Product Powwow

In this episode, I talk to Anthony Davies, MD of Design at Sky and Comcast. We talk about the future TV, fixing the web, designing with and for AI and much more. As you will hear, he’s an incredibly smart, strategic, creative and humble guy, which helps to explain why he’s so highly respected. Finally, Anthony mentions Sky Glass , their high-end TV, with elegantly integrated software and services,...

In this episode, I talk to Tom Inns, the principal at Cofink , the system mapping, facilitation and coaching consultancy.  The concept of Systems design has been around for decades. I’ve even been called a Systems Thinker a few times for my sins, but I’ve always found it a bit of an esoteric and even eccentric subject. Whenever I open a book or article on the topic, I don’t get far before being hi...

In this episode, I talk to Andrew Barraclough, who has held a number of corporate design leadership roles, as well as doing tours of duty in marketing and R&D and ran his own design agency. His design experience also spans industrial, packaging and digital. Partly as a result of his broad experience, he’s one of the most commercially and organizationally savvy design leaders I know. In this co...

Welcome to season two of Product Powwow. In this episode, I talk to Nick Hunn, a global expert in wireless technologies and more specifically in what he calls ‘hearables’ – which are ear-based wearables. We cover a lot of ground, including audio, hearing loss, health-sensing and voice control use cases for hearables. Themes include the nuances of human perception and behaviour around this highly i...

Today, I talk to Katherine Farnon about her pivot from Global Head of Digital Experience Strategy & Operations at Vodafone to becoming a change management consultant.  As anyone with leadership experience knows, simply asking or telling people to adopt a new system, structure, process, or way of working is unlikely to have much success. Change is harder than that. As you will hear, it’s a deep...

Today I talk to three design industry luminaries about the current state of design and potential paths forward. They’re all seasoned hands who have ridden out a few downturns in their time and can take a long view on design from their different vantage points.  Robert Fabricant is a Social impact designer based in NYC who specialises in Healthcare and previously worked at Frog. He wrote two much-d...

Today, I talk to Christine Ruf and Sebastian Stoddart about their move from design leadership to innovation consulting. I made contact with them both while writing my article on the same topic, which in turn was prompted by a training programme I developed on what it takes for senior designers or design leaders to make the leap into innovation consulting. 03:37 Christine’s career path  07:03 Sebas...

This is part 2 of my conversation with Don Norman, where we get into some of the big questions around AI. Don mentions Ben Shneiderman and Salman Khan a few times. Shneiderman is a renowned computer scientist who has focused on Interface design and recently wrote a book called Human-Centered AI. Khan is best known as the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online non-profit educational platform wh...

Today, I talk to Don Norman, the godfather of User Experience. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, so I’ve split it into two parts. Part 1 focuses on Don and how the way we’ve interacted with technology has evolved over time. If you already know lots about Don and UX, want to hear about AI, you might want to skip straight to Part 2. That said, I thought I knew a lot about him but learned how he was...

Product Powwow is a monthly podcast where I have big-picture conversations with design and innovation leaders.  KEVIN & PLAN Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership. LinkedIn Newsletter Plan website Email: kevin@plan.lond...