utilise gimmicks and flashy design to emphasize the difference from conventional office space. Examples of this type of space have included inflatable rooms, cars and surfboards suspended in office areas and living grass floors in boardrooms. The goal of technology-rich workspace, on the other hand, seems to be to show off the occupants’ mastery of information technology and leading-edge positioning. Technology spaces enabled with “kinetic walls”, odour projection and sophisticated audio-visual (‘war-room’) systems are examples of these types of spaces. Often, however, these high-technology installations give insufficient consideration to the nature and diversity of human face-to-face communications or the need to develop a sound business case for their purchase and operation. Successful innovation spaces are the result of an integration of all of the following factors: the design of the space; the artefacts and physical objects within the space; the innovation processes that take place with the space; and the overall user experience. The goal of such investments should be to create memorable, collaborative and immersive experiences for participants. These experiences may involve the use of advanced technologies but are equally likely to include gaming, theatre and other people-centred activities.
The examples below include a company-specific innovation hub, a business/ academic innovation hub and a sector-focused members’ club that encourages and supports innovation and creativity.
Corporate Innovation Hubs for Global Consumer Goods Company
For several years DEGW has been working with a worldleading consumer goods corporation on a series of brandcentred, cross-functional innovation hubs to support the development of new products in their Consumer Healthcare business. These hubs are part of a five-year plan to double growth in this area of the business. The goal of the hubs is to bring together people from all functions related to development, sales and marketing for a specific product into a single team space. This team space includes individual workspace, quiet zones for research and other individual concentrated work tasks as well as a range of informal and formal meeting spaces. Project Rooms are used to “hothouse” new ideas in intensive workshops, surrounded by their own products and those of competitors.
Pre- and post-occupancy evaluations of the Innovation Hubs were used to measure the effectiveness of the investment. This evaluation process clearly demonstrated the business benefits, including:
- Speed of decision making increased by 45%
- Daily time lost decreased by 67% (40 minutes/day)
- Perceived responsiveness to market increased by 17%
- Group effectiveness increased by 42%
- Observed collaboration increased by 8%
- Improved access to decision makers up by 26% to 82%
While many of these measures are qualitative assessments of the users’ perceptions of how the Hubs are working, the Hubs have also had very positive direct business benefits. The Consumer Healthcare Division has achieved its growth targets by using the physical environment as an enabler to drive innovation and has initiated new, highly profitable campaigns that were developed in the Innovation Hubs as a result of cross-functional collaboration. For example, one new marketing campaign led to £50m of increased sales in the first year, catalysed by startling insights generated by combining data and people from different disciplines,.
To date the corporation has completed eight Innovation Hubs around the world and plans to roll out further hubs in the near future.
BOX
BOX was conceived as a new kind of space that provides innovation and knowledge transfer services to a tightlylinked, university-business network hosted at London School of Economics (LSE). It serves as a laboratory for exploring decision making and collaboration processes for academics and students from a number of academic departments. These processes are facilitated through a diverse range of workshops featuring various tools and techniques such as LEGO Serious Play, an experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance.
The lab itself, signed by DEGW, comprises 220 square meters of space in the heart of the LSE’s central London campus. BOX provides a dynamic learning environment enriched with a range of technologies. A key feature of the design is the “Cabinet of Wonder”, a wall holding visible and invisible treasures that enable the viewer to see the world in a multitude of ways. The Cabinet of Wonder uses light, sounds, and artefacts to intrigue as well as encourage discussion and original thinking.
The space was also used by academics linked to the BOX research program as a community club to inhabit, communicate, and explore ideas and BOX hosted a significant number of internal LSE seminars and workshops, as well as collaborative policy development events for both governmental and nongovernmental organizations. While EDS are no longer involved in the ongoing management and operation of BOX the space is still a key LSE meeting and innovation space.
The Hospital Club
The Hospital is a private club in London set up by Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and Dave Stewart, musician and producer. It contains an art gallery, TV & music recording studios, several bars and events spaces, a private screening room and a dining room. The Hospital describes itself as the ‘pre-eminent home for creatives from media and arts industries’ and hosts a wide range of networking events including ‘First Tuesday’ for entrepreneurs, private music performances, dining, book and film clubs as well as a ‘Creatives in Residence’ programme. While The Hospital is not a formal innovation space, it has innovation and creativity at the heart of its vision, supporting all levels from freelance individuals to established arts and media companies. It operates in both physical and virtual space with an active community website, e-magazine and blog. The Hospital also creates spaces for exclusive Members’ use at other major London Arts events such as Frieze and is planning a network of other clubs in Mumbai, New York, Shanghai and Berlin.
The Evolving Workplace
These innovation-centred workplaces provide new business opportunities for a range of serviced space providers (e.g. serviced offices, clubs, hotels, conference centres, universities, cultural institutions) but to be successful the providers will need to broaden their skills base to include an understanding of the facilitation of innovation processes and user experience rather than mere management of facilities or events.
The future workplace will consist of a rich mix of “owned” and “shared” spaces. Individual, concentrated work can take place anywhere – yet organisation-specific spaces that encourage collaboration, innovation and creativity will be critical to building corporate cultures of creativity and innovation that will drive enhanced business performance in an increasingly competitive world. These spaces are likely to take different forms in different cultures and market sectors but what they will all have in common is an understanding of the innovation processes they need to support and the total user experience.
Andrew Harrison is Director of Learning & Research of DEGW (UK), Peter Andrew is Managing Director at DEGW Asia and Stephen Bradley represents DEGW Asia in Hong Kong.
