Listen to this articleMU/DAI helps its clients invent and implement new ways to address their business challenges. Below is our recent interview with Shanon Marks, President at MU/DAI:
Q: How would you describe MU/DAI in your own words?
A: We are an innovation-focused service design firm that seeks out the most important and complex challenges our clients face. MU/DAI uses design process and methods to rapidly explore all possible solutions, but determine which of those is worth building. We’ve designed our business differently all because the nature of design is changing. More firms are taking experience and service design into their own hands and we are there to support our clients growth, building teams and providing the expertise to see beyond tomorrow. We give our clients vision beyond the horizon.
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Q: What is unique about MU/DAI and how does it stand out from competition?
A: Our ability to design practical innovations that impact the outcome set MU/DAI apart from our competitors. The solutions we design are grounded in practicality, usability and use. The most impactful innovations come from discovering the needs of the user through design research, experience design and rapid prototyping. We are most interested in designing new services, improving complex systems and creating better experiences – that’s where the most valuable and differentiated work comes from.
Q: What have been some major milestones over the last 12 months?
A: We’ve nearly doubled in size, adding experienced design leadership in each of our offices. We have instituted some of the most ambitious employee experience programs in our industry and created benefits that equal those found at Silicon Valley tech giants. MU/DAI has created strategic partnerships with the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world, giving us access to the most important client challenges. Most recently, we promoted Patrick DiMichele to Chief Experience Officer and Dwayne Stoltz to Chief Operating Officer. This change gives our team an larger platform to define groundbreaking experiences and breakthrough digital products.
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Q: What geographic markets are you focusing on currently?
A: We started the firm with a national footprint, beginning day-one operations in Chicago, Austin and Los Angeles. It’s a big challenge for a small firm, but it gave us access to a wide spectrum of clients that can be served with local talent. Chicago is our biggest office, now we’re focusing on growing strategic accounts and our team in Austin and Los Angeles. All three of our offices are designed around our clients needs; offering our firm access to the best talent, and international and domestic destinations in under a day. MU/DAI has access to an incredibly diverse spectrum of client opportunities because of the unique position we hold on the map.
Q: What is the motto that guides MU/DAI’s decisions?
A: “Yes, and..” It’s an improvisational theatre technique we use to shape our thinking and guide our decisions at every level. It’s important to build on ideas and unite great minds. When the first response to an idea is a negative or critical statement it becomes increasingly difficult to see that idea through. I’ve seen countless great ideas fall apart because a loud voice or an expert called the idea into question before it had been understood and nurtured. At MU/DAI we build ideas through “yes, and..” and explore management decisions in the same fashion. This “yes, and..” approach follows in the spirit of Sakichi Toyoda’s manufacturing methodology of asking “five whys” to find root cause – and like most things, we do it a little differently.
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