What If

Interview with ANDREW WANLISS-ORLEBAR

- Could you tell us about yourself and your role at 'What If?'

AW: My name is Andrew Wanliss-Orlebar and I'm, what we call, an inventor, here. It's a strange term, people usually think its just going to be people tinkering in a garage with pieces of metal. But actually what it is, is that we help companies develop new ideas, new products, new services, new concepts, new brands - sometimes even a new culture for themselves. We do that by looking at the world, listening to what is right or wrong in people or consumers, or their staffﾕs current lives. We look for new ideas from there and always try to challenge ourselves and our clients to look in new places.

- So what is "What If?" about?

AW: What If is technically the largest independent consultancy around innovation. Our independence is actually very important to us because it has allowed us to really explore our character and do things differently all along. Basically we are in four locations around the world, born in England about 15 years ago and we're now also in New York, Manchester and Shanghai. I think we stretch around 20 business hours a day now, as and when needed. We basically do two things: we help companies reinvent what they do − to usually get more money or gain more value - and we look at their brands, their products, their services and lots of other things around that.

We also help them break into new markets, both geographically or with different products. We do that by accompanying them in a really creative process. We don't work for clients - we work with them. We bring them along into our journey, which is a really important part of it. The other thing that has come out of that, we've been doing that for 15 years, and about half way through that journey, we realised that people wanted to grab a bit of that creativity and culture we had, and bring it back to their organisations. So we now also have a group of people that train innovation, creative behaviours now, for companies to really bring that in house. So we only really offer two products but I think we now have two and half thousand success stories behind us of projects that we've done.

- Can you define innovation?

AW: Defining innovation is an interesting challenge. Only because I think a lot people assume it means quite different thing and also as of about two years ago, its got some real business buzz around it, and its turning into all sorts of …strange things. But at its core, its finding great ways, at least in the business world, of creating value for a company, usually in places that they haven't been, one, two, twenty times before. I'd say maybe more personally, its about tapping into the unseen, the unheard, about really cracking a problem in a different, motivating way.

- So do you think there is a different definition of innovation when it comes to design?

AW: Innovation is not always new. And you've got to realise that "new" is, I think in design, often a lie because we love to recycle and grab things from before and get inspiration from the past. Also people do things and do not realise they are under the influence of work that they've seen before them. I don't think that innovation necessarily means you haven't seen it before but I think innovation for design means you are not just redoing it, you are searching a little bit, trying to create something new, trying to create something contemporary, that you are looking hard at the exact problem you are trying to tackle and seeing if there is a novel and effective way of tackling that which hasn't been done before and really delivers.

- Is London the best place to be in for your field of work?

AW: London is one of the best places to be in for what I do. I think there are probably places further out that, perhaps today, bring my at least as much stimulus. I think being stimulated and invigorated by what you see and hear, and read and do - all around you - is one of the most critical things you need for what I do and probably for anything related to design. I think places that are not familiar bring you that any how? So when I am walking around the streets of India or China, which I do an awful lot of for work, I get huge amounts of stimulus there. What you see in London is a place where that is applied. In a number of places in Asia, you'll get lots of different types of stimulus firing back at you from daily life, as well as design culture. So London also has its rivals [aswell].

- What does the city of London look like to you?

AW: I think visually and architecturally it is really amazing. I actually find it quite rough. I've spent a lot of time in Paris, an even in places like New York, that have, what I think most of the world thinks of as a kind of urban, decaying thing - most of it is mostly big, beautiful towers. Beautiful but also well clean, and things like that. So you get some 'grimy' areas but mostly it is actually quite homogeneous. London is a mess. London was part destroyed during the war, half the places you are in are these old industrial ware houses − it has a real 'gritty' feel.

And then you get these incredible changes in feel and environment − you can be in this really pristine and rich little villages and then the next thing you know, you are in this old mish-mash of sixties and seventies social housing. I actually find it incredibly stimulating. I find London is really a collection of hundreds and hundreds of smaller communities and smaller styles that make it interesting. I know there a lot of people worried about loosing this 'old', 'traditional' London − I don't know what 'old traditional London' is! I think the more cacophonous it becomes, the more interesting it will be − which I think London has by nature already.

Website : www.whatifinnovation.com

Written by Tai Hollingsbee