Dave Gray
| Dave Gray | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| 💼 Occupation | Author; Founder, XPLANE and Boardthing |
| Notable work | Gamestorming, Academic papers |
Dave Gray is an information designer, author and consultant, known for his work in creativity, collaboration, and communication. He has created business design tools such as Culture and Empathy Maps, and he is the founder of design consultancy company XPLANE and co-founder of collaboration platform Boardthing. Gray, along with XPLANE, won a Stevie Award in 2010.
Leadership and design[edit]
XPLANE[edit]
Portland-based company XPLANE was founded by Dave Gray in 1993.[1] It is a design consultancy company that specializes in people-centered design, visual thinking, and co-creation. XPLANE was founded with the goal of helping people communicate in an increasingly complex world.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
XPLANE won a Stevie Award in 2010 for its 2009-produced web video, Did you Know? 4.0, about how the world’s media landscape has been changed by social media and communication technologies.[2]
As of October 2015, XPLANE had served more than 50 of the companies on the Fortune 500.[3]
In May 2016, Fortune Magazine named XPLANE as one of the 20 Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services.[4]
Boardthing[edit]
Gray worked in tandem with developers to found Boardthing in 2013;[5] the collaboration platform for distributed teams is meant to closely replicate a small-group brainstorming experience.[6]
Speaking, workshops, and business tools[edit]
Gray has spoken at numerous conferences and has led many workshops throughout the world. These talks and workshops are frequently related to visual thinking and innovation.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name Some are focused on the business management tools Gray has developed,[7] including Culture Mapping.[8][9][10]
Writing[edit]
Books[edit]
Selling To the VP of NO (2003)
Gray’s first book, Selling to the VP of NO, is about sales effectiveness. When starting his own company, Gray observed that, in business, “nothing ever really happens until somebody sells something.” Gray believed there was a big gap between what was written about effective salesmanship and what people were actually reading and understanding.[11] Selling to the VP of NO presents the sales knowledge Gray acquired in a distilled format; the book is short and also very visual. Gray has described this book as “a children’s book for grown-ups about how to sell and convey ideas more effectively.”Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers (2010; with Sunni Brown and James Macanufo)
This book is about how games, or the foundation of games, can be used to think through problems that are challenging. It includes pre-built games and also explanations of how these are best designed and utilized.[12] Information about idea generation, using creativity techniques, is included, along with descriptions of the qualities different games have. The book was written to equip readers with the knowledge to develop games customized for their needs and situations.[13]
One of the techniques included in the book, the Empathy Map,[14][15] has been adopted by many agile teams as a collaborative tool.[16]
The Connected Company (2012; with Thomas Vander Wal, forward by Alex Osterwalder)
Hierarchical corporate structure is a traditional model that has been in use for centuries but has begun to go out of fashion in the Digital Age.[17] In The Connected Company, Gray addresses why hierarchical organization is not ideal in a service economy and proposes that companies need to restructure in order to survive in this new corporate landscape. Rather than a hierarchy, he suggests operating as a holarchy – in this model, everyone is authorized to represent the company as a whole. Anyone working directly with customers needs to be equipped, and permitted, to make decisions on behalf of the company based on the situation at hand. The individual should ‘own’ the customer and their problem and address it, rather than escalating it to other departments or people within the organization.[18] Through this, the organization presents itself as operating as one cohesive entity instead of many disconnected divisions.[3]
Liminal Thinking: Create the Change You Want by Changing the Way You Think (2016)
In this book, Gray addresses how to lead change[19] through being open to exploring new ways of thinking and understanding that one’s existing mindsets and beliefs could be creating barriers that prevent new ideas to form.[20] Based on their own unique experiences and observations that are relevant to their needs, people draw conclusions, make assumptions, and establish beliefs. They then act as if their truth is the only truth and never question it.[21] The book posits that it is important for people to understand how and why they believe what they do, as having this awareness allows them to consider other possibilities and can lead to understanding of others’ perspectives. This can result in an openness to identifying opportunities or influencing change.[22]
Gray credits concepts developed by business theorist Chris Argyris as being a strong influence on the ideas he presents in this book.[23][21]
Scholarly works[edit]
Gray collaborated on an academic paper, Formality in Sketches and Visual Representation: Some Informal Reflections (with Alan F. Blackwell and Luke Church of University of Cambridge and Beryl Plimmer of Auckland University), for the 2008 IEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) Workshop: Sketch Tools for Diagrammming in Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany.[24]
He has also written a chapter, titled Can Culture Be Designed?, which is included in the Business Architecture Management text.[25]
References[edit]
- ↑ "XPLANE". Great Place to Work. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ↑ Gallagher, Michael (4 February 2011). "2 Award-winning Videos That Brought XPLANE to "Gamestorming"". The Stevie Awards Blog. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 admin (2 October 2015). "Everything That Can Be Digital Will Be Digital". Social & Connected Business. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- ↑ Tkaczyk, Christopher (17 May 2016). "The 20 Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ↑ "Culture Change and Digital Transformation with Alex Osterwalder and Dave Gray". CXO Talk. 6 May 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Frey, Chuck (2 May 2014). "Boardthing: A perfect visual environment for collaborative brainstorming". Mind Mapping Software Blog. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ "Workshops". Xplaner. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ "Dare Conference: Culture and Change – Dave Gray" (video). London. 23–25 September 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2016.CS1 maint: Date format (link)
- ↑ Osterwalder, Alexander; Pigneur, Yves; Guppta, Kavi (7 July 2016). "Don't Let Your Company Culture Just Happen". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ "Interview Dave Gray About the Culture Map" (video). Business Models Inc. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ MeetingsPodcast Guys (18 December 2008). "Extra! Interview with David Gray founder of Xplane.com". Grass Shack events & media. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Taylor, Chris. "Summaries: Gamestorming". Actionable Books. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Sattersten, Todd (6 October 2010). "Book Review – Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo". Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Frey, Chuck (22 September 2010). "How to quickly develop personas using an empathy map". Mind Mapping Software Blog. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Gray, Dave (12 November 2009). "Empathy Map". Gamestorming. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ "Agile Coaching Tip: What Is an Empathy Map?". BigVisible. 25 June 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ Gotkin, Zev (17 December 2012). "America's Innovative Companies Are Going Flat". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- ↑ "The Connected Company: What is a Connected Company?" (video). xplaner.com. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
- ↑ "David Gray // How to Navigate Complexity with Liminal Thinking // UX Week 16 – Dave Gray" (video). Adaptive Path. 12 August 2016.
- ↑ Burkus, Alyssa. "Summaries: Liminal Thinking". Actionable Books. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Gray, Dave (23 January 2015). "Liminal thinking The pyramid of belief" (video). Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- ↑ Fist, Peter (15 September 2016). "Liminal Thinking is the art of creating change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs". The Genius Works. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- ↑ Gray, Dave (12 March 2016). "The roots of Liminal Thinking". A Medium Corporation. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- ↑ Blackwell, Alan F.; Church, Luke; Plimmer, Beryl; Gray, Dave (15 September 2008). "Formality in Sketches and Visual Representation: Some Informal Reflections". Retrieved 29 November 2016.
- ↑ "Management for Professionals: Business Architecture Management". Springer. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
External links[edit]
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