Why I’m Getting Back Into the Dopamine Department | Act II
Let’s Start with...The Rest of My Career is Interesting Too
At times there has been greener grass on the other side of the fence, but I’ve gotten a lot from making the most of my situation.After Mattel I spent a few years in educational publishing. Due to the nature of that highly standardized industry, it’s regrettably hard to “find the fun”. However, a day job allowed me to work my way through D school, where I rounded out some gaps in my skill set. I developed the following gaps into strengths:
- interaction design
- industrial design
-
design thinking
- product research
Most importantly, I found my “visual voice” with a sketching and ideation practice. I discovered how to use my mind to develop concepts and prototypes incredibly rapidly, alone or in a group setting. This set me on my way for about ten years as a product consultant, first at a hardware engineering firm; later at management and digital consultancies.
Here’s a video that shows how I visualized and conceptualized ideas in a physical product environment:
This is a similar one highlighting project collaboration with Industrial and 3D designers:
And here’s one more about conceptualization in general. This highlights how I work solo or with a team to energetically explore lots of ideas.
My consulting projects branched into a dazzling array of interesting projects, so much so that it’s a challenge to summarize. I’ve researched and designed across a wild array of subjects, product types or problem scenarios. I refer you to my resume and portfolio, but my personal highlights were designing a braille learning device and developing a suite of protein science gear and related software. In all of these projects, the research was as engaging as the design, and I took on research more as a central responsibility.
With a strong desire to maintain subject matter consistency, I left consulting to lead product design at two successive digital rating and charging companies. My current world, energy dashboards, is simultaneously mundane and fascinating. For users, I try to transform mundane to magic; meanwhile I have a side mission to creatively enable my design and engineering teams, many who haven’t felt the privilege of a collaborative creative space.
What about my next chapter? Let’s wrap it up in...
So Can We Save the World Already?
Also: General Portfolio | Book Portfolio | Resume | Email | Phone
Also check out my LEGO Mocs and my pilot LEGO App, Brainbricker