Hi, I am Russ Strong
Let me take a moment and explain why and how I believe experience and insights can help advance your career.
ergonomics, seating and interiors, to vehicles,
consumer and fitness products and apps, and programs expanding into innovation
in interface with national security and defense, and cities and academia.What are the best parts
of what I do?
I get to continually expand my knowledge base in work with emerging
technologies, diverse shop talent, engineering and tech integration leaders,
artists and designers, political leaders and community and management executives. I get to be
hands-on, while linked to management. And, I love being around great talent and
I love “making”.
What is the crazy part of
my work?
Tossed onto project
challenges, are “people dynamics” — requiring creativity beyond the
technical and design solutions — often demanding extra awareness and skills to
get to desired outcomes.
People!
Work and innovation
ultimately involves people — both for good and the detriment.
There are healthy “people challenges” within the best teams, and these will cause you to “up your game”, and
this leads to better design and outcomes.
There are also “people
challenges” creating obstructions, often stubborn obstacles standing between you and higher objectives (and, you may be unwittingly creating obstacles also). Working within this “people”
dimension, I’ve enjoyed optimizing the dynamics for amazing and rapid
programs. I've also learned from programs that unduly struggle or require tireless
tenacity and patience to drive them forward.
Reality: amidst the
talents and power for “doing”, are the times we are left to reflect on “what
could’ve been" if actions could be taken — actions stalled by barriers of
conflicting interests, constraints and personalities — amidst egos, turf,
timelines, budget stress, stifling bureaucracy, and other that you would never imagine — and then there's the crazy combinations of each of these.
This leads me to bring you my unique stories and insights – so you learn from my experiences.
I want you expanding your
awareness and your combination of tech and people skills — thus expanding
your cross-discipline innovation power — and earlier in your
career.
I want you to have the course I
wish I had in college.
So to jump-start your career and
innovation power:
- We are going to look at creativity, innovation and actions from a unique “in the trenches” perspective — from a career spanning engineering, art and design — a perspective connecting also to executive level decision making, global marketing and branding, and tech integration within national defense and interface with today’s academia.
- We are going to look at how we expand skills and "action capabilities" to take on ever more challenging and rewarding projects and influence outcomes — just as insights I gained, and share here, led me into cooler and higher impact programs.
- I'll provide stories and we'll look at varied ways and techniques of "making" and design evolution. We'll review the actions that powerfully increase innovation — and look deeper into how to draw in the contributions of others.
- I'll take you into industrial design, styling and the graphic arts — the tremendous power for product development and innovation, applicable to just about any program. I also highlight common pitfalls to avoid (seldom spoken about).
- We'll look at how we grow "big picture", with growth in skills and attributes, providing a solid base for success within top processes today: “design thinking”,” integrative design”, “interaction design”, and courses such as MTM (masters in technology management) and IDT (integrated design & management). These cover the steps and philosophies I’ve used in leading programs over the past 35 years — before they were officially named.
- I'll take you through the challenges that may hit you, before they do hit you — with valuable insights into effects of personalities and the dynamics within teams and organizations — and how to recognize and bypass roadblocks to your objectives.
- I'll bring you insights on how other creative leaders and I look holistically across society and tech — across engineering and business, styling, art, tech integration, manufacturing, marketing and customer experience, education, sociology, health, architecture, politics and more — to track trends, combine ideas and concepts, engage, and lead in creation of trends.
In the coming Course II "Growing the YOU & ORGANIZATION for Innovation Power" I will provide further insights looking in greater detail to expanding innovation and welcoming opportunities within organizations -- and how you can play a larger role in this:-
- I provide overview of best practices in organizational structures as relates to optimizing innovation capabilities.
- I include review of key aspects of importance to you relative to business ethics today (and where lacking), confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, and patents. And, insights few others will offer you — things you must consider to protect your interests.
- I provide a view to key opportunities to better welcome the unexpected ideas and opportunities (that are just passing organizations by because of inattention, and a clutter of other reasons).
In sum, I want to advance
the cross-discipline creative "YOU" — so your programs, your companies
and
your corporations will recognize and seize greater opportunities, and win bigger!!
This material is offered in online e-book format — so you can most effectively grasp key points, take notes, join discussions, think deeper to expand understanding, and incorporate these into your life. I want you truly advancing.You will note I am providing this as a "drip feed" course in two versions. Course I is offered in a compressed 8-week configuration for those who desire to move through this faster, or incorporate within a summer program. The 16-week "Semester Version" is configured to fit with an academic semester, to aid instructors or innovation studies facilitators (and this can be a student group) in fitting with semester programs.
The material is the same in both versions of this course.
At the end of each course section, I provide “thoughts for reflection and consideration”. I also provide references to other books and articles, with my notes on how these add to your studies. If you have a friend or group taking this course also, I encourage you to get together and discuss topics and share your own stories and insights relating to the course sections.
Note: Even more powerful for advancing the local innovation ecosystem: think of a local organization or company you can get to host discussions as you follow this course. This might be one hour every other week, for example. If they can bring business and community leaders in to share their stories and insights, you will be furthering everyone’s growth, connections and likely sparking more innovation.
Thank you for joining me, and I look forward to hearing of your growth and success.
Sign in/up with Facebook
Sign in/up with Twitter
Sign in/up with Linkedin
Sign in/up with Google
Sign in/up with Apple
Wouldn't it be a good idea to create a course?
