I’m Chris Gielow.
I’ve moved from Industrial to Interaction to Experience Design over the years. Now I’m heading up a User Experience Design group at Cardinal Health. I enjoy the large sandbox I get to play in, but the design community is small here in San Diego, which is why I’m a regular here.
I’ve quickly become known as the “innovation guy”, but I never realized how difficult it could be to change an entire culture–especially when most people don’t know what design is (and some don’t care to find out.)Needless to say it’s become my singular purpose to make innovation happen, and I’ve been soaking up everything I can on the subject. That may mean that in a few years “Experience Designer” won’t cut it for a title either.
The most important advice I can give to anyone right now is to constantly re-invent yourself and find the place where you can offer the most value as a designer. This is a pivotal moment for designers, and we need to show business that we can step up to the plate and deliver on all of our promises.
On Design and Innovation:
I had a conversation with (author/professor) Jonathan Cagen and he actually suggested that I ditch the “design” in my group name and replace it with “innovation.” He might be right, but I just can’t bear to do it. It’s interesting that the name of this forum, like at BusinessWeek, includes both labels.
A great quote from Nussbaum I frequently highlight when selling design and innovation internally: "When people talk about innovation in the ‘90s, they really meant technology. When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design†-Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek