Making MadLab: A creative space for innovation and creating prototypes

This paper presents Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab) as an “organisation as prototype” in terms of its innovation; emphasising its permeability to external collaboration and internal structure. We present the accumulation of experience and inspiration found in this organisational prototype as a significant development with as much social impact as any single material invention. Few organisations are held up as examples of organisational prototypes although notable exceptions such as Apple Computers and Factory Records do exist. Few of these examples offer a systematic accounting for the basis of organisational innovation and its application elsewhere. This work sets out to understand how inspirations drawn from sources such as literature and popular media and seemingly disparate personal ideas and skills, through processes of invention and innovation can become the basis for a sustainable organisation capable of creating value. In this manner we present MadLab as a prototype that is the product of the personal interests and motivations of the directors and their influences - including science fiction. Whilst the directors did not consciously engage in Science Fiction Prototyping we present their actions, organisational structure and collaboration as a model for the realisation of organisational Science Fiction Prototyping. This empirical study focusses on MadLab; its short history, its people, its activities and the intersecting creative influences on the different groups that make up the organisation. The understanding gained of this organisational prototype is then considered within a more generalised view of organisation types and their potential to create value and achieve long-term viability.