Agile ways to support aspiring innovators.  

 

Coaching & Facilitating

The ideal: working together on your real goals and problems in a way that moves you forward while building your innovation abilities.

We’ll design our partnership so that you have instruction, facilitation, and/or hands-on expert consulting at all critical moments, and supportive coaching in between.

“Your generous contribution of time and expertise has sharpened our awareness of the critical importance of our brand and what we need to do market it successfully. Thank you for your quiet tenacity.   I think that you really helped us to make a difference.” – Founder, Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color

“I had a great experience working with you as a coach.  You were insightful, considerate, supportive and responsive…your level of help was the right amount, efficient yet patient.”  – IDEO designer

 

Consulting  

Gaining insight and inspiration from your stakeholders and the world, and/or helping to shape the strategy of your organization and its offerings to use your resources for the greatest impact.  Network of former senior IDEO designers (communication, graphic, product, engineering…) to help make it real.

 “It was as much a pleasure watching Ela work as it was working with her…Ela’s ability to probe a topic broadly and somewhat deeply in cycles, while keeping the mood light, was intriguing to observe.” – General Motors executive

“Ela, congratulations on a monumental accomplishment ‹ distilling massive amounts of international fieldwork (what did we do, like 35 interviews?) to a simple, understandable, compelling framework and strategy.”  – Eli Lilly executive

“We are really fired up. Really excited. We can see how to build this.” “Way more compelling than a lot of the other s*** we get around here.” – Lincoln Financial

“Ela sets the bar in terms of the synthesis work, exceptional not just for IDEO but within the Human Factors community.” “What is particularly helpful is your push to make the synthesized ideas visual.” – IDEO leadership

 

Speaking, Teaching & Training

Complete offerings in the principles & processes of design thinking – from  inspirational immersions, to semester-long courses, to inspirational toolkits for innovation.

“You have not only inspired the Head Start group but ourselves as well.” – Senior Consultant, Harvard Family Research Project

“I think that you are a fantastic teacher.  You always gave my group new, creative ways of looking at problems. We appreciated your feedback, your encouragement.” – Students at Olin College