How can a gargantuan company force itself to act as scrappy and fast as a startup? In this episode of The Resonance Test, we learn how one of our own clients has managed this—very difficult—feat. Listen as Joy Slabaugh-Hamilton, Head of Service Development within Vanguard Financial Advisor Services™, talks with Toby Bottorf, Continuum’s VP of Service and Experience Design. In the course of their dialogue, you’ll hear Slabaugh-Hamilton say such things as:
• “One of the challenges we have in a big corporation is: deep pockets. You’re not forced to find the skinny, lean, cheap, alternative because there are funds available.”
• “Sometimes you just need an outside person to say it. To point out the emperor is… robe-less.”
• “Sometimes in business, it can be hard to accept and understand that there’s rich insights that come out of talking deeply with a few people—a population that is not statistically significant.”
• “If you can just get one person willing to be willing try something… that demonstration can get help other people change their way of thinking, be a little bit more open-minded and consider other possibilities.”
Host: Pete Chapin
Editor: Kyp Pilalas
Producer: Ken Gordon
About the Author
Toby BottorfVP, Service and Experience DesignToby joined Continuum to establish a digital design capability, and is now a VP in service design, leading teams to design solutions for complex human and technical systems. His work builds on a career in UX and interface design.
Recent work includes Audi on demand, a premium mobility service; the design of a client communications tool for a financial services company; and the strategy and experience design of a digital coaching platform for a leading American health insurer.
Toby holds a master’s degree in communications design from the Institute of Design (IIT) and a BA in art from Yale University.
Ken GordonChief Communications SpecialistKen makes EPAM Continuum’s work visible to the necessary people. He creates superlative content, works with colleagues to do the same, and employs social networks to share it widely.
A card-carrying humanist, Ken co-founded QuickMuse, the improvisational writing website, and JEDLAB, the Jewish education community. He has written for TheAtlantic.com, the New York Times, and many other pubs.
Ken has an English degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in English from the State University of New York at Albany. He framed both diplomas long ago, but can’t seem to find them now—a fact he considers all-too-human.
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