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Innovation Management

Innovation Management is a concept based on the simple need for increasing efficiency by helping to shift the traditional paradigms within a company closer to customers’ needs and expectations. In a business world as fast as the one we move in, Innovation Management is crucial for a product's commercial success.

In Innovation Management, personal skills have to be used in a synergetic way.

Each individual team member creates a pool of individual experience and knowledge that then needs to be exchanged with the other team members. Such a method helps to generate innovation; it protects against “rank stupidity” and blindness to the company’s shortcomings and it also breaks through the dominant paradigm within the company or organisation.

Innovation Management is being used in areas such as Brand and Product Management, Trend Analysis and Business Strategy - to name but a few important ones.

The concept of user-based innovation is an example of how to generate innovation within a business and identify group-orientated trends.

Advantages for the employer:

• The Company can break away from following short-term trend concepts by being able to generate innovations of its own.
• Focus switches to the Company’s inherent potential.
• The foundation can be developed from existing attributes within the Company, thus building on and strengthening its unique selling point and so deliver long-term competitive advantages.

Design

What is Good Design? Good design is a term that I decided to use in a polyvalent way. A well designed item is the product of a designer's mind, a consumer's need and an industrial capability. Not the decorative shell of a product is the yardstick for the quality of its design but the product itself and the process of thinking prior to its production. It is the purpose of an item and the resulting investment of resources that makes it worthy of the term “Good Design”. Mindlessly cutting the costs of both material and labor in order to make it economically more profitable devalues the ethical standards of the term. The balance of form and function and the quality of both work and material constitute the core of every designer product. A sustainable, aesthetic outcome with an individual twist is what I strive for.

About Me

Applying a conceptual edge to design has always been an important part of my work. Having already worked in the creative branch of industry, I know that the skill of conceptual thinking, which I learned during my M.A. studies, is applicable universally. Being a progressively oriented person, I get my kicks from challenges. And working in a multinational and multidisciplinary team is both a challenge to my liking and also a playground for me. Enthusiasm is something I draw from many things: exciting projects in an environment of talented people or the adrenaline rush I get from extreme sports. Everything that sets my mind alight is a good source of inspiration.

CV

Hoodair

Hood Air is an innovative new product. To change the function from bag to hood, unzip the two halves of the travel hood pouch, and secure them with a simple popper, then inflate. You then have a comfortable sheltered place to rest your tired eyes – ideal for the weary traveler. Hood-Air is made of polyurethane plastic. The outer part is high visibility neoprene plastic.

Rucksack- Air – sister product to Hood-Air shares the same innovative premise: inflate for comfort. It is a fully functioning rucksack and an inflatable seat support all in one. Blow up the seat and the relax. Rucksack Air is made from welded polyurethane plastic. The outer part is highly visibility neoprene plastic.

• Download Hood Air / Rucksack Air

Gallopist

A horse’s leg is one of the perfect examples for nature’s superiority when it comes to design. It enables speed, agility, bounce whilst being efficient and aesthetically pleasant at the same time. What is the reason for this? There is a simple answer: these characteristics significantly increase the horse’s chances for survival. A horse’s leg is all this and even more since it is generally associated with power, strength and beauty and elegance at the same time. Why not apply all of nature’s superiority, matured to perfection over millions of years, to the products of our daily lives? I tried to use this inspiration and translated the bone structure’s natural and organic flow into the shape of this chair: a man-made use of the evolutionary process. The fusion of wood and steel underlines the synthesis of both man-made and natural materials. The spring replaces muscles and tendons while the design of the shape of the “bones” reflects the same dynamic beauty of the horse’s leg.

Spine-Chiller

A horse’s leg is one of the perfect examples for nature’s superiority when it comes to design. It enables speed, agility, bounce whilst being efficient and aesthetically pleasant at the same time. What is the reason for this? There is a simple answer: these characteristics significantly increase the horse’s chances for survival. A horse’s leg is all this and even more since it is generally associated with power, strength and beauty and elegance at the same time. Why not apply all of nature’s superiority, matured to perfection over millions of years, to the products of our daily lives? I tried to use this inspiration and translated the bone structure’s natural and organic flow into the shape of this chair: a man-made use of the evolutionary process. The fusion of wood and steel underlines the synthesis of both man-made and natural materials. The spring replaces muscles and tendons while the design of the shape of the “bones” reflects the same dynamic beauty of the horse’s leg.

Trend Analysis

In the light of today’s information explosion, relayed via a vast amount of new media, I came to the conclusion that it has become necessary to be able to take in and digest information appropriately. This observation also revealed that choosing the information we need from everything we take in has become more crucial than ever in order to remain a forerunner. My research on the contemporary application of trend-analysis therefore deals with addressing this very important issue. I chose to consider and explore how subcultures form and are portrayed in social media on the internet, and how one’s identity (or search for one’s identity) is the keystone and motivator for this process. With this as my main focus, I then explored existing trendanalysis methods with the aim of arriving at a new source of information that could be considered by trend analysts when conducting their research for future clients and their marketing strategies.

• Download Contemporary Application of Trend-Analysis

User-Centered Innovation

The basic idea behind user-centered innovation is to make use of the need for improvement identified by the lead users, the high profile users of a certain product. This means that there are innovations to be made from of these lead users' demands because this deviates from the standard. A lead user constantly develops, innovates and changes a product according to his or her individual need. These improvements are then taken up by the manufacturer of the product to make it available for all the other customers. A company works together with their customers and thus constantly follows every step of the market and reacts to the demand with the appropriate supply. Making sure a product is functional and meets the consumer’s expectations with that little extra headroom is what I understand as a crucial element of success for my strategies.

• Download User-Based Innovation

Brixton Market

The objective of this project was to increase Brixton Market’s profile in the public’s reception. In order to do so we as a team of innovation managers took action and conducted research into the needs are for both customers and vendors. Embedded in the economic, political and geographic environment of this market we documented it by interviewing people, taking photos of stalls, signs, people etc. and discussing our individual experiences. Absorbing the market’s semiotics is one of the key elements of getting straight into the scene and understanding it from an inside perspective in order to critically evaluate the potential and enable the market to live up to this potential. In the final step we thought about measures on how to improve the things that need improvement, keep what is worth keeping and change what has to be changed in order to preserve the advantages it has over comparable products (markets) while at the same time optimizing its individuality and thus increasing the attractiveness of its political and economic value for customers.

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