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Navigating Design, Product and Systems Thinking: An Approach to Work

23 April 2024 at 06:41 Coordinated Universal Time
design

The following are a set of evolving principles, methods and approaches that resonate with me and have impact on how I work.

Working at the nexus of design (human ethnography; emotion, psychology, behaviour, desires) and technology (logic, systems, processes), I've cultivated a perspective characterised by creative tension. As a designer immersed in the realm of technology / technologist immersed in the realm of design, I've learned to navigate with a balance between creativity and code. Every project presents an opportunity to bridge the gap between the analog and the digital and infusing life-centric design principles within technological solutions and (perhaps more importantly) in the processes, systems and cultures that produce them.

Over the years, I have become increasingly intrigued with the cultural and social and political drivers of innovation and technology. I seek depth. I'm not naive and understand the prerogatives and concerns of commerce, possess strong business acumen and experience, having worked across a multitude of industries and verticles, for statups, SME's, multinational corporations, social enterprises, not-for-profit and inter-governmental organisations. To these varied contexts, I bring an innate passion for understanding the 'as is', how things work and the systems in which processes and people are embedded. I am not afraid of engaging with complexity.

I believe in the value of frameworks to serve as orienting maps for systems and processes. These include the Double Diamond model of divergence and convergence and the evolution of the Systemic Design model. [to be updated]

The following principles, methodologies and approaches are exterior analogues of my interior world. They mirror things that are important to me, how I see the world and the future I want to help to create.