I began my working life in design and innovation in 1994. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working as a freelance photographer and designer; starting and operating my own web design company in Philadelphia (AOV); managing global design and Internet services for a multinational brand during six years at Crayola; and developing innovation programmes at a national level within the public sector at the Centre for Design Innovation at IT Sligo in Ireland.

Perspective is everything. What has applying design as an individual entrepreneur, a private business owner, a corporate manager and public sector employee taught me?

1) It needs to be practical. If it isn’t practical it’s probably bull$%!&. Demystifying the innovation by design process so it can be understood and applied by anyone has become a personal quest. Let’s be clear about this distinction. There are design practioners, but there is nothing stopping anyone from being a design thinker and using practical tools to gather insights about people to create better products and services. The companies that will succeed are the ones that are closest to their customers.

2) Design is NOT a silver bullet. There is no such thing as a design pill that when taken will make a suffering organisation well. You can be successful in business without design, but the most successful companies have a design strategy as part of their overall business strategy. Design is only essential in the most successful organisations. Simply put, innovation is the outcome and design is the process. (If you want a more complete definition of the design thinking process, read my description from the Centre for Design Innovation site.)

3) Innovation is NOT the exclusive domain of global companies with large research and marketing budgets. You’d think that was true considering that almost every case study quotes innovation giants like Google and Apple. Sure, some of the learnings are transferable, but smaller organisations must be thinking, “How does that apply to me?” The workshops I developed on User-centred Design, Brand Experience and Service Design highlight practical tools and relevant examples for small to medium sized organisations. My mandate is to transfer the innovation process into your organisation, as opposed to creating a reliance on consultants every time you want to develop a new product or service. My approach to this work is to not make this stuff out to be rocket science and to make it applicable immediately. There is so much talk about innovation, but very little practical direction on how to actually do it.

I regularly speak on creativity, design and innovation and over the last ten years have spoken at conferences, companies and events including World Usability Day, Enterprise Ireland, Design Management Europe, Design Flanders, SEEdesign, HOW, Hallmark Cards, DMI, Thinking Creatively Conference, Oracle, and was a keynote speaker at the Macromedia User Conference and Allaire Developers Conference.

There will be regular updates to this blog. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed? Here are a few links:

• Service is product is service from BizCamp Dublin (September 2009)
• Video Presentation from Engineering Out Costs event at IT Sligo (April 2009)
• Davison Creators Interview (March 2009)
• Innovation by Design (PDF, 2.4MB) A description of the programme I developed and managed at the Centre for Design Innovation at IT Sligo and the case studies of six participating organisations.

You can join me at these upcoming events or if there is any way I can help you or your organisation please contact me. I love sharing my passion around innovation by design.