decoding & designing for complex ecosystems #Automotive #Mobility #Cities #Culture
me
I am motivated by the need for human- and planet-centered innovation & creativity to tackle the urgent challenges and radical opportunities of our time.
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Inspired by the ability of digital technologies to connect us across distance, time, cultures, actualities, etc. Also wary of the gravitational pull of mass distraction.
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Committed to impact through guidance as well as influence – from within & without. Leadership is situational, and we live in funky times.
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Fence-jumpers leapfrog gatekeepers.
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Draw together every day.
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focus areas
worked with
Automotive & Mobility
Volvo Cars, GM, Ford, AutoTrader, Manheim
Energy & Sustainability
GE Energy
Retail
Target, Home Depot
Fashion & Apparel
Prada, Mi Ola, Topology Eyewear
Consumer Goods
Coca-Cola
Travel & Hospitality
OpenTable, Hyatt
Technology & Communications
Telenav, AT&T, Sprint
Media
Esquire, Harper's Bazaar
Logistics
DHL
Government
UK Inland Revenue
Agency & Consulting
Sapient, Digitas, Icon MediaLab
As the industry struggles through a wholesale reconfiguration of the many mutually-reinforcing systems that have enabled its success over the past century – but have since stagnated and hindered its progress – the digitalization of the car offers the opportunity to transform not just the car, but the industry into a more open innovation ecosystem – allowing customers to do more on-the-go, with cars that fit better into a broader and more sustainable portfolio of mobility formats refactored for an increasingly-urbanized world.
In the context of evolving consumer mindsets and the growth of shorter, more fluid models of access to private car usage – lease, subscription, on-demand, etc. – we crafted a vision for a radically-faster shopping journey – compressing the usual six-month slog of research & deliberation down to driving a Volvo within a week.
To do this, we reconfigured the selection & sequencing of elements of the experience, utilizing digital technologies to bring the core retail and dealership functions out into the customer’s world and timeframe
Bringing more of the everyday car ownership experience into the shopping process, so customers could make well-informed decisions
Allowing the different parties – shopper, friends & family, retail, etc. – to play to their respective strengths by consolidating all information generated by the research process
While digital tools are enablers of the overwhelming profusion of options on offer in our consumption-oriented economy, they are also the means by which we might creatively harness the variety & choice available to us.
We created Cult Collection as a community for collective creativity – enabling the fashion-forward consumer to define their evolving style by playing the digital version of dress-up.
The app allowed them to discover new items at retail, to be inspired by looks created by the community, and to explore how to style items by creating their own looks from scratch or restyling a look by which they were inspired.
The key innovation in the interaction was the simultaneous presentation of both the in-progress look, and points of reference from which the customer was drawing inspiration and making selections – retail inventory, their closet, another look, etc. – bridging the gap between the actual and the possible by bringing each cognitive space into the context of the other.
The adoption of consumer technologies into restaurant operations offered a step up in ease & efficiency for floor management, and also created the opportunity to restructure OpenTable’s restaurant acquisition & onboarding process.
Simpler, faster, and lower-cost system deployment allowed for greater flexibility in customer acquisition strategies, improved the timeliness & effectiveness of product on-boarding, and enhanced productivity for restaurant staff – all of which significantly improved customer satisfaction at the inception of the relationship.
A next-generation interactive fountain dispenser using micro-dosing technology to pour a 100+ sparkling & still beverage brands from a single freestanding unit – delivering unprecedented beverage variety with choices to suit any consumer taste, fine-grained business intelligence, and a reduced environmental footprint.
The key design challenge for the user interface was to present the variety of beverages available in a way that made the experience of selecting one intuitive, delightful, and immersive in the aura of the brands offered.
The design of the system integrates the behavior of the touch screen user interface, the lighting scheme, and the mechanical pouring elements into a seamless whole that eases the consumer into a new interaction paradigm for dispensing a beverage.
The first generation of the main consumer interface anchored the flavor variants off the brands with which customers were already familiar. The visual design maximizes the use of the color spectrum associated with each brand, and as the consumer pours their choice of beverage, the color projected from the screen casts a glow on their face, subtly incorporating them into the world of the brand.
The ADA user interface organizes the same assets in a grid which makes it easy to select a brand and then a flavor using a simple left/right touch panel at an accessible height. The visual presentation is dialed back in order to emphasize visibility and legibility.
The crew serve interface was optimized for multi-order taskflows, repeat pours, and efficiency of use.
GE Energy needed a communications program to educate consumers on next-generation smart grid technologies, create communities of interest around the relevant energy issues, engage these communities with their local utility providers and regulators, and thereby facilitate the consensus required for the implementation of smart grid initiatives.
“Prada is Content”
A seminal deployment of multi-channel retail – long before we even called it that – enabling the brand to express its high-touch style of customer service across all touch points in the shopping experience.