Tangible Workshop for a New Operating Model

The Thought

Bringing together the executive team at a place by a lake to take an honest look at their current operating model and reshape it to become more customer centric.

The Shape

Alongside amazing consultants who guided the team through an intense process, I provided tangible materials, formats and images that helped them see their thoughts, stay focussed on them and give them shape.

LernCoachies for Cornelsen

The Thought

Together with David Marx, Loki English and others, I worked on this project for the schoolbook publisher Cornelsen in which they aimed to offer a digital layer to their printed schoolbooks that would support learners in doing their homework.

The Shape

We started the process with a concept workshop where everyone shared their individual experiences of ‘doing their homework’ in their childhood – what worked and what didn’t work for them? – After coming up with the idea of little learning creatures, called ‘LernCoachies’ hovering on the digital book, explaining content and supporting learning, we went through a process of iterating specifications, prototypes and mock-ups until launching the final product.

“At My Service” Teacher Workshop for Cornelsen

The Thought

Christoph Link, product lead for digital content at Cornelsen Verlag approached me with idea to conduct a workshop for teachers that would shine a light on their needs around digital content in their teaching practice.

The Shape

I created and conducted together with Christoph a workshop, called “At My Service” that used the metaphor of an attractive menu of desirable foods served on plates to collect, cluster and discuss with teachers the kind of digital content that would truly serve them.

“Sound Seer, Light Hearer” Lates at the Science Museum

The Thought

Beau Lotto’s lottolab (now Lab of Misfits) conducted one of the Science Museum’s Lates public events to celebrate perception and present some of the i,scientist experiments and findings. How could people be made aware of their own perception of the world?

The Shape

I supported the Lates event with design output, such as the flyer illustration, stamps and the design of some of the formats for engagement.

Isometric Shops – Tangible Workshop

The Thought

Christoph Link, product lead for digital content at Cornelsen Verlag and his team were working on making their content available in a most useful way for teachers. They as a team wanted to gain clarity and jointly structure and package their content.

The Shape

I suggested a visual and tangible workshop that offered different ways of thinking about their content by making use of three shop metaphors:

• a petrol station metaphor for ‘quick access’
• a supermarket metaphor for ‘sorted self-service’
• a restaurant metaphor for ‘menus’.

The visual materials I created for the workshop were designed with an isometric perspective so a simple illusion of a 3D-shop could be created.

“Interior Renovation” Workshop

The Thought

In 2009, the Berlin start-up niiu approached David Marx and me about helping them sharpen their customer profile. Niiu had set out to create bespoke newspaper content, beautifully printed and delivered to your doorstep.

The Shape

When David and I visited niuu in their offices, we were struck by the contrast between their aspirations for their product to be high-value, beautiful and bespoke and their rather bleak offices. So on the day of the workshop, without warning them, we turned up with all the tools and gear necessary for painting and rennovating their offices. Only when we felt, their offices were transformed and represented their values, we went on to defining their customer profiles.

“Building Talks” Workshop

The Thought

When part of Beta Tank, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design AHO approached us because a group of architecture students was travelling to Berlin and they wondered if we could create an experience for them. Something that was related to their upcoming master degree brief to create a piece of architecture for the AHO-building that would enhance communication in the building in Oslo.

The Shape

We designed a workshop called “Building Talks” and got them to experience a building and the communication within a building with their own bodies and in a tangible way. What do people who work in a building every day actually see from each other? What would they even want to communicate? How could better communication be inspired?

“Futures of…” Workshops

The Thought

Scott Hartop had a format in mind that would bring together different stakeholders to talk about and debate topics of future relevance, such as transport, housing, energy, family, health, etc.

The Shape

James King and I designed a workshop series called “The’Futures Of…” based on portable and stackable table tops that we would bring to different places for debate. Each workshop would start with a ‘super fiction’ story related to the given topic that would inspire a conversation. Each table layer was a different chapter in the workshop.