Serendipity to Strategy

Douglas Campbell

Douglas Campbell, the man behind Downtown's Mindshare events

By Jennifer Hadley

Co-Founder of Mindshare Douglas Campbell Waxes Philosophic about the Past, Present and Future of Enlightened Debauchery

Douglas Campbell lied to me the first time we met, which was at Mindshare in June. He introduced himself as the emcee of Mindshare, and a writer who occasionally liked to go away at times to do a bit of organic farming. While interesting enough, nothing about his elevator pitch was particularly noteworthy. His presence as the emcee of the nearly five-year-old Mindshare – held on the third Thursday of each month, at various locations throughout downtown – told a different story. In a captain’s hat, and often with a drink in hand, he confidently and jovially welcomed the audience, introducing each speaker with aplomb. For a farmer/writer he seemed anything but introverted, which made me suspicious.

Naturally, I Googled him the next day. He’s not just the emcee of the event that draws 300-500 curious beings to Downtown every month, he’s the co-founder of Mindshare, goes by the alias of Dougie Fresh, is one of the founders of Synn Labs, and occasionally travels around the world in a tuxedo to raise money for charity. Oh, and for his 30th birthday he threw himself seven parties in seven cities across the nation, raising nearly $20,000 for the nonprofit Netting Nations, which provides malaria nets to refugees and orphans in Northern Ghana. Via email, I called him out on his lie, and told him I was going to need to interview him stat.

Doug had just returned from Burning Man, which I assume accounted for the chipped nail polish on his fingers. The desert will wreak havoc on your manicure. He’s less than a week out from the next Mindshare event, so I expect him to be stressed and harried, but he’s not. Inside the gigantic and sparsely furnished loft in the Brewery District he’s shared with friends since 2006, he’s relaxed and barefoot, and we settle in a spot with spectacular views of Downtown. I’ve already deemed him an urban legend in terms of all he’s done, but my focus is on the root and future of Mindshare.

We begin with the usual and, of course, his start in life isn’t usual. Born in D.C., Campbell was uprooted from the States and plopped down into an all boys boarding school in England at the age of 8. I’ve heard divorce does things like that, but I don’t dig. Surprisingly, he’s not bitter and opens up to the fact that for 10 years he lived as a quasi-nomad, “never quite belonging,” an ex-pat who could never seem to find his niche. “To the English I sounded American, to Americans I sounded English.”

By 18, he escaped the “soul-crushingly strict” boarding school and returned to the States to attend the Rhode Island School of Design to pursue a degree in Industrial Design. The culture shock was nothing if not eye-opening, as his “roommate spent the whole year on ’shrooms.” Presumably in keeping with his no-roots, no-problem mentality, upon graduation Campbell took to the open road, and fell “in love with the country he was born in.” Like so many of us, he ultimately wound up in Los Angeles and from the get-go was smitten with our delectable city.

“[In Los Angeles] there was a vibe I couldn’t quite define. In hindsight what I was identifying with is the constant possibility of reinvention, the constant possibility of finding yourself. People were welcoming, encouraging. They said things like ‘we can help you out.’” But that vibe alone didn’t draw him here immediately. That would take several more years, a chance encounter with fate, and, according to Campbell, “a whole lot of serendipity.”

In 2005, fate had Campbell serving as a volunteer for the TED conference in Monterey, CA, which happened to be the last year the now uber-exclusive conference allowed volunteers. Campbell’s role was to hand out “very luxurious” swag bags to attendees, which he admits led all kinds of bigwigs to be enamored of him instantly. The conference itself was, in no uncertain terms, the most inspirational turning point in his life. “It was just such a high, so amazing, I thought, ‘Where do I go from here?’”

Campbell wasn’t the only one feeling this way. It was at this conference where he met Adam Mefford, whom he described in an email to me as “the yin to my yang.” Or, in other words, the future co-founder of Mindshare. “Most of my life’s work can be traced back to that one week in Monterey,” he says.

Mefford shared Campbell’s “how do I keep this feeling?” sentiment – and also, by a “serendipitous” happenstance, found the 4,000-square-foot loft in Lincoln Heights and invited Campbell to move in.

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