+Impact Studio Journal: An Origin Story

In 2019, we launched the +Impact Studio at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business with an ambitious vision — to harness the creative energy of our community to bring impactful ideas to life using business and design tools along with research expertise.

Yes, that sounds nice with lots of buzz words. Let us unpack this in plain language:

• We seek powerful impact, not powerpoint slides.
• We believe that interdisciplinary teams are more innovative and impactful than teams from just one single discipline.
• We believe the best ideas are shaped through a strong grounding in research, empathy, and equity.
• We believe faculty and students can work together as colleagues, leveraging the strengths of each other.
• We know the world more than ever needs creative solutions to address the wicked problems of poverty, hunger, and inequity.
• We aim to create a generation of architects who can work with communities to address these problems.

We’ve designed several vehicles at the +Impact Studio to accomplish our goals: courses, workshops, an impact design lab, student fellowships, and this Medium journal. You can learn more about the first four at rossimpactstudio.com, but we want to tell you why we specifically started this Medium journal.

We want to honestly share with you our insights, failures, ideas and stories as we build and create. We won’t hold back or hide our challenges, and we share these learnings in the hope of helping others.

In the days to come, our students, faculty, fellows, and friends will post their thoughts here. We invite you to follow this journal, to connect with us, and join us in our journey to making a meaningful impact in our world.