Originally released December 2, 2021

Guest

April Dunford

Author 

Obviously Awesome - How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy it, Love it.

Summary

April Dunford, product positioning leader and author of the book Obviously Awesome - How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy it, Love it, joins Designing Next to share her insights and methodology around product positioning. In this episode, April shares why traditional positioning statements are not useful, how she now approaches positioning with her five components of effective positioning, and how she has seen the COVID-19 pandemic affect how companies approach their positioning. 

Show Details

This episode’s guest is April Dunford, product positioning leader and author of the book Obviously Awesome - How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy it, Love it. Unsurprisingly, April has a tremendous amount of product positioning experience. She spent the first 25 years of her career as a start-up executive, leading marketing, product and sales teams. Six of her seven startups were acquired by brands including IBM, SAP, and Siebel. Through it all, she positioned, re-positioned and launched 16 products. Today she is an author and consultant. 

Of course, we’re thrilled that she decided to share her knowledge and wisdom through the book Obviously Awesome, which captures her ideas about positioning and a methodology for doing it that anyone can follow. As she says, positioning is the foundation of everything we do in marketing and sales -- and we would say it is a key part of everything we do in innovation and design as well. 

In this episode, Chad and Steve dig into all things positioning with April. Look forward to learning:

• How April approached the development and writing of her book as if she was developing a new product. 
• Why April feels traditional positioning statements are not useful, and how she now approaches positioning as a result - including her five components of effective positioning. 
• How April has seen the COVID-19 pandemic affect how companies approach their positioning. 

Visit April’s personal website: https://www.aprildunford.com/

Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Obviously-Awesome-Product-Positioning-Customers/dp/1999023005/

Originally released November 11, 2021

Guest

Tonya Browning

Vice President, Dell Digital Design 

Dell Technologies

Summary

Tonya Browning, Vice President, Dell Digital Design at Dell Technologies, joins Designing Next to share her learnings and perspective from leading design at organizations large and small. Tonya covers a wide variety of subjects with Steve and Chad, including her three key waypoints around design leadership at large companies, why failing fast is so important in design - and how to fail fast the right way, and her diverse sources of design inspiration - from Cyberpunk to palimpsests to Picasso.

Show Details

This episode’s guest is Tonya Browning, Vice President, Dell Digital Design at Dell Technologies. As the first Vice President of Design in Dell’s IT organization, Dell Digital, Tonya is building a modern design practice as the organization transforms and adopts modern methodologies as well as new technologies. She oversees digital design, analytics, generative content, UX engineering, research and customer satisfaction measures.

As we’ll hear in our conversation, she is an expert in and passionate about design, software engineering, usability, content and accessibility. She has many varied experiences, implementing enterprise level applications and digital experiences for PayPal, Express Scripts/Cigna, Magento, Visa, as well as a number of startups (including one she founded).  

There is so much to talk about with Tonya, she has a unique passion and a really interesting perspective across a number of subjects. Look forward to learning: 

• What she has learned about design from her experience at organizations of all sizes, from start-ups to large enterprise organizations.
• Tonya’s three key waypoints around design leadership at large companies. 
• Why failing fast is important from a design perspective, how it works best and why it sometimes doesn’t work. 
• The advice that Tonya has for those who want to bring more of a design focus and mindset to their organizations. 
  

Visit Tonya’s personal website: tonyabrowning.com.

Originally released October 28, 2021

Guest

Elena Zloteanu

International Design Thinking Program Manager 

Hochland

Summary

Elena Zloteanu, International Design Thinking Program Manager at Hochland, joins Designing Next to share insights from Hochland’s journey of scaling design thinking across their organization. In this episode, Elena covers a number of topics with Steve and Chad, including how she learns from failures and how a past “successful failure” in design thinking helped lead her to where she is today, how she integrates Hochland’s mission to excite consumers about cheese into all of her design thinking challenges, and how she continued innovation and design thinking efforts through COVID - creating what she calls an innovation bubble. 

Show Details

This episode’s guest is Elena Zloteanu, International Design Thinking Program Manager at Hochland. Hochland is a cheese and dairy manufacturer based in Germany, with distribution across Europe and the United States. Elena has been with Hochland for 18 years and held many positions across marketing and innovation. Today, her role focuses on implementing Design Thinking at Hochland. Her mission is to scale adoption of Design Thinking across the organization as both a toolbox and mindset, with the goal of contributing to the organization's innovation effort and speeding up the time to market of new products.. 

Years ago, Elena made it her mission to bring Design Thinking into Hochland, and make it a core element of their business. In this episode, she is going to share a lot about that journey with us. Look forward to learning: 

• Elena’s perspective on why innovation is important in the food category - and for cheese specifically for her
• How Elena learns from failures and how a past “successful failure” in design thinking helped lead her to where she is today
• How she continued innovation and design thinking efforts through COVID - creating what is called an innovation bubble. 

Originally released October 14, 2021

Guest

Joe Smiley

Group Design Manager 

Blizzard Entertainment

Summary

Joe Smiley, Group Design Manager at Blizzard Entertainment, joins Designing Next to talk about a topic that Chad and Steve are passionate about - design thinking, and how it is utilized in business.  In this episode, Joe speaks with Chad & Steve about how he has seen the role of the designer evolve in the last 20 years, what it means to be a design driven company, and the advice Joe would give leaders who want to integrate design further into their organization.

Show Details

In this episode of the Designing Next Podcast, we’re joined by Joe Smiley, Group Design Manager at Blizzard Entertainment. Joe’s passion is designing + developing extraordinary digital products via Human-Centered Design to explore consumers’ motivations & needs. Then utilizing those deep insights to design products that solve their challenges and fulfill unmet needs. His career has spanned 20 years, utilizing his design experience with firms ranging from AOL to PwC to Marriot to eTrade and now Blizzard Entertainment. 

Joe is passionate about the role design can play in organizations large and small. You’ll hear that passion throughout this episode’s conversation. Look forward to learning: 

• How Joe has seen the role of the designer evolve over the last 20 years. 
• What it means to be a design-driven company. 
• The advice Joe would give leaders who want to integrate design further into their organization
• Why Joe wants to focus on the role of education in design thinking and why he believes we should change STEM to STEAM - adding art to science, technology, engineering and math 
  

Joe’s web site/blog: https://dsruptr.com/

Originally released September 30, 2021

Guest

Danielle Cohn

Vice-President of Business Development and Startup Engagement 

Comcast NBCUniversal

Summary

Danielle Cohn, Vice-President of Business Development and Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal, joins Designing Next to share her unique insights around innovation and the startup world.  In this episode, Danielle speaks with Chad & Steve about why a large company like Comcast NBCUniversal has such a focus on startups, how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the environment for startups, and how Danielle’s personal experiences led her into the startup world herself and ignited a passion around care. 

Show Details

In this episode of the Designing Next Podcast, we’re joined by Danielle Cohn, Vice-President of Business Development and Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal.This conversation will really get into that intersection of large enterprise organizations and startups. Danielle has a presence in both worlds, so her perspective on innovation, startups and the world of entrepreneurship today will be very interesting. 

Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs helps talented startups create rapid breakthroughs in connectivity, media, with access to their renowned network of partners, brands, and mentors. Danielle has been with Comcast NBCUniversal for 7 years and prior to joining the organization, she spent 15 years at the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors bureau. 

In this episode, Danielle shares her passion and perspective about the startup world, innovation and many other topics. Look forward to learning: 

• Why a large company like Comcast NBCUniversal has a focus on startups
• How the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the environment for startups
• How Danielle’s personal experiences led her into the startup world herself and ignited a passion around care 

Originally released September 16, 2021

Guest

Paul Puopolo

Executive Vice-President of Innovation

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport

Summary

Paul Puopolo, Executive Vice-President of Innovation at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, joins Designing Next to share his experience and learnings from a career leading innovation across several large organizations. In this episode, Paul speaks with Chad & Steve about the commonalities he has seen in the successful innovation projects he has been a part of, advice he would give to those building a career in innovation, and his four P’s - the four key elements Paul believes are crucial to the success of any innovation initiative. 

Show Details

In our first episode of the Fall season, we are talking innovation with Paul Puopolo, Executive Vice-President of Innovation at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Not only is it interesting to explore innovation in the aviation and airport industry, but Paul brings the podcast an incredible depth of knowledge and experience in innovation as a whole. 

Paul has had an interesting path to his role today leading innovation for one of the busiest airports in the United States. He served over 12 years in the U.S. Navy and then entered the corporate world in the health insurance space, holding several roles at Humana, leaving after 9 years as their Director of Consumer Innovation. He then moved onto Highmark, holding the role of Vice President of Business Innovation, before spending two years at MetLife as Vice-President of Innovation. He’s been in his current role at DFW for three years. 

In this episode, Paul shares a lot of interesting insights and learnings around innovation. Look forward to learning:

• The commonalities has seen in the successful innovation projects he has been a part of
• What he wished he knew “then” - the advice he would give to those building a career in innovation
• How Paul sees the differences between being an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur
• Paul Puopolo’s four P’s - the four key elements Paul believes are crucial to the success of any innovation initiative 

Originally released April 15, 2021

Guest

Jennifer Zamora

Senior Global Director Customer Experience & Employee Experience

Dow

Summary

Jennifer Zamora, Senior Global Director Customer Experience & Employee Experience at Dow, joins Designing Next to talk about building a customer experience capability in a complex B2B environment. In this episode, she speaks with Chad & Steve about how customer-centricity moved from being an abstract concept to a key strategic initiative at Dow, why humility is so important when you are listening to your customers and how Dow developed a metrics framework around CX that all levels of the organization could buy into. 

Show Details

This episode’s guest is Jennifer Zamora, Senior Global Director Customer Experience & Employee Experience at Dow. You’ve likely heard of Dow - the materials science company was founded in 1897 and has over 37,000 employees. 

Jen has been with Dow for over 20 years, holding positions across marketing, customer service, and financial areas. For the last several years, her focus has been on deploying the long-term CX strategy and discipline, which includes implementing the customer listening process, institutionalizing a customer-centric culture across Dow and defining and implementing Dow’s transformative customer distinction model and journey mapping practices. 

In this episode, we speak to Jen about what it is like to stand up a new CX initiative in a complex organization like Dow, and what has been key to their success thus far. Look forward to learning:

• How customer centricity moved from an abstract concept at Dow to becoming a true asset and one of the organization's four key ambitions.  
• Why humility is so important when you are listening to your customers to truly understand their experiences. 
• How Jen and her team developed a measurement framework that resonated across the organization.

Originally released April 1, 2021

Guest

Jody Allison

Vice President, Transformation

Algonquin Power & Utilities

Summary

Jody Allison, Vice President, Transformation at Algonquin Power & Utilities, joins Designing Next to talk about driving transformation in the utilities and renewable industry. In this episode, she speaks with Chad & Steve about her journey from accounting and risk management to leading transformation at a large utilities organization, what transformation looks like in the utilities industry and how it compares to other industries, and how Jody and the team at Algonquin have successfully continued their transformation efforts even as the COVID-19 pandemic changed so many aspects of their business.

Show Details

This episode’s guest is Jody Allison, Vice President, Transformation at Algonquin Power & Utilities. Algonquin operates a number of renewable energy and regulated utility services across the United States and Canada. 

Jody has been with Algonquin for almost 18 months, so as you might imagine, she has had an interesting experience with COVID-19 changing everything just a few months into her tenure. Jody’s path to leading transformation has come through the finance world, she started as an accountant and spent almost 20 years at Paychex, working in risk management and service strategy before transitioning into the utility industry, first with National Grid and now with Algonquin. 

Many of us may not always think about the utilities industry first when it comes to transformation, but as Jody will share with us, it is a space that is ripe for innovation in a number of areas. Look forward to learning:

• About Jody’s journey from accounting and risk management to leading transformation at a large utilities organization
• What transformation looks like in the utilities industry and how it compares to other industries
• How Jody and the team at Algonquin have successfully continued their transformation efforts even as the COVID-19 pandemic changed so many aspects of their business.

Originally released March 18, 2021

Guest

Alan Moore

Author

Do Build: How to Make and Lead a Business the World Needs

Summary

Alan Moore, author, designer, and innovator, joins Designing Next to talk about helping businesses discover their own unique beauty. Alan’s new book is called Do Build: How to Make and Lead a Business the World Needs and in this episode, he speaks with Chad & Steve about what led him to his mission of creating beautiful businesses, why he believes we need to shift from what he calls an extractive economy to a regenerative economy, and he shares the questions he believes leaders must ask themselves if they want to create beautiful businesses.

Show Details

This episode’s guest is Alan Moore, designer, business innovator and author. His new book is called Do Build: How to Make and Lead a Business the World Needs. The book is an extension of his life’s mission, which is to help businesses discover their own unique beauty. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about what a beautiful business is and why Alan is on this mission to transform business through beauty. Alan believes that the world of business is changing and that the single pursuit of ‘profit at any cost’ has been replaced by a desire to build companies that create a better future — and enjoy commercial success.

In Do Build: How to Make and Lead a Business the World Needs, Alan Moore draws on his years of research into some of the most pioneering and progressive businesses on the planet. By speaking to their purpose-driven founders,
 he discovers that it is possible to lead with generosity, have a transparent supply chain, design products and services that are considered and joyful, and create a company culture where individuals flourish.

Alan brings a refreshing perspective, and he’ll share several interesting insights in this episode. Look forward to learning:

• About the “Road to Damascus” experience that led Alan to his mission of creating beautiful businesses and what it means to him to have a return to beauty within the context of business.
• Why Alan believes we have to shift from what he calls an extractive economy to a regenerative economy and what that means. 
• Questions that Alan believes leaders should ask themselves if they want to create a beautiful business.

We appreciate Alan sharing his work and insights with us on this episode. We hope you are inspired by it as much as we were. 

Alan’s website

https://beautiful.business/

Originally released March 4, 2021

Guest

Torben Nielsen

CEO

ZOOM+Care

Summary

Torben Nielsen, CEO of ZOOM+Care, joins Designing Next to talk about innovation and driving growth. In this episode, Torben speaks with Chad & Steve about how working for Lego taught him to observe and listen to the needs of his audience, the steps Torben took to turnaround ZOOM+Care and how it doubled in size in less than two years, and he shares advice he would give to leaders who are on a journey to create transformative and differentiating experiences.

Show Details

In this episode, the topic is growth and innovative transformation. Our guest is Torben Nielsen, who is the CEO of ZOOM+Care®, an innovator of on-demand retail and virtual healthcare. Torben has 20+ years of broad business experience, ranging from nimble start-ups to household brand names such as LEGO, XEROX, and BlueCross BlueShield. He is also a co-founder of HealthSparq—the second-fastest-growing digital health company in the U.S. in 2016—and has shepherded innovative, digital healthcare solutions over the past fifteen years.

Torben has been the CEO of ZoomCare+ for just under two years, and in that time they have almost doubled in size to 60 locations - which is very impressive considering that over half of that time has been during the COVID-19 pandemic. His leadership landed ZOOM+Care among the ten most admired healthcare companies in Oregon and SW Washington in 2020, and he was recently recognized by the Portland Business Journal as a 2021 "Executive of the Year.” Through it’s neighborhood clinics and telehealth offering, ZoomCare offers same-day primary care, urgent care, speciality care and emergency care to over 300,000 patients a year. However their approach is a bit different than the healthcare experiences that many of us are accustomed to. The ZOOM+Care experience is all about focused, compassionate care delivered quickly. This approach has not only led to rapid growth, but the company has 19k reviews on Google with an average of 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Torben has experienced quite a bit over his career, especially in the last two years at ZOOM+Care, and he’ll share several interesting insights in this episode. Look forward to learning:

• How working for Lego taught him to observe and listen to the needs of his audience.
• How ZoomCare+ differentiates itself from the traditional healthcare experience. 
• The steps Torben took to turnaround ZoomCare+ and how it doubled in size in less than two years.
• What they learned as they quickly pivoted their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• What advice he would give to leaders who are on a journey to create transformative and differentiating experiences. 
  

We appreciate Torben sharing his wisdom and experience with us on this episode. We’re sure you’ll enjoy it.