It’s time to exceed all expectations.
A new venture. An evergreen goal.
This was just my own language at the time. I didn’t think I was changing my role as an architect, but I wanted to expand how I was doing the work. (Photo by the author)
Fifteen years ago, I sat down with a cup of coffee and wrote a philosophical job description for myself:
At the time, I was an architect with several interesting projects, but I felt I could do more or maybe I could be more. There were irritants, but the overall feeling was that I wanted a challenge which I could not articulate. Since then, I’ve had opportunities to stretch beyond what I could’ve ever imagined for myself. And everytime, the feeling is that I have become more of who I was all along.
This March (2023) will be the five-year anniversary of my becoming a UX designer. When I started, I had a 5-year plan to become a Chief Design Officer. Again, I didn’t know exactly what that meant but it gave me a direction. Today, the title is less important than the goals it represents:
A desire to tackle big and complex problems,
An intention to integrate all the segments of my professional experience and craft into a position where I can utilize my unique skills and talents, and
A willingness and a passion for creating and maintaining an environment for teammates to tackle challenging goals.
In my career, I’ve always had a passion for solving project and client issues, but as I’ve moved into leading a team the impetus to solve the internal issues has grown to be important also.
For the past few years, I’ve enjoyed being a part of the experience design team at MaxMedia. The opportunity to work on incredibly interesting projects with a really great team has been wonderful for me, but the only constant is change.
So, I’m excited to announce that I have joined Sharpen Partners—an omnichannel experience-design agency whose nimble and diverse team of veteran creatives use empathy and design-thinking to create exceptional solutions for real problems.
Why Sharpen?
Over the course of my career, I’ve always looked at design work as a balance between the (user or customer) experience, the market context, and the organization’s goals. The best solutions combine this in a way that elevates all three. Our vision at Sharpen is to guide our clients through this process in a way that helps them exceed the expectations of their customers, stakeholders, and even their own teams.
We’re veteran experience-design experts—every single one of us—with a wide range of capabilities acquired over many years in many different disciplines. We really are a team of design unicorns, uncommonly equipped to:
Tackle complexity.
Give us a legacy tool or product that needs a new experience, a pile of research you need to make sense of, or a complex problem where your team isn’t quite aligned around priorities. We can take it and turn your questions into a solution that is actionable, reasonable, and understandable.
Address a wide range of users in a single experience.
We have backgrounds in cognitive science, history, cultural studies, space syntax theory, and a whole host of interests about how people think about and learn to use products and experiences.
Create digital and physical design solutions.
We have experience in architectural design and visual design that precede digital products (that’s right, we’re “seasoned” professionals). We use these unique skillsets to look at method-agnostic solutions and to create truly omni-channel experiences—whether we are the channel designer or not.
Create something that didn’t exist yesterday.
Starting with a blank page can be intimidating. Instead we start with research about users, the market, and the business needs to create a substantial foundation and identify what innovation or differentiator will have the most impact.
If any of this excites you, let’s connect!
This is an ambitious vision and these are ambitious goals but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thankfully, I’ve got an exceptional partner in JD and we have an incredibly talented team.
We’ve got exciting things happening and we want you to be a part of it too!
Contact us for a free remote consultation with our innovation leaders to see how we can help you and your company bring your visions to life and be more innovative than ever.
