Intrapreneur

For society, economy, and the planet.

I utilise intrapreneurial skills and knowledge to help organisations design and implement better services and systems that benefit their customers, their business, and their community.

I am particularly motivated to help cities co-design and implement services and systems that foster creativity and collaboration between sectors, so that cities can adapt better to our increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, to create mutual progress for people and planet.

Recent accomplishments

Also see “Current Projects“, previously…

Moved cultural services online

Situation: In early 2020, the COVID19 pandemic forced Council’s to close their doors and cease community engagement services.

Task: To design a system that could quickly move services online and continue to deliver quality service to the community.

Actions: Led cross-functional teams (more than 30 people) through the human centred design process to understand customer needs and behaviours and business needs, behaviours, and capabilities to develop a system and resources so that local government can provide services online. Designed and implemented an easy to use mobile digital content studio that Council staff can use to produce and broadcast high quality interactive content. Designed and implemented an easy to follow looped process that supported agile teams so that staff – who had never produced digital content before – could quickly go from idea to distributed product.

Results: Within a fortnight, many of Council’s cultural services were engaging the community who demonstrated appreciation via social media comments, sharing, and engagement. During lockdown, library and gallery teams produced more than a 100 online programs, reached tens of thousands of residents (more people were actively engaged in library programs in a month of lockdown than the library usually engages in their programs in a year), became a benchmark for their peers around the country, and all for minimal cost. Staff demonstrated increased happiness due to creativity, collaboration, and autonomy.

Next step: This project has been handed over to stakeholders and I’ll move into a consultant role.

Designed and implemented the Collaborative Citymaking Ecosystem

Situation: The pandemic broke many systems within local government, community, and local business, resulting in social and economic challenges.

Task: Design and implement a better city system.

Actions: Designed the Collaborative Citymaking Ecosystem, a better city system for a complex and rapidly changing world.

Results: Prototype implemented. 600 people from different sectors engaged; positive social and economic outcomes.

Next step for organisations who adopt the Collaborative Citymaking Ecosystem: Continue to improve the framework and encourage collaboration between community, local business, local government, and academia to engage in design thinking workshops and project sprints to produce more diverse ideas and outcomes that will improve the social, economic, and environmental prosperity of participating cities.

Designed and implemented creative studios for the City of Townsville

Situation: To encourage more diverse ideas to be developed more often, people need places to do projects that improve the social, economic, and environmental wellbeing of our cities.

Task: Design and implement creative places for people to do projects.

Actions: Used Design Thinking, data, and Human Centred Design to co-design and implement a fabrication studio and digital production studio based in the city library, with useful resources to help the city to collaborate perpetually on projects worth doing. This included raising funds, leading teams, flexible procurement, developing systems and designing service process.

Results: Creative studio prototype with 24/7 access being used by a diverse range of early adopters to do projects that make our city better. Read 2021 Creative Studio Newsletters.

Next step for the organisation: Iterate and improve based on insights generated by early adopters. Create opportunities to develop more places to do projects across the city.

Food library

Situation: Library staff wanted to develop a new sustainable service for their community – something that inspired hope and community cohesion during unsettling times caused by the COVID19 pandemic, especially as many people had lost or a reduced source of income.

Task: Provide a design thinking workshop and project design sprint to identify, co-design, and implement a new sustainable library service.

Actions: Formed an agile team and ran a design sprint.

Results: Within three days and for $25 dollars the library had implemented the Food Library prototype, whittled down from 30 good ideas. (Usually, it would take the library many months, multiple staff, and thousands of dollars to develop a new service.) Staff and community involved in the process had a positive experience and speak of their contribution proudly. The project attracted media attention, inspired residents to try their own Food Library for their neighbourhoods (replication), and is sustainable.

More accomplishments listed on Linked In.

It started with a can of tuna

When you look at a can of tuna, what do you see?

A snack from the sea, or…

Billions of dollars of global infrastructure; boats, factories, transport systems, shelving…
Billions of hours of global labour; boat builders, fishermen, corporations, factory managers, store owners…
Billions of humans who consume; culture, perception, marketing…

The first time I thought about complex systems was eating a tuna sandwich and reading the label on the can. I was imagining the journey for how the fish got from the ocean to my mouth and it was an exciting moment to think that a complex system provided me, and other seafood enthusiasts, with a lunch that cost us less than a dollar.

From this moment, I began to see and experience complex systems and how the efficiency, or inefficiency, of a system can affect human experience, people and planet.

People waiting at the airport
Teams working on a project
Industry connecting with backyard creatives…

And I loved to ask questions:

What’s the system in play?
How can we tweak the system to be more efficient, and provide a better experience and prosperity for everyone involved?
How do we make the transformation to a better system desirable, feasible, viable?

As the world becomes a single global household that is digitally connected, better systems can affect the social, economic, and environmental prosperity of our lives, our organisations, and our planet.

Because better systems make better people, better people make better cities, and better cities make a better world.

Since that day, I’ve co-designed and implemented systems that help organisations provide better experiences for their customers, which includes contributing to the development of the award-winning ABC Open project and recently designing and implementing the better city system initiative, Collaborative City.

I’ve also stopped eating tuna. The tuna industry needs to design a better system to be socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable. Or transition their resources, knowledge, and systems into a new market.