ThisJustin

Edward Boches has a great post over on his blog entitled Where will the new generation of digital talent choose to work
? that was inspired by his recent visit to Boulder Digital Works. As a member of the first-ever class to graduate from BDW I wanted to expand upon a few of the points Edward makes and begin to answer just what this new generation wants from an employer. (by the way, don’t think that generation implies age in this case – my class included members fo Gen Y, Gen X and even a Baby Boomer so it has less to do with age than mindset)

At the end of the day, the bottom line is that now is the time to try, do, make and refine these approaches because there has been a lot of talk for a long time.

In a nutshell, the places this new generation want to work are the places that are doing (or at least trying) these things, not just talking about them.

Collaboration
Most offices aren’t set up to encourage collaboration in the most basic ways. The furniture, the cubes, the flexibility of the floor plan, availability of conference rooms, whiteboards, etc, let alone the culture. It takes both to really make things work. You have to have people thinking in new ways combined with an environment that fosters collaboration to really make it work.

What else did I miss? Let’s collaborate below in the comments.

Today we officially launched The Least You Can Do. This has been the culmination of many months of work at Boulder Digital Works. The Least You Can Do is designed to be the easiest way to change the world. We believe that by breaking down complex problems into very simple tasks we can get people who are generally lazy (let’s face it – all of us) to actually be able to feel like they’re doing something good (and not just feel it but actually be doing something good).In a nutshell, the power of a million people doing next to nothing is A LOT.

We started in May with a brief from Justin Gold (founder of Justin’s Nut Butter) and Alex Bogusky (of, well, ad legend). There’s a long, awesome story of the behind the scenes of how just a few very dedicated students brought this project to the point where a hand full more could join on and bring this project to life. But for now, I’m exhausted and need a few good nights of sleep before I’m ready for that write-up. If you have a few minutes, check out the video below – from my presentation today at Justin’s Sustainable Squeeze Pack Summit. If you have two minutes, go visit http://leastyoucando.org and become an Inactivist.

Watch live video from bdw_live on Justin.tv

I have to give credit to the AWESOME team I had the pleasure to work with. To give credit where it’s due:

It’s been a lot of fun leading the Least You Can Do team over the past few months in anticipation of this beta launch. I can’t wait to fully implement the site, change the packaging landscape and take on another cause on the The Least You Can Do platform.

To give credit where it’s due…

Core team:
Justin McCammon (team lead, copy, strategy, tech)
Teghan Tracy (UX, strategy, design)
Jake Johnson (production, strategy)
Heather Seal (design, UX)

Designers:
Brad Dechter
Chris Znerold
Brain Fouhy
Jon Swisart

UX:
Dan Henderson

Developers:
Mike Newell
Jesse Weaver
RJ Duran
Josh Kadis

Marketing / PR Team:
Denise Horton
Sean Baxter
Lauren Parker
Megan Newton

Copywriters:
Charlotte Myerberg
Patrick Anders

Mentors:
Joe Corr (CP+B)
Scott Prindle (CP+B)
Darden Longendecker (Mondo Robot)
Alex Bogusky (Fearless)
The Good Apples(Dan Storch, Dan Braha, Justin Fuller)
David Slayden (Boulder Digital Works)
Gordon Brander (Crowdfavorite)
Peyton Lindley (Effective UI)
Dan Viens (Goodby Silverstein & Partners)
PJ Yesawich (Awesome Dude)

The brave client:
Justin’s Nut Butter
Justin Gold (CEO / Founder)
Lance Gentry (President)
Lauren Lortie (Marketing Manager)

It’s been roughly 10 months since I started as a student in the graduate program Boulder Digital Works. It’s been a crazy, wild ride to put it modestly. And I’ve neglected to keep up with this blog during most of that time because, well, I had A LOT of other things to do. So now, without further ado, is my clif notes version of the last ten months in ten sentences.

1. Be a digital optimist; it’s easy to see why something will fail but much harder to see how it will enrich our lives or change the world.
2. Trust your gut, you’re right more often than you think.
3. Never stop learning.
4. Call bullshit early and often.
5. Be a radical–shake things up.
6. Absorb and observe everything and everyone–the best insights happen when no one else is looking.
7. Do the right thing (it may not be easy or cheap).
8. Listen.
9. Stay curious.
10. Surround yourself with amazing, talented people and you will never be at a loss for laughter, excitement, commitment, hard work, criticism, praise, encouragement, inspiration, brilliant ideas, co-conspirators, advice or life-long friends.

Special bonus!

11. My co-conspirators and I are nearing graduation and ready for jobs & internships. Learn more about us at morepeoplelikeus.com

Special double bonus note: watch this space for some re-designing in the coming weeks. I’m going to use this as a test space for new WordPress themes I’m developing so check back often and let me know what you think (and ignore the blank state the blog is currently in).

Some work I did for a recent BDW class. If you look closely you can see the man himself.

During last Wednesday’s Idea Studio at Boulder Digital Works, Napkin Labs co-founders Warren Ng and Riley Gibson stopped by to talk about starting up their company and how its model is changing the way companies handle product design.

What does Napkin Labs do?

Napkin Labs is a collaborative community based new product development consultancy. We are blending the creative energy of the ‘crowd’ with disciplined design processes to rapidly generate consumer-centric new product concepts rooted in the strengths of our clients’ brands.

In other words, they curate a community of some the best young minds (from places like Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and CU) and then set them loose on your project. They provide the structure throughout so everyone stays on track and incentivize participation by using an algorithm to measure how much each member contributed to the final output and paying out a reward accordingly.

Their approach goes beyond simple crowd-sourcing by: one, curating the people in their crowd and two, rewarding everyone based on participation rather than a winner-takes-all approach.

And then I was re-listening to this 2005 TED talk from Clay Shirky about institutions vs collaboration and I realized that Napkin Labs is essentially breaking down the institutional barriers he talks about here:
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Shirky mentions how that as barriers to collaboration decrease (the web and web apps like Napkin Labs) people become more and more able to organize and collaborate in increasingly complex ways without the help traditionally needed from institutions. Shirky’s vision is brought to life in exactly how Napkin Labs operates.

By connecting big organizations directly to crowds and managing the crowds in a hands-off way, Napkin Labs brings the best of both the institutional and the unruly masses worlds together. As institutions become more comfortable with this approach I think this will mean a sea-change will take place in the R&D; world. Certainly, highly trained scientists and researches will never be replaced but think about the example Shirky uses above where a single Linux engineer contributes a single important patch and nothing else. He’s probably not worth having on the payroll, but aren’t you glad he contributed that one really important piece?

I believe the same sort of scenario will begin to play out across R&D; and product design. While dedicated teams in institutions won’t be replaced anytime soon, a lot of their work will begin to be offered out to Napkin Labs-esque organizations with excellent results.

It’s exciting to see this glimpse into the future happen so close to home. Keep your eyes peeled for how Napkin Labs will help shape the future with your help.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlfM_jZxTZM]

Why would someone drop everything for more than a year to enroll in a completely untested program that vowed to teach the world of digital and interactive in a way never done before? The first class of 12 students in Boulder Digital Works’ (BDW) first 60 Weeks program answer that question in their new short film called The 1210 Project.

The 1210 Project is named after what will be the students’ final day of BDW 60 Weeks, December 10, 2010. The video explores the twelve students’ motivation for jumping onboard Boulder Digital Works’ 60 Weeks program inaugural voyage. Some of the students enrolled after hearing about the program with only weeks before its start. The film looks at what the students have learned, considers their hopes and plans for the program’s remaining 50 weeks and focuses on their dreams, goals and predictions.

These 12 students, who range in age from 22 to 48, have been exposed to some of the best of the best in digital and interactive over the past 10 weeks. Their brains are buzzing and the walls of BDW are bulging with possibility.

There is much work to do leading up to 12/10/10 and years of work after that, but there is no doubt there will never be a year quite like the one that lies directly ahead. Follow my fellow Boulder Digital Works students over the next year at http://bdw.colorado.edu/blogs/60weeks

I found out last week that I’m amongst the 16 students admitted to the first class at the Boulder Digital Works. I’m excited, and nervous, and excited some more all at once. It’s an incredible opportunity, one that I see as a potentially life changing.

If you’re not sure what Boulder Digital Works is you can find out more on their website. Simply put, it’s a school for developing future digital leaders. With partners that include a who’s who of the digital advertising world it is definitely a program with potential. Huge potential.

Right now I’m figuring out how to pay for the tuition ($25k, and because it’s not a degree bearing program, most government loans don’t apply) pay for living expenses while attending and still kick ass in the actual program itself. It’s going to be a tough balance of debt, work and school.

The whole thing has the potential to weigh me down for the rest of my life with debt or put my career into overdrive and launch me into the sort of places I’ve only dreamed of.

I’m hoping that by leveraging the things I can control (my hard work, effort, etc) I can overcome the things I have less control over (my lack of money, the economy, etc).

One thing is for sure: it’ll be interesting.