Episoder

  • Today I talk to three design industry luminaries about the current state of design and potential paths forward. They’re all seasoned hands who have ridden out a few downturns in their time and can take a long view on design from their different vantage points.

    Robert Fabricant is a Social impact designer based in NYC who specialises in Healthcare and previously worked at Frog. He wrote two much-discussed articles on FastCo earlier this year, which provocatively asked if Business was breaking up with design, which partly prompted my article on Design in the Doldrums.

    Sean Carney has a background in ID, and has held various design leadership roles, including being the Chief Design Officer of Philips for 15 years, so gives a highly authoritative corporate design view on the situation.

    Warren Hutchinson has moved from ID to UX to digital transformation design, both in-house and as a consultant, including his current consultancy, which he co-founded.

    15:00 Symptoms of the Doldrums

    25:15 From product to system design?

    35:32 Over specialisation?

    39:10 Routes out of the Doldrums

    ARTICLES MENTIONED

    Robert Fabricant, ‘The big design freak-out: A generation of design leaders grapple with their future’, 15 February 2024, FastCompany

    Robert Fabricant, ‘Design leaders are in their reinvention era’, 10 April 2024, FastCompany

    Kevin McCullagh, ‘Why design is in the doldrums’, 18 September 2024
    Kevin McCullagh, DMI keynote deck, 24 September 2024

    KEVIN & PLAN

    Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

    LinkedIn

    Newsletters

    Website: www.plan.london

    Email: kevin@plan.london

    MUSIC

    By Nico Delaney

    https://www.instagram.com/marksson.music

  • Today, I talk to Christine Ruf and Sebastian Stoddart about their move from design leadership to innovation consulting.

    I made contact with them both while writing my article on the same topic, which in turn was prompted by a training programme I developed on what it takes for senior designers or design leaders to make the leap into innovation consulting.

    03:37 Christine’s career path

    07:03 Sebastian's career path

    09:20 Motivations behind the shift to innovation consulting

    16:43 Example consulting projects

    27:38 Old and new skills

    43:31 On the creativity of non-designers

    ARTICLE

    Designers as in-house innovation consultants (the comments are well worth a read too)

    CHRISTINE & SEBASTIAN

    Christine Ruf

    Sebastian Stoddart

    KEVIN & PLAN

    Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

    LinkedIn

    Newsletter

    Website: www.plan.london

    Email: kevin@plan.london

    MUSIC

    By Nico Delaney

    https://www.instagram.com/marksson.music

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  • This is part 2 of my conversation with Don Norman, where we get into some of the big questions around AI.

    Don mentions Ben Shneiderman and Salman Khan a few times. Shneiderman is a renowned computer scientist who has focused on Interface design and recently wrote a book called Human-Centered AI. Khan is best known as the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online non-profit educational platform which hosts 6,500+ video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects.

    03:18 AI agents

    10:51 AI devices

    16:56 Overtrust in AI

    19:33 Human vs Machine strengths

    26:08 Intelligent amplification

    34:36 AI amplified design

    38:55 Examples of HCAI

    BOOK MENTIONED

    Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing), Salman Khan, 2024

    DON NORMAN

    LinkedIn

    Website

    Bio

    Don Norman Design Award and summit

    KEVIN & PLAN

    Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

    LinkedIn

    Newsletter

    Plan website

    Email: kevin@plan.london

    MUSIC

    By Nico Delaney

    https://www.instagram.com/marksson.music

  • Today, I talk to Don Norman, the godfather of User Experience. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, so I’ve split it into two parts. Part 1 focuses on Don and how the way we’ve interacted with technology has evolved over time.

    If you already know lots about Don and UX, want to hear about AI, you might want to skip straight to Part 2.

    That said, I thought I knew a lot about him but learned how he was there at the dawn of computing, AI and how to think about human cognition and behaviour – including his beef with B. F. Skinner, one of the godfathers of today’s Behaviour change movement.

    04:32 Humanity-Centered Design

    13:33 Wide-ranging career

    26:45 The evolution of our interaction with machines

    34:22 Smartphones

    BOOK MENTIONED

    Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein, 2019

    DON NORMAN

    LinkedIn

    Website

    Bio

    Don Norman Design Award and summit

    KEVIN & PLAN

    Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

    LinkedIn

    Newsletter

    Plan website

    Email: kevin@plan.london

    MUSIC

    By Nico Delaney

    https://www.instagram.com/marksson.music

  • Product Powwow is a monthly podcast where I have big-picture conversations with design and innovation leaders.

    KEVIN & PLAN

    Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

    LinkedIn

    Newsletter

    Plan website

    Email: kevin@plan.london

    MUSIC

    By Nico Delaney

    https://www.instagram.com/marksson.music