Next & More is the web platform of design explorer Martin Ludvigsen.
I am working as an Associate Professor in interaction design and as a Business Consultant to push the edges of design and innovation.
Next & More is my company, web page, blog, and personal think tank, containing the various lines this exploration takes.
My main research focus is on the iSPORT project where I am leading the exploration towards designing and developing better user experiences within three topics:
- Elite athletes and training equipment for developing kinesthetic empathy, or better performance in direct man-to-man combat
- Developing better audience experience at sporting events through interaction design
- Developing new interfaces for fitness and sports in schools and non-elite environments
Through all three topics the focus is on developing technologies for movement and supporting bodily interaction.
As a design consultant I work with companies to develop their products and services' overall user experience, and as a sparring partner in business development. The design approach is a powerful supplement to standard approaches to strategic development. Imagining and prototyping the future is my craft and specialty.
I also give lectures and presentations of the design approach as Design Thinking, in order to tell people how important it is to work with openly framed, exploratory questions when trying to develop the next successful product or service for their company. Design Thinking seems to not be compatible to standard process tolls like LEAN, but when used in the right way it is.
Last week we launched the first workshop in the “Futorium”-project. The Futorium (Futoriet in Danish) is the working title of that we use instead of the official “Strategic Experience Design in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises”. The goal of the project is to introduce, and innovate based on, the idea of experience with the 12 participating companies. The companies are spread over a wide range of industries, from medical equipment and gardening to road marking machines and webdesign.
We, the project group, consist of project coordinator Hanne Nissen from Favrskov municipality, Christian Dietrichsen from Kulturnatten, an organization that creates a network among artists and cultural institutions, Thomas from the unorthodox consulting company VoveMod (which litterally translated into ‘courage’ or ‘guts’) and myself and Bo Schønning Mortensen from the Aarhus School of Architecture. And the project also includes municipality business consultants from 5 different cities gathered under “Business Region Aarhus”. Oh, yeah … and it’s all funded by the Centre for Culture and Experience Economy under the Ministry of Culture.
We are going to take the companies through a learning and design process that is going to be so exciting. With a range of interesting tools and presents and stories to be unfolded. Until now each company has stated their clear-cut goal with participating the project by way of making mission and vision statements and writing them on their lab coats.
We are keeping the participants in a ind of limbo by telling them some, by not all of what is going to happen in the next year or so. The coming 5 workshops have been explained to them in this illustrative sketch, reproduced on a whiteboard during the workshop. :-)
I really love this project, and I think 1) it is going to be lots of fun for all participants, and 2) very interesting and profitable new business ideas and strategies are going to come from the project, and finally 3) we might even get to do a few experiments within our research efforts on Strategic Design.
I will probably publish more on this project as we move through the coming workshops… so stay tuned