Foreword

BoardRoom* is an idea of 31Volts. Without recalling why exactly, cardboard plays an important role in many of our projects. And while it often seems that cardboard is about tinkering; ‘Mars, what are you tinkering with now?’, there is more to say about the value of making in particular. Especially when challenges are less tangible, it is important to think less and do more.

In the end, Boardroom seems like a sum of several chapters in the development of 31Volts.

And to make sure you don’t think:

‘Funny . . cardboard. .. .’

. . . we have collected our most important experiences here. About cardboard, but mostly about experimentation, design and innovation.

Read the whole story, written in the first person, by Marcel, founder of 31Volts.

Chapter 1

Fokker Aircraft

In 1995-1996, I graduated with the design of a folding bicycle. A design in cardboard and aluminum. This project was an experiment into other ways of making bicycles. And as it should be, I presented the plan to several bicycle brands in the Netherlands. The reactions can be summed up in:

‘Sorry, but we have invested in tubes, that’s what we make our bikes with.’

A first experience of innovation and why this can be so tricky.

Now it turned out that Fokker Aircraft had a machine that could be used to make the bike’s aluminium frame. The reaction there was a lot more positive. It is them that I found my sponsor and that is where my prototype was made.

Although the bike was finished just in time for the final assessment, the final sprint was a bit exciting. On 15 March 1996, six weeks after my graduation, Fokker was declared bankrupt.

For a long time, I thought Fokker supported the graduation project because it was a fun experiment. ‘An ambitious young creative with a crazy idea, of course we are going to help him!’ It only became clear much later that it was never about the bike or the cardboard, but about saving Dutch pride, Fokker Aircraft. The plan was to use the design to promote Fokker’s abilities. Unfortunately too late . . . .

The key insight from this period is that design is not always about the product. Sometimes the goal is much more strategic than you think. The product may be very good to use, the real value is in the story it tells.

Chapter 2

Virgin Galactic and the X-Prize

20 years ago, Burt Rutan, a hero of ours, won the X-Prize with his company Scaled Composites. This was a challenge for commercial companies to be the first to create and launch a spaceship. That same year, 2004, Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic. His mission was to turn Burt Rutan’s success into commercial success.

Now, I have often noticed that we like to look at that commercial success. And then the experimentation that preceded it is quickly forgotten. This is a shame, of course, because it is precisely the first beginnings of an idea that are needed to get things moving. And that doesn’t have to be difficult or costly at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because then everything can and may still go wrong.

Take a look at this short video to discover how important it is to try something out small and quickly. And when you think something looks like a failure, the creative brain sees something completely different.

Chapter 3

Stanfords d.School

At Stanford University in the United States, they founded d.school in 2004. A place for all university students to experience how to deal with issues as a designer. The idea was to let students from any faculty experience how designers deal with issues.

“We build on methods from across the field of design to create learning experiences that help people unlock their creative potential and apply it to the world.”

One of the special aspects of d.school is the way they design project spaces and the philosophy behind it. For us, this has always been enormously inspiring. Sitting at a meeting table produces a totally different dynamic than working with a team in an inspiring space. Not thinking, but building. Making things. That’s how you come up with new ideas that you can test immediately.

And that’s how d.school was set up.

Make Space

Two teachers d.school, Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft wrote a book on setting up creative work environments. Make Space – How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration.

As they say themselves, the book is a tool for designing your own creative space. The book helps you turn simple, modular and inexpensive (often IKEA) resources into fine spaces to collaborate in.

Within most office environments, it is not so easy to remodel things. Let alone that many organisations are not set up to make things. And yet d.school, as well as most design courses, show how important this is.

“Consciously or not, we feel and internalize what the space tells us about how to work. When you walk into most offices, the space tells you that it’s meant for a group of people to work alone. Closed-off desks sprout off of lonely hallways, and in a few obligatory conference rooms a huge table ensures that people are safely separated from one another. Most work spaces were designed according to an industrial labor model, from a time when our work was tethered to big machines and our status was rooted in the size of our office space.”

~ The first paragraph of the introduction of Make Space, by David Kelley -IDEO and founder of d.school. ~

Now we don’t think everyone feels like designing and building an innovation lab, so we have done that for you.

Chapter 4

Care and attention

A lesson from my own college days that I still use, I learned from our jewellery design teacher, Jan Tempelman. We didn’t talk much about jewellery, but we did talk about care in your work. He was the one who first looked at the way you made something. For him, therein lay an important part of beauty, and I think he was absolutely right.

In recent conversations with fellow designers, we talked about the role of aesthetics and why it is so important. These conversations were not necessarily about beautiful and ugly, but about the importance of care and attention. About leaving nothing to chance and about staying critical. This applies to the things around us, but also to the less tangible. The critical attitude is what matters in both cases.

With BoardRoom*, we hope to make care, attention and precision part of the creative culture. Even if you work with cardboard, that doesn’t mean things need to look and feel cheap.

Chapter 5

The KLM Service Design Studio

About 10 years ago, we worked a lot for KLM, at Passenger Services at Schiphol Airport. Perhaps the highlight of our work was the development of the Service Design Studio on the F-Pier. A project that would not have got off the ground without the confidence of Ryanne, Victor, Paula and my 31Volts business partner at the time, Marc Fonteijn.

Gradually, it became increasingly clear how important the relationship between employees and travellers was. Schiphol is an exceptional place that both groups use together and where you can really feel KLM’s pride. But it is also the place where innovations are experienced. Every reason, therefore, to get to work on the F-Pier, among the people.

With relatively limited resources, we built a place where employees and travellers worked together to improve the travel experience. For safety reasons, cardboard was not the appropriate choice in this case, but that is not where BoardRoom* lies either. Material is a means to achieve something else. In both cases, it is about creating a space where you can work differently with each other.

With BoardRoom* we hope to support and fulfil similar ambitions

Chapter 6

The Classroom of the Future

Also several years ago, we were asked by the director of a school group to help them with the classroom of the future.

‘No, we are not that interested in what you (31Volts) think of the classroom of the future. What we want is to be able to engage with it. So that everyone can participate and think about the future of the school building and the classroom.’

In the first workshop, we explored the role of the school in society. The school as a meeting place. Bringing the outside world in, and bringing the school out. And we asked ourselves what it would take to give the school to students so that they would really feel at home there.

We translated these ideas and ambitions into concrete furniture to furnish a classroom. We then used this to work with teachers and pupils. What exactly changes in the relationship between the two? What if a group just set up their own little workplace?

Again, cardboard showed that with a modest investment, you can experiment and thus learn a lot in a short time. In our case, it was about collaboration and interaction. But it could also be about testing the logic of a new hospital to be built as this project nicely shows.. Check also this short video about the project.

Read the casestudy Space for learning here.

Chapter 7

Designers need a seat at the table

Under this one-liner, much has been written over the last 20 years about the importance of creativity and design for organisations. Meanwhile, this importance is again regularly under discussion, but it is at least a talking point.

The importance of creativity within an organisation is our main driver for developing Boardroom*. After all, which designer really wants to be in the boardroom (as we know it)? The least you can expect from a designer is that she then brings her own chair. Or rather: Her Not so Ordinary Boardroom*.

Just apart from the space with or without a chair, we think creativity and design should be better explained. Creativity is still a tricky concept that is quickly linked to talent. To be good at drawing, for instance. The fact that creativity in (primary and secondary) education is expressed in handicrafts does not make it any better. Creativity is much more:

“Creativity is an active engagement with the unknown, it’s risk-taking, it’s curiosity, it’s exploration, it’s discovery, it’s mystery. It’s all of that.”

~ Esther Perel ~

The Design Thinking trend has made up for a lot. Although lean, scrum, agile ánd Design Thinking are mainly used as a form of organisation and management. They encourage a nimble and therefore faster way of making strides. But whether this really stimulates and develops creativity, we doubt.

That a set of cardboard furniture will not make the difference, we are under no illusions. However, we do think that the BoardRoom* will contribute to making the role of creativity and design a subject of discussion within organisations. Preferably in the boardroom.

Nawoord

Will the Boardroom* save your organisation? Most probably not. Or quite possibly . . ?

There is no shortage of models to structure creativity. What is often missing is the breeding ground where it is okay to make mistakes and experiment. A place where it is okay to tinker with a Styrofoam model. To sketch and create and share images. But above all, a place to work together. Because that is how a (creative) culture develops, by doing it together. A culture where creativity is no longer something for talented geeks. Or for that one Chief Design Officer. But a culture where it is the most normal thing in the world to question the current reality in order to design a new one.

To give you a hand with this, every organisation that purchases BoardRoom* receives a workshop from us as a gift. To get you started. So that we can kick-start the conversation about the importance of creativity and design in or around the boardroom.