The Interview: Judith Cone on Innovate@Carolina and how what she wrote is more of a guidebook than a road map

Judith Cone’s telling anyone who will listen that UNC is a “tremendously innovative campus” — and people shouldn’t think her road map is here to tell people how to innovate.

She should know. She’s Chancellor Holden Thorp’s special assistant for innovation and entrepreneurship, and has been in this field for a while.

The plan will all depend on enthusiastic individuals: the road map is “not prescriptive,” says Cone, framing the policies as suggestions. “If someone likes the ideas and wants to adopt them, that’s their call.”

As vice president for emerging strategies at the Kauffman Foundation, she led support for entrepreneurship for a multi-billion dollar foundation. It’s an impressive resume.

Last year, she left a lakefront office for a small basement room in South Building, where we came to talk with her.
Tucked away, it’s little wonder few across campus know her name. But if you’ve heard of Innovate@Carolina, then you know Cone’s impact — she wrote the road map.

But “someone had to make the final decision: I took that role,” she adds.

For an outsider, it seems big role: Thorp thinks that someone at UNC could have done the job, but they’d have lacked her “funder’s perspective.” It’s a notable exception to UNC’s string of internal hires.

Cone’s support for entrepreneurship follows experience starting her own business. “(It) was the most amazing experience for my family,” she says.

After that, she worked to make life easier for future entrepreneurs. “I’d went to every training I could, but they were so generic. I’d leave frustrated that I’d lost a day from my business,” said Cone.

“It was about someone saying to you, that you can create something, you have the right to do it, and that we have tools that can help you.” Cone is here to get innovators all the help she can — if only they can find her.

All the talk about entrepreneurship and businesses raises questions of how the road map might affect the liberal arts university.

“The people who invest in universities are asking questions about our impact on society,” Cone argues. “They’re saying: look, we’re all hurting, and we have these tremendous needs… (so) we need all hands on deck. So they’re looking for us to play a role that maybe we didn’t expect to play.”

Few would challenge the role of innovation in the future, particularly with Carolina’s scientific expertise.

But it doesn’t always seem like all of the University fits into the text of the innovation plan.

“If you don’t find relevance in it, that’s okay,” Cone says. But she notes that arts “are mentioned,” and that “art for art’s sake is absolutely appropriate.”

And she sees the new Arts Innovation Steering Committee, led by Student Body President Hogan Medlin, as building from the principles of the road map, even if it’s not referenced in detail.

“(Medlin) said to me, I don’t think you really represented the arts in this,” Cone explained. “And I’m thinking, you’re right!”

Her energy is contagious, and it’s clear that now there’s support for non-business innovation efforts from the top down — in fact, Chancellor Thorp emphasized the breadth of opportunities on campus when commenting for this profile.

But one has to wonder whether some of the non-business initiatives might have floundered were it not for Medlin’s efforts. The drive for innovation beyond business and sciences could do with a little more championing from senior university leadership.

Regardless, concerns that the innovation road map will change the University drastically are misplaced. It is starting to sound more flexible.

Equally misunderstood is Chancellor Thorp’s periphery role in the development of the road map he’s championed.

Thorp believed in “the process”, she explains — the ideas came out of the Innovation Circle, the Student Innovation Team, and university departments.

“He got to read it, but I don’t think there was one thing he took out.”

We’d been sitting and talking in the dark after an unexpected power cut. As we conclude, Cone’s office lights up as power returns.

Cone is on a mission to open UNC’s eyes to a culture of innovation, though she herself doesn’t want a public role.

But someone is going to have to do it — innovation hubs and road maps alone aren’t going to create an innovation climate.

Cone seems to concur: “No piece of paper can ever do what passionate people bring to life.”

Mark Laichena is a member of the editorial board.