TEAM

Studio D has no full-time employees and no plans to take any on. We build teams on a per-project basis and have a core of trusted staff that enjoys working together.

This year 150 applicants applied to work with Studio D. 

In 2014 we hired 38 people on projects, 6 of which came through the application process, the rest through outreach. The gender split of hires isexactly 50% male and 50% female, with slightly more females working in field, and slightly more males working in production. With the exception of a cartographer in his sixties, hires were aged between 20 and 42, demographics mapped to the people we needed to engage with on the ground. Our crew represents 18 nationalities (17 if you consider Tibetan as a being indistinguishable from China). This figure reflects our need to operate in diverse locales. While 13 of our crew are currently based out of the US, only 6 carry US passports. 

Although not formally a Studio D hire, the team in Myanmar adopted a spirit by the name of Ba Tode for the duration of the project, in keeping with the local custom of blurring the distinction between the physical and the ethereal worlds. You might laugh, but that’s how we roll. Ba is credited in the final report, Afford Two, Eat One.

WORKPLACE

We have no formal office/studio and have no plans to rent one. We continue to pioneer the use of popup studios, which we ran this year in 19 locations, from a downtown New York loft through to a mountain retreat in Shan State, Myanmar, and pretty much everywhere in between. The duration of a single studio ranges from a few days through to six weeks. For the remainder of the projects we’re either on the road/skies/trail or in more traditional accommodation.

Approximately 85% of consultancy project time is spent in field with the rest being devoted to remote sensing and other project preparation activities at home base. Wherever possible we conduct project planning on the ground where the team can more easily acclimatise to the locale  —  something that benefits both the team and the project. 

Whilst in-field, our crew works 12 to 15 hours days, 6 to 7 days per week. Time off is decided by the team, depending on the goal that they have collaboratively set. We build decompression into most projects to help the team reacclimatise to civilian life  —  something that is easier to do on longer engagements. Decompression spaces include: days on the bike in Tokyo; in the desert in Oman, exploring the edge-of-the-grid from Myitkyina; trekking in Myanmar, to an ascent of Huayna Potosi in Bolivia.

PROJECTS & CLIENTS

We maintain a bullshit-free approach to consulting.

100% of the projects in 2014 were from inbound requests from clients. Next year we expect the ratio of inbound to outbound to be 80/20. We turned down two high paying projects and refused requests to bid on two others that were considered a poor cultural fit, where we thought the client was going through the motions, and/or the where project would likely result in a negative social impact. The money you turn down defines you as much as what you take on.

Our projects this year spanned: service design; interaction design; product; corporate strategy; public policy strategy; and brand positioning. All of our projects include a foundational research trackranging from a few days up to eight weeks.

Approximately 80% of our projects are for commercial clients, and all have the potential for a strong positive social and or societal impact.The remaining 20% are more traditional, non-commercial social impact projects. Social impact is very difficult to measure, and any attempt to do so at this early stage would be an exercise in self-aggrandisement. 

Nearly all of our work is under NDA. For some projects it will take years for the impact to become apparent. The shortest path to impacting a corporate client’s public strategy has been two weeks.

Given the amount of travel it is fair to say that we have a negative environmental impact, something that we plan to better address in 2015. We have a policy of not flying in international staff where local talent can be trained into the same role. To do otherwise would be part of the problem.

 Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.

 

PUBLICATIONS

The Japanese print edition of Hidden in Plain Sight was published in March 2014, and will be launched in Taiwan in February 2015 (US and Korean editions were published last year). This year also saw the publication of the Today’s Office print edition in Korean. 

Preparations for The Field Study Handbook are well underway, and is due to be completed in 2017 — to receive a notification of publication sign-up here. 

We also published Afford Two, Eat One report in conjunction with Proximity Designs, frog and the IMTFI.

Our work was covered in The Guardian, GigaOm, Harvard Business Review (Japanese Print edition), Chosun Daily and Makeshift Magazine.