¶ Intro / Opening
Today I talked to Christine Ruff and Sebastian Stoddard about their move from design leadership to innovation consulting. I made contact with them while I was writing my article on the same topic, which in turn was prompted by a training program I'd developed, on what it takes for senior designers and design leaders to make that leap into innovation consulting. Before we get into it, I should start by defining what I mean by innovation consulting.
And to be clear, it's not about, being an internal design consultant, designing products and services for. Customers, what I am talking about is leading cross functional teams to tackle complex internal organizational challenges. So for example, it might involve testing how best to introduce generative AI into the organization. It might be about improving the staff onboarding experience, or it could be about bringing a new company vision to life across the organization.
It might involve developing an architectural brief for the design of a new office space. There are a multitude of different types of projects, but they all share three key attributes. And that the challenges are a strategic priority for the organization, that the solution implies, cross functional, cross silo collaboration, and critically for designers, that the challenge involves some elements of a subjective human experience.
So we're not talking about, challenges that involve drilling deep into technical, financial, or engineering problems. And I should say, I call this kind of work innovation consulting, but there are many other terms, for this role, including business partner or change agent, but they're essentially the same role and support this conversation in a bit. Bigger context, I see it as part of the current design in the doldrums conversation for two reasons.
First, Christine and Sebastian both reflect on how they've added to their design skills to become more impactful in their organization, which I think designers and leaders could learn a lot from to improve their day to day influence. But secondly, Christine and Sebastian's career track may prove to be a more popular one in the future for some design leaders who are looking to grow into more business orientated roles.
It is definitely not for everyone, but it may prove, one route out of the doldrums for some of the more analytically and relationship minded leaders. Okay. Enough of the setup. Let's get into it.
Welcome to the podcast, Christine and Sebastian. The reason why I wanted you both on is that you've both held design leadership positions in the past in big companies, and you've moved. in a direction, which let's for argument's sake, call it innovation consulting. You can tell me what you call it later, but I wonder if you could just both introduce yourselves and sketch out a brief story of how you've moved from design into this new area. So Christine, do you want to start first?
¶ Christine's career path
Yes. Thank you, Kevin. And thanks a lot for having me here and inviting me to this super interesting talk. Yeah. So my career path, I started off as a product designer. And I've been working in an agency And, some years I changed into the in house design team of Philips. And that was for the reason that I had somehow the idea working in house directly with marketing and engineering. Would bring me actually closer to adding value.
And then in Philips, I changed into leading creative multidisciplinary teams where we've, delivered. I would say total brand experiences and product ecosystems. But I also got the opportunity to step, after some time into a role that was called at that time, design business partner, even earlier before they changed it into design business partner, they called it a category design lead, and this role was set up as a. Permanent role in the business management team of a business.
And that made me actually grow into a quite different role. So I came from design. I was, facilitating and leading design teams, but now I was sitting in a, a business management team. And that's where I actually made a step into, what you might call consulting or advising on innovation, So I started to also work on challenges, which were outside of the normal delivery of design projects.
I was also busy and learning about business strategy, innovation, roadmaps, positioning, which actually made me even adding an MBA in 2022 because I felt excited about. Understanding how business works, how can design at value how do I better talk the language of my business partners? How can I better empathize with that? actually made me make this shift in this move into, what we could call design innovation consulting.
Interesting. when that, role came up, was that role existed in Philips for quite a long time and you knew other people who played that role and then you moved into it or was it something very new
It was created While I was at Phillips and it was created specifically for the purpose to make clear that design is there to support the business. wanted to build a stronger bond, but there was nobody who had this role before.
And basically you moved from a sort of central design function that worked across the business, did you? Into almost like a vertical business unit. Is that right?
exactly. and you could also say, so I didn't move in terms of physical line management role, but I had a kind of recognized, membership role in this business leadership team.
Got it.
And that made the difference. So I aligned also my objectives with business leader and how design would support them, what we would deliver, how we would support the strategy. And over time, it even helped me to build a role as also a facilitator. In the end, I was facilitating business strategy, inspiring innovation roadmap, facilitating business value proposition creation, really Being part of the business and helping them drive and scale the business forward.
¶ Sebastian's career path
Great. we'll get more into the actual role in a second, but, Sebastian, do you want to tell us your journey, if you like, from design to whatever you call, whatever you're doing now?
yeah, sure. And, yeah, thank you for having me on Kevin. I'd say mine is perhaps a little bit less linear in the sense that it jumps around a bit. But I started out as an industrial designer, working as a consultant for Tangerine and Native and Phillips and people. And I left to set up my own consultancy and started to launch my own products. And that sort of came from a frustration, I think, that, I was only in charge, actually similar to Christine, only in charge of one part of the process.
And there are, lot more to building a product than just the sort of look and feel and perhaps the UX of that. so after getting a couple of, products launched along the market, one via sort of Dragon's Den, went to do an MBA. to learn to fill a lot of gaps in my knowledge about exactly how to do that.
and then when I left the MBA, I launched a software business, over in the States, trying to improve, student achievement, teacher quality in inner city schools, and also at the same time joined a, the board of a gym fitness software business in Manchester. and when the education business was sold, I went to work for Samsung as an internal innovation consultant. So I actually almost, my pivot was out of Running my own software business being an innovation consultant.
focused, on mobile to begin with. And then when I took over the team there on all of the different business units within Samsung. And then after that, within Samsung, I pivoted into a strategy and innovation. role running a team looking at innovation within the mobile sphere. So everything from the future of the car, future of digital products and devices and VR, AR, those sort of areas. then I left there about two years ago to join Amazon web services, as principal of digital innovation.
I focus purely on our strategic telco customers. and essentially we help them grow by solving challenges. So what I do is effectively I work with teams within AWS and also, with our strategic customers. to, solve the problems that they or their customers
¶ Motivations behind the shift to innovation consulting
great stuff. And we'll probably come back to that role a bit later. But, a question for both of you, is about the motivation behind that move. So I know you probably didn't plan it all out. but what do you think it was looking back that, that drove that, That move away from pure design. And I think you've hinted, at one thing there, Sebastian, about frustration about, only tackling, say, part of the problem. I think if I've got you right.
I think, yeah, for me, certainly, it was that frustration of, I think design is heavily subjective, and I think, that is something that when you're, five people put in designs, the senior manager decides which one they go with, and then you iterate, and, but It's incredibly subjective. There's one right over another one. It's hard to say. When you get into launching onto the market, there is a good strategy a bad strategy and you can support that with data.
And I think I found that in my design career, I was using one side of my brain, which is very creative, I wasn't using that academic side. which was much more analytical, much more evidence based, much more data, backed up and that's that, that frustration was being able to support one direction or another with data. That's really what drove my frustration. I wanted to be more control of that process and, which products were being released.
What about you, Christy?
Yeah, I think it's similar to Sebastian. So I think when I was in the agency, I had a bit of frustration that I felt outside of where actually the true magic of bringing innovation to the market is happening, So I wanted to be closer to actually understand why a certain product is actually needed for the company. Why is this the right one? Better advice on what would be the next best innovation.
that's even made me also move inside and then inside, I recognized if I wanted to help understand the real challenge and go away from the discussions that Sebastian says, the subjective about this color, that color, et cetera, then you need to have a much better understanding of what is the business challenge. the end, what drove me is the curiosity about understanding what is really here, the business question. is the challenge? What does the business need?
And what do our consumers need or customers need? What is the real problem we are trying to solve here? and if you are interested in this kind of questions, you need to take a broader perspective than usually learn in terms of, solutions doesn't always take the business questions or the production questions into account. That's really what I discovered once I had the opportunity to be in the Business management team, I started to understand what's all playing.
and that drove me and I think it helped me to even make better design solutions for them with a team, but also it gave me the idea, Hey, we can actually add to the business outside design solutions. We can help them going through this thinking process can help them to bridge the language barriers. Sebastian also did the MBA because it helps you to speak the same language with the different parties that are involved in having impact as a business.
And that's what design can also help with because we always bring different aspects together. We like a divergent thinking, right? We like different perspectives.
I think he's,
That was my motivation.
it brilliantly in terms of what the real problem is. if you, quite often as designers we get the sort of on the ground problem and we can tackle that, but we're missing that sort of, the bigger problem actually is what the go to market strategy, people can't find solutions on the market or whatever happens to be. And I think, yes, that desire to tackle the bigger problem, certainly helped, drove me as well.
/Yeah. And could you say anything about the biggest challenges you experienced in making that transition and it might have prompted you both to do the MBAs. I don't know. but what did you find hardest about making this shift?
I'll go first cause I think mine is, It's simple, because it's absolutely not something that designers are taught, and it's sales. It's actually putting yourself out there. ringing people, cold calling people, when you are trying to get things launched onto the market, you're actually trying to set up a business, which means you have to be professional. You have to have all the right marketing material.
You have to have the website, you're setting up a business, but you might just be trying to, to license one product and turning into a salesman as a designer. was actually the thing I found the most difficult. understanding the business knowledge, the financials, the marketing itself, how to lead a team, all of that is absolutely why I went to do an MBA. but I think the biggest change for me was putting yourself out there a, you're selling yourself as much as you're selling any product.
And that was, for me, I think the biggest change.
Yeah. That was slightly different for me because it was an internal role. I had just the opportunity to be in this position, but it also felt a bit as a burden because it was a new role. It was, supported by higher management, but I also had to prove my value there. And, and I was sitting there in meetings. I had no idea what is this meeting really about? So I felt a lot of pressure to learn.
about the business processes to understand what are we actually doing here and also to think about how can I add value? So I have a right to sit at the table, but what can I do to justify that? it made me really, try to learn as fast as possible. What are the processes? What are the needs of all my business partners? are they busy with? Why is this so important for them? Actually, what designers do, how can I empathize with my customers? Business partners, what do they need?
And then think about, okay, what can I bring from my backpack of design tools? That was one thing. And then I think the business language is what also I think Sebastian said, you talk the same language. That's very important. I just, was joining a conference from DMI where I heard again, a lot of designers leave university and they're very good at having that. Great discussion about the aesthetics of the sculpture of a product, right?
But if you need to talk with a product manager, they have a very different view at looking at the product. So you need to talk their language that I found very important. and the other thing is, because I was already part of a team and I wanted to support, you need to get much stronger in influencing and supporting and your success is not that you delivered a great product, but your success is when somebody else says, Hey, you add value in my meeting.
You add value by supporting me and they go and they make the success
that for me is sales. You are selling your proposition, but you're
Yes,
away. you want it to have a life of its own. It needs to, because you've got another 15 things that you're also working on.
Exactly.
how do you sell something? You've got to speak, as you say, you've got to speak their language. You've got to have the data, the evidence. So going into from a very subjective world into a very data driven world and having that. data that they want to see, that your customers want to see that was something that was a huge step.
¶ Example consulting projects
Now, we've talked about innovation in a very way. Broad sense, so far. So could you both give an example or two of a type of project, that you've been engaged with, that clarifies how it's quite different from the type of innovation that you might've done as a designer. Sebastian, do you want to go first?
okay, sure. yeah, so I now, work for in, in the telecommunications industry, working on very large companies. So you're very much involved in everything from middle management to, the cutting edge of what they're trying to achieve and their long term strategies to solving day to day problems. one, project we worked on recently is, led the process of Ericsson developing their own, small language model.
So Ericsson, have created, their own, LLM, it's actually an SLM, a small, language model, and they're using that to help solve, some of the problems in the telco industry because they have an incredible data set of, every stage along that value chain within, the sort of the telco cycle that they have that data. And so they're uniquely positioned to offer something that can add value across the industry. So that is incredibly different to anything that you'd work on as a designer.
There is no tangible, product. In fact, in a way, it's actually the, you're creating the infrastructure that other companies can create their service services on top of. so yeah, they're very different, to anything I would have done before.
But are there any recognizable parts of that project that, designers would recognize? For example, were you doing any sort of, I don't know, journey mapping or something like that? But alongside the more data driven, more analytical stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the big things about Amazon and AWS is we have a very clear process for how we do innovation, how we work. And it's always starting with the customer and we call it working backwards. We work backwards from the customer because traditionally, particularly in telcos, but actually in every industry, people are quite good at building platforms and then trying to monetize them.
And this is, Amazon and AWS believe very strongly you need to start the other way around. So if you are building a an LLM or an SLM, how you access it, how are developers building their products on top of it? So very much journey mapping, very much thinking about the future UX of how those developers, who are your customers.
for the project, how are they accessing, how are you making it easy for them, how are you, allowing them to access those APIs, where are they located, all of that sort of the journey along the developer's path, that's what you're thinking about. from a designer's perspective, you're creating that future U. S., but you're doing it very much within a business context. Of the things that you're unlocking for that customer.
And what role were you playing in that project? So you're working with a, a team in the client organization of probably from different functions. I don't know, but what's your role in that project?
my role in this is very much a facilitator. Christine spoke about, handing, the, your baby over to somebody else. this is actually the baby is created with the customer themselves, Erickson, and also with, within the AWS sort of account team as well. So my role is a facilitator. I am the one there who's getting everyone together, helping them think in a way that's customer centric, making sure that the output is going to meet their business objectives, but also the customer objectives as well.
Crafting that vision so it could be clearly identified and understood by senior management then helping them bring that to life. with the development teams, with the account teams, with the customer teams as well.
Excellent. And Christine, have you got an example that would bring it to life?
yeah. I tried to make it short because I think I would like to have two examples. The first one is, that when I was, working for the beauty business as design business partner, initiated a positioning. And a new value space discovery project, because we knew of course, that the positioning of Philips goes more and more in the direction of health tech. And we, wanted to have more play. How is this business suited in this strategy? And what would this enable as new innovation spaces?
and as I said, so I was initiating that and I was, leading the, Cross functional team. It was including engineering. It was including, business development and business, to identify, how to place the mature businesses and which new value spaces could be added to the portfolio, for the beauty business. That was, I think something that, was very much, outside of what I usually would do as just the design leader. And it ended up with setting up, on small.
team within beauty that would continue with exploring that opportunities discussing how to embed that in the I would say a more streamlined mutual businesses later. And the other project is really only on facilitation. and that is where I let the cross business team design sustainably for Philips. And I mentioned that because we had many initiatives for sustainability and also in the different design teams for personal health, people were saying, yeah, we work on this, but it's very spotty.
And that was an initiative of the leadership team. team of personal health, that initiated one team to try to bring this into a roadmap and they were looking for a facilitator. And as you can imagine, if you have businesses, which are all equal, it's difficult to find a leader that facilitates that businesses. So I thought this is an opportunity to demonstrate how design actually can bring this different perspectives together and help them to create an aligned roadmap.
And that worked very successful. There was a, after two years, we had an aligned roadmap, how they would transition the portfolio towards more sustainability. it also again, how the design teams, because there was no clear roadmap. There were clear priorities. And they could go and do more of their design work by building a clear hypothesis, for example, for repairability. two very different ideas.
And I think that's the beauty of being a design kind of innovation consultant with a design background. You see the opportunities that's in your nature, and you go and see how you can enable them. I think that's maybe the that you mentioned, Sebastian, but you're triggered as a designer, you're triggered to see opportunities. And you think, okay, can I enable them?
well on that point about sales, and I guess this is to both of you, to what extent did you have to go out and make these projects happen? And to what extent did the projects, were defined elsewhere and then someone contacted you to get involved? how do these projects come about and to what extent do you have to almost sell yourself as a valuable part of that project?
Christine, do you want to go first? It's a good question.
Yes. Yeah, because, that's why I picked it too. so the one about, the future positioning and new value spaces in the, in the area of female health, for beauty, that, that is really a project that I had to sell in. I've been part of the strategy discussions. I've been part of what are the needs of the business right now. And I had to convince them that this could be helpful to, for the sustainability of their business.
and that took actually quite convincing and demonstrating the value it could bring. And also, yeah, getting buy in financial means, of course. The other project, was an opportunity I saw where the project was already initiated and I just saw the opportunity to add value. So it could be both.
How about you?
Um, yeah, on my side where I work now, it's so much of it is actually selling the account teams internally have to, like you and trust you to then bring you in front of the customer. There you have to sell the process. and when I first started, we hadn't been doing any work in the telco IBU, so no one internally knew what we did or. How we work. so you sell yourself, you then sell the process to the customer, and that's typically at the sort of boardroom, level.
and then after that you have to sell, the sort of trust of what a AWS can bring to the team who are actually involved in it. you cra you help them craft the vision. You've then got to help them sell that to their senior leadership. And then after that you've got to sell that vision and the practical sort of first steps.
Onto, the, the sort of development teams who are going to take it forward and I would say a majority of these things are well known that they're yeah, we know that perhaps for, telcos moving into higher value services is going to add value, which higher value services and how individual company to do it is the challenge. So I'd say the sort of some of the territory. You're aware of the project is perhaps given to you, but it's where it, how it manifests is probably the most important thing.
I don't think we clarified at the beginning about how new this role is at, AWS. Are there lots of other people like you, at AWS or are you one of the first people in this kind of role?
So I'd say, so the team itself, I think it's been going for four or five years, there's about 10 of us globally, looking after all the strategic customers across all the different IBUs or business units. and, that's not to say that other people within the organization don't work backwards.
Internally for our own internal innovation, lots of people work backwards, to create new solutions, but with our customers, we're probably one of the only teams who specifically are set up to do this, at scale. yeah, so there's not many of us and we look after, I think it's several hundred customers, so it's quite, quite intense. but I think there's. Yeah, it's a sort of specific role that's growing within the organization where we innovate on behalf of our customers.
Yeah, I guess I was wondering how well understood your team is. Within the organization, is there a certain element of not just selling into your clients, but also just raising awareness within your company, AWS, about. What your team is, what it does, how it can add value
Absolutely. Yeah, very much It is, yes, that's probably an extra dimension that you've got to sell as well. It is just what you do and how you do it and the value that process brings on top of you just being in
¶ Old and new skills
a room.
Let's go into skills now, because I think what you've both brought to life there, that the, some of the critical skills, for your new role are maybe a lot softer and more relationship based than maybe the skills you focused on when you were a designer, not to say there weren't lots of soft skills in being a designer, but it seems like the selling, the relationship building. is even stronger, but before me, we putting any more words in your mouth.
what was it about being a designer that helped you in this new role? And then we'll get on onto the new capabilities that you need to add on top. But let's start with what was it about your design background that helps in your role? Christine,
Ah, sure. So I think, designers are known for being extremely curious. and I think, they're also known for being very empathic. Both of the skills helped me because, when I got into this position, I was extremely curious about, the situation, the challenges of other people, what were their needs? what does the business need? How does this work? so I think I learned a lot just by being open, curious, and, trying to understand people I work with.
And that's probably also one of the reasons when you talk about soft skills that helps building a relationship in business, because also there it's about understanding each other, speaking each other's understanding each other's needs, a trust. basis.
in terms of what you needed to build on top of your design skills, you've already mentioned that you needed to brush up on, your business skills and understanding all the business terminology and concepts which the MBA helped with, but what other, or maybe expand on that, but how would you talk about the extra skills and knowledge you needed to add to your design knowledge?
I think really the knowledge about how business works. I think that's what, Sebastian also mentioned really understanding dependencies, processes, even economy, how can economy influence individual businesses, and then putting that together with an understanding of organization, do organizations work, how targets are set.
this is really more hardcore knowledge and then additionally more social skills in terms of how do you facilitate, how do you moderate, how do you motivate people to move along in a process? And yeah, and something that I felt very passionate about is how do you design processes outside of design? How do you take different parties along also how do you explain to them what design is? because if you leave the of delivering on designs, you need to harder sell or explain what you can actually
Yeah. And I guess you're also trying to motivate and influence people you have no authority over, right?
Exactly.
that, that's, that really amps up the importance of those influencing skills. Sebastian,
Yeah. So I actually even did a training on facilitation for that reason, which was focused on facilitating large group, interventions, that helps with how to professionally take people along and support them in finding down solutions.
Yeah.
what are the design skills that helped and the new ones you need to add on top?
I think Christine said some great ones there I think that ability to see opportunities is massive because Innovation doesn't also have to be new. I mean it can be you know doing the same old thing in a slightly different way and You know just being able to see that and identify what could be a great opportunity. I think is a great design skill. and bearing in mind is my role in my industry, really design is never mentioned as a word.
It's almost, that innovation, that creativity, is seen as being a requirement just to do any job. the sales team. I'd say identifying also what's new about something. I think when you have 20 people all giving ideas at the same time and being able to synthesize that in about 10 minutes while everyone else is having a cup of tea and come back and say, you've all given these ideas. This is what I think is.
sort of vision that you're trying to create, and I think that's something that designers are very good at, is taking a lot of information in a short space of time, synthesizing it, not to be too literal about the double diamond going broad and coming narrow, but we're good at being either in the details when we need to be, but also having that bigger picture view. as well. So that's, I think, what we bring. I think that you said it perfectly, Christine. Motivation.
How do you get people to do what you'd like them to do? Because, effectively, you believe you have something that would add value to your business or somebody else's business. How can you provide different evidence? And you'll often do a different presentation to each stakeholder you present to. Because. They want different things. They're looking for something different.
what is it that's going to motivate people, both within your team, but most often, people who are much more senior than you, to back the sort of the vision that you've created and that you want people to bring to life. And I, I think one thing to mention about innovation is it's difficult. Innovation is challenging. Strategy is largely plotting a course forward. That might be what the business sort of believes it wants to do.
I think innovation is always coming up with things that are challenging and difficult and are gonna cost money and they're not budgeted for. And, it's often challenging people, so it's motivating, people who often don't necessarily want to do what you want them to do.
And have you got any tips that you've picked up there, Sebastian or Christine?
Um, I'd say first I, it's, yes, it is. empathizing. is thinking about, it's not about you. of this is about us. it's about how can we give, make a win win or a win win win or a win win win win. it needs to work for everybody.
Otherwise, It just won't work for anyone and I think you know if you think win wins and you empathize with who you are not only developing the service for or the solution for but also with the people that You're trying to motivate then you'll be much more successful in bringing things through.
Christine?
Yeah, indeed. And I think that is a very important point you just say, maybe I like to add, it's very important that you have mutual respect, that you understand each of these people has their own expertise. And that maybe you as a designer with your design background, you do not necessarily understand everybody at a certain moment. If somebody says, Oh, I'm not into this idea or that idea. I think, really using your design skills to try to better understand, that's very important.
I think in the interaction and in the relationship building, and if you have this mutual respect, then you can also challenge each other in a trustworthy way and get to better results.
Related to that, there's, a question of, it's very intangible question, but a question of credibility. big companies are used to, if they've got a big strategic problem, the default position often is to get a big, management consultancy and, and, I'm probably, this is more to Christine and Sebastian. If you've moved from being known as a designer.
And then suddenly you're rocking up to a workshop to lead a team as a consultant, as a, leading a team well outside the domain of, overlapping with design, but also covering, topics well outside your traditional domain. Did you have any challenges there in terms of credibility that, that one, you came from a design background. Two, you were an internal, not an external kind of consultant.
Oh, is a good, quite big question, actually. Naya, so on one hand, I evolved into this role over time. that is a benefit because of the time you involve. And that also means in the time of your career, you build proof points. think that is something very important. Usually, you need to convince people by showing them the value you can add. and, I personally, that's why I personally prefer internally not to use the word a consultant.
Because even if I talk to outside consultants that come in, they prefer to see themselves as a partner. Because if you name yourself a partner, it's clear that you have the same end goal. You have the same interest. and, and you are in there. With the others. I think that helps. it needs convincing. It needs, you need to have people that trust you and you need to have the buy in, at least from senior leadership to give you the trust build the first proof points.
However, once you've built the first proof points, you will see that, you are recognized even spills over to function of design. Okay. They get recognized. Okay. They can also add on this level, but it has to be built by a proof points. that needs to be overcome. And it worked, for me often that there were mentors or that there were people in the organization that said, I trust you. I trust that you can do that. And, yeah, then you engage.
And if you can then deliver and show the impact you've created, it becomes a pull
Definitely, yeah. I think that point about doing it gradually is a good one in internally because I think switching hats suddenly, has, its, has its challenges, doesn't it?
absolutely. and the whole question of internal and external is of course, a bigger one. Because, I think as a benefit, indeed, internally, you are a partner because you're dependent on the success, and I think everybody will understand that credibility then is a challenge.
So you need to make sure that you, indeed, with data, with, other resources, that you bring prove that, that this is really very well researched, that it's data and fact based, that you can show you have the same credibility as if they would hire somebody from outside.
Yeah, I, working at Samsung, we worked with a lot of external people, I think, Kevin, you were even one of them. and, if, when I saw strategic work done by external consultancies versus the work that was done internally, you have a very different understanding of the customer. Just what works, what's been tried before, how to communicate, I think external consultancies can't have that insight. You can do a lot of interviews. You can speak to a lot of people.
It's very difficult to really, know what sort of, where the bodies are buried or whatever it is.
definitely.
internally, you have that experience. It's a great benefit. think to internal, consultants.
And what do you call yourself by the way? internally, Sebastian, do you call yourself a consultant?
no, not at all. we're, innovators, is what we'd call ourselves. We call ourselves anything, but we're problem solvers. that, that's really what we call ourselves because we are on the hunt for customers who have problems to solve and we try and solve them. essentially are consultants, but because we are very much partners, as Christine said. So I'm an investment in our customers. So I'm free. a very good value, should we say. and our customers, they don't pay for me.
They don't pay for the people I bring in, the SMEs, the subject matter experts. They don't pay for any of it. With this as an investment from AWS in helping solve their customers challenges. And. As a result, yes, it's consulting, but you're very much a partnering with them. Because even if they actually don't, use, build something new on AWS, they might use a partner. it's a long term investment and over sort of five year period.
we typically see great returns on it, but it's not something in the short term has any value. Yeah, consultancy doesn't really stand. It's very much about being partner.
And what's your team called? Is it like the innovation team or something?
We're called the digital innovation
Great. as we draw to a close, if there's people listen to this podcast, that, you've piqued their interest in this career route. what advice would you give to say, senior designers interested in pursuing this direction?
Yeah, I think at first, I think if senior designers are interested in this area, that I think, they, they should test if it gives them energy to be busy with challenges outside of normal design challenges. I talk about really business cases, business strategy. I talk about efficiency, risk management, profitability.
this are usually challenges that you need to be very busy with when you try to work in this area, maybe you can still deliver design solutions, but this will be very much your questions that you need to answer that you need to show. and, and you also need to consider that you will be very much busy with indirect influencing. I know a lot of people said, Oh, this is too much politics.
I wouldn't call it politics, but you need to like to work really almost more with people, than with things and ideas. And, and for some designers, this is, they love it. And some designers. rather work on the solution and the idea themself. and that's how I would split, these two directions. You need to see if that gives you energy.
put.
And you can only try it out to
Very good. what do you think Sebastian?
absolutely agree with all of that I think the in terms of Who's going to find it interesting?
really, I think what needs to be doing is building entrepreneurs And everyone should have a side hustle and you'll learn whether you want to have those side hustles because you might have a side project, but until you're actually out there selling it, getting it made, creating the marketing behind it, the messaging, trying to raise money, you won't know whether you're interested in the business side of things.
So I would tell everyone to get out there and start a side hustle and see whether they're interested in. conversations in working with people, or whether they really want to focus on the details and the great conversation I miss heavily of discussing the size of, part lines and, radii. I miss those conversations, but at the same time, I wanted more. And I think, if everyone starts out with that thing, and I always say, we said to my team in Samsung.
To be successful in any organization, you need one of two things. It's either to know something nobody else does. Or you need to be working on something that everyone else wants to work on. and that first one of knowing something, it's about connecting, it's about those people, it's about how do you get things to move through the business, is often, as valuable in a business as anything else. it's a very good skill.
do that. thanks a million guys. that's been absolutely fascinating.
As is often the case, when we stopped recording, a new conversation topic And that was, how designers can tend to underestimate how creative their colleagues in different functions can be. So I caught up with Christine a few days afterwards, just to let her expand on that topic a little bit more.
¶ On the creativity of non-designers
So how did moving beyond being a classical designer Impact your views on creativity and design.
So when I moved away from being a designer myself, I would say a key shift was being a designer means you're usually very proud about the skills you have, the creativity you have. It's about having the great idea, that gets picked, that will be developed, that, excites, consumers or partners. And when you move out of this position and leading, for example, the design team, it's much more, how can you actually enable them to be creative? Have this ideas.
And, what I recognized the more I moved into. There's role of leading teams, but also leading multidisciplinary teams. As we do in design, we involve other functions. that actually the creativity they bring in is complimentary because you usually bring in experts in their field and they know a lot of stuff that you don't know. And they understand maybe the technology better. They maybe understand the market better or they understand the context better.
And, I think that made me think we need to be humble that we don't think, okay, we are the designers. We have the great idea. Usually the best ideas come out of this intersection. And then maybe we need to be more humble and recognizing, hey, actually they're the experts.
I can remember being really struck the first time I worked with an entrepreneur and I was really struck by how creative he was in lots of different domains, he'll be creative in meetings with me around the product, but I'd also see him being creative about how to go to market. I'd see him creative in marketing, in so many different ways. and also I've.
I know enough about science to know that scientists can be incredibly creative about how they design an experiment to test the hypothesis and things like that. So obviously creativity can be applied across lots and lots of different domains. What are your thoughts on what it, what's its specific strengths of designers or all kinds of designers, the industrial designers or UX designers or what have you? What's the specific strength of the kind of creativity that designers have?
I think, is this, this creativity of seeing opportunities. So you listen to this different ideas and I think one of the strengths of designers is really to listen well and to empathize and try to understand. where they come from, what is this idea about, but then to see the opportunity, what could this mean, or how could we develop this? Which I think is elaborating on an idea from somebody else.
I think designers are quite good in that and then making it tangible, giving it a sketch, giving it a prototype to see, Hey, let's try it. and that is for a lot of people already a kind of magic that in a very humble, low cost way, designers help them to deep dive their own ideas. I really consider this a strength that design brings to people. That are very creative.
indeed. I've always liked the, the Ron Arad, I think it's Ron Arad, definition of design was solving in a cultural context. So
Exactly.
that basically
Nice.
at solving problems, but in that context of aesthetics, taste, behaviors, fitting into the zeitgeist the rest of it. So I think that's a particular type of creativity. That designers are good at, but as you said, and I think that the extra bit that I would add to that definition would be that ability to join the dots across different disciplines, because I think we are good at that. I think that's the bit that I guess you were really leaning into in that role as a business partner.
Yeah, exactly. And that's what I also recognized sometimes with requests coming to me. So how can we help with that? We have this idea or we have this challenge. that's why I think there is also kind of art of creating processes. Or designing processes where you bring people together to work together to help them with their own creativity and have the ideas fly and evolve.
Indeed. Great. I think that's covered all the things that I wanted to cover. Was there anything else that you think we should mention?
I think you, you mentioned something nice when you made the citation about the importance of the context. and I think that's also something that, that changed my mind about creativity and being more humble about other people's ideas, because we usually come in as designers. We are not the experts. We are more the generalists and really understanding that other people have a much better view on the context. And a much more detailed view.
I think that's very important because you probably can do as much design research as you want to. If you're a person out of that context, you just have a different access point. And I think that's a very important point for us as designers to recognize.
So just to let you know, I'll be speaking about this topic at the DMI Boston conference on Tuesday, the 24th of September. And I'll look to share the deck soon after. So keep an eye on my LinkedIn feed and I'll also send out a link to the deck in a future newsletter.