My company
I'm Founder and Principal of The Enigma Bureau, where I do user research and product strategy for companies in B2B and technically complex domains. Visit Enigma Bureau >
I also have a long-running project called Mass Made Soul which has its own dedicated site. MMS combines my passion for photography and design, photographing mass-manufactured products that have personality and soul (often vintage and Italian). Visit Mass Made Soul >
My photography
I've had a lifelong interest in photography, particularly landscape and architecture.
Here you can view my portfolio of photogs from around the world and other thematic projects from over the years. View portfolio >
My background
I've wanted to be a designer since I started drawing cars at age 6. Very soon after that I started doing user research and competitive analysis: I would interview friends and family about what they wanted in a car and then design it for them. And I would get into every car I could with a ruler and measure everything imaginable: seat depth, steering wheel diameter and thickness, and do detailed interior layouts based on what I found.
Since then I've worked on toothbrushes for kids, Mission Control for NASA, security software for Google, retirement planning services, and everything in between.
Most of my career has been in design and innovation consulting, including 10 years in leadership roles at the global consultancy frog design. I was one of the first strategists at frog, the first doing ethnographic type user research, and built up both those practices in their early years.
In 2018 I launched The Enigma Bureau, and have focus on user research and product strategy for companies developing new offerings.
My thinking
My thinking on innovation, design, and business has appeared in publications as diverse as Harvard Business Review, Cnet, Metropolis, and Form, and I've spoken at conferences and given workshops worldwide. I’ve been an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts and Maryland Institute College of the Arts/Johns Hopkins, and have guest lectured at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, the IESE Business School in Barcelona, and ENSCI in Paris.
My book, Innovation X, was published by Jossey-Bass in 2010.
My education
I earned my BFA in Industrial Design with High Distinction from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I was named in the top 100 most distinguished alumni of the school’s first 100 years.
I received my MA in Humanities from University of Chicago, in an interdisciplinary program where I combined sociology, ethnography, anthropology, cultural theory and art history, to create a "design research" program before these really existed.