April 23, 2021

The Purpose of i/o

Our purpose

Within the AEC industry, IT is typically perceived as a support function – provisioning hardware, software, network services to enable architects and designers to do their work.

We have a higher purpose though…

With a seamless global technology platform in place, in 2017, we set out towards higher goals and aspirations – how do we radically innovate our entire business and project pipeline using technology as the driving force?

This has led to the formation of our own internal start-up – we call it i/o. Our purpose is to reimagine – our business strategy and work process, our clients’ and teams’ digital experience and our work process…through a digital lens.

The early days

In the early days (circa 2017 and 2018), the i/o lab was primarily focused on internal business strategy and work process – how do you reimagine project management, relationship management, document management within the internal walls of the firm?

Our firm has a very robust Research Lab and a formidable Digital Practice group. Our intent was not to be redundant with these functions, but work towards a ‘unique product’ focus – akin to operating like a start-up focused on product ideation, design and development.

Our Chicago i/o lab

We started in Chicago and started hiring unique candidates into the i/o lab. To date, we have had creators, architects, software engineers and other experts from very diverse backgrounds joining our labs – either as full time employees or student interns.

Our philosophy of the lab or studio is based on simple principles:

Diversity of thought drives innovation – to enable that, we will intentionally focus on recruiting candidates with diverse backgrounds, points of view and expertise.
Place matters – our Chicago i/o lab is designed to be the center of ideation. While we can all do remote work, we also thrive when we are together. [picture of lab]
Flexibility matters – digital innovation teams flourish when they are unencumbered from typical AEC project responsibilities. They should have the freedom to pick problems to solve.
Bullets over cannonballs – to borrow from Jim Collins’ seminal book, our approach is agile. We don’t sweat over cannonball solutions (yet!), but are focused on developing quicker, meaningful, delightful applications.
Purpose matters – Our hope is work on meaningful, purpose-driven digital problems – ones that have positive impact on the built environment and its inhabitants

i/o today

Today, the Chicago i/o lab is much more mature and is centered around ‘bigger’ or more complex problems – mostly client facing solutions with a keen focus on compelling digital/spatial experiences. We continue to build out this center of excellence out of our Chicago studios.

i/o continues to be a work in progress for our firm and our profession. Please feel free to reach out if you have ideas or thoughts about i/o – start up within a large AEC firm.

April 23, 2021

The Purpose of i/o

Our purpose

The early days

Our Chicago i/o lab

i/o today

Address

contact

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