Consulting Associate Professor, Stanford d.school

John feels most at home swinging his design-thinking hammer and sharpening his design-thinking saw in the context of a startup. Nothing quite compares to this fast-paced environment where everything is plastic, rules change regularly, tasks switch every three minutes, and each day is spent artfully weaving together all the disparate domains, people, and interests that make a new venture work. Maintaining customer- and human-centered points of view brings order to the startup chaos. Sketching and prototyping everything counters uncertainty with direction. And, seeking open and authentic dialog with everyone involved generates energy and a spirit of innovation.

John caught the d.virus way back in 1993 when he enrolled in his first Product Design course taught by David Kelley. Even now, rarely can John be caught without a Sharpie in one hand and paper nearby. Visual thinking, visual communication, and a drive to prototype are not only great design thinking tools, but also entrepreneurial assets.

John has been creating and bringing new products and technologies to market for more than a decade. He cut his teeth at places like IDEO, Intel, IBM, and Interval Research, frequently consults as an innovation expert for major consumer product companies nationwide, and has won national and industry awards in design. Currently, John is knee-deep working on his third startup, HiveLive, based in spectacular Boulder, Colorado. He flies out to Stanford regularly and is thrilled to be a part of the d.school's startup adventure as a Consulting Associate Professor and Strategy Board member.

BS Mechanical Engineering and MS Product Design from Stanford University, MS Human-Computer Interaction from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University