I have had the pleasure of working with IDEO as a freelance writer on three different occasions. Unfortunately, NDAs and logistics make showcasing that work a challenge.
So if you’ll bear with me, I’ll describe the projects and my role with the help of AI imagery to keep things interesting. (Special thanks to my friend and colleague Matt McFaden for help with Midjourney.) I’d like to take on this kind of work more often, lest you think my mind only works in ads.
The first project was helping a very large manufacturer design products for 10-20 years out. The IDEO team came up with ideas for modular products that could exist in four possible future worlds: Resource Rich & Open, Resource Rich & Closed, Resource Poor & Open, and Resource Poor & Closed. For each potential world, we created animated videos that used a day in the life of customers to inspire product features that will offer utility and value to customers’ lives and livelihoods. You can learn more about the results of this work on IDEO’s site.
The second project was helping a large financial services firm develop new services and products for a more tech-savvy customer base. Again, we used animated videos to tell customer stories, and how customers could use and value potential service offerings.
For both of these projects, the narrative videos needed to bring the design ideas to life in compelling, clear, and concise stories. So that’s how I wrote them. The IDEO model is focused on human-centric design, and the videos helped ground the product thinking with the end user in mind.
The third project was very different and equally interesting. A large, storied consultancy firm was opening a training center, and IDEO conceived of a living museum of sorts. My role was to curate and write the story of major inflection points of the firm’s history, highlighting how each moment influenced the way the firm operates to this day. The project was an interesting one, and involved everything from writing to combing through artifacts at the company’s HQ to envisioning a physical space to house it all.
I highlight this work in my portfolio because the thinking and process behind them greatly interest me. If you or your company have a need for this sort of storytelling and strategic thinking, I’d be thrilled to help you in any way I can.