Inventing the future is awesome!
Leading design for an innovation team deep within the walls of Microsoft was pretty cool. My team and I played at the absolute bleeding edge of technology for one of the most influential companies in the world. Discovering, defining, designing, developing and deploying tomorrows technologies was our daily adventure.
Problem solving at the bleeding edge of technology means that you often have to design and build your own gear to get the job done. This is simply because it doesn't exist yet. Be it hacking on new hardware or designing and building bespoke concepts with a path to becoming a real product. Or, designing manufacturing and assembly processes and hand building prototypes to enable POC's or Pilots. It's all about bringing something into the world that didn't exist yesterday.
My time with this IoT focused innovation team at Microsoft has yielded some incredible results. We invented now patented IP, defined the standards for IoT in the enterprise, and deployed new technology that's helping to create new verticals for the business and defining the burgeoning billion dollar IoT industry.
Given the nature of this work - I'm unable to show it or even speak specifically to the majority of it publicly. However, if you are with Microsoft and interested in working with me, I can share some of it with you.
UX / UI
Designing hardware driven experiences is a unique challenge, especially when the technology being leveraged doesn't exist yet. We forecast how humans will engage with something entirely unfamiliar and reflect on influencing changes in their behavior, mindset and personal interaction with the world. To predict, speculate about, and even invent the technology vital to enabling experiences of tomorrow is how we roll.
Working deep in the unknown, the ambiguous and the grey is how my team performs at our peak.
UX leadership / Design Leadership / Ecosystem Design / Business Canvas Design
Industrial Design
Understanding all the humans that interact with an object and its experience ecosystem is the best way to design hardware driven experiences. From the manufacturer, assembler and installers to the end user interacting with the object in their space. Each one impacts my thinking. I do this before I start working with pencil on paper, mouse and pixel, molds and parts. Human centered design processes are how I turned a 30 minute per unit install process into a 3 minute per unit install process - the cost savings of this type of iteration can be measured in the tens of thousands.
Industrial Design / Product Production / Manufacturing / Installation Design and Deployment
Mentoring, talent development and culture cultivation
One of the greatest parts of my job is that I get to work with many early-in-career team members. Those team members are just getting started in their professional life, they are young, fresh and teachable. Being a Senior and a Lead for these people allows me to mentor them, help them increase their skill sets and cultivate them as a talent resource.
One of the most amazing experiences so far was when I was not only nominated, but won the "Top Mentor" award given out by Microsoft's Mach Program.
Team Development / Culture Cultivation / Talent Retention