Luis Eduardo Dejo

I BRIDGE BUSINESS AND DESIGN. I HELP COMPANIES INNOVATE BY BRINGING USER PERSPECTIVE AND DESIGN METHODS. MY CURRENT CHALLENGES are around MAKING TECHNOLOGY MORE HUMAN,CREATING AWARENESS OF CORPORATE PURPOSE BEYOND FINANCIAL RESULTS and building a sustainability and responsible experience mindset in our team.  

As a design researcher and strategist I focus on finding answers for the WHYs and setting sustainable roadmaps for the HOWs. 

I truly believe that bringing the user to the center of the conversation can make a difference. As part of a Design team, I’ve experienced that user perspective makes business people nervous as it challenges the current way of doing business and other orthodoxies. That’s a good start...but a long and bumpy run. 

In this site, you will see just a small sample of the type of projects I've had the luck to work on. For confidentiality reasons, I've had to skip some processes, results and other details. In general, my work has allowed me to focus on different aspects of design and strategy that I'd summarize as:

UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE AND THEIR CONTEXT

I believe in the power of conversations and contextual research. I see users as people and not just as markets. That's my take on innovation.

REFRAMING PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Understanding people leads to realizing the kind of problems we are trying to solve. It's not about thinking out of the box, but finding the right box first.

thinking of strategy and what's possible

A thorough, cross-disciplinary approach has allowed me to bring research into ideas into prototypes, concepts and experiences.

 A 12-week project to understand life in Czechia and the role of technology and communications in people’s everyday lives. We reframed the project and instead of creating a new product offering, we understood the company required a brand new value proposition that focuses on regaining trust from their clients. All the journey and product offering was developed, together with an implementation roadmap. Detailed information is not shown due to confidentiality.

The "Smart" city definition depends on what each vendor defines as "smart"

When asked about defining smart cities, we brought the perspective of citizens and specialists. Unlike the traditional definition of smart cities for city halls, there's little connection between what city governments do and citizens perceive.

In fact, most of the "smart city" approaches in the tech world, focus only on city governments. We understood that the way city management is structured focuses on silos (Health, Labor, Education, Transport) while life of citizens in the city tends to be transversal. That means that there's a disconnect between economic metrics and city livability. 

More information is available in this Linked Urban document.

A project that started as a wearable that provides connectivity for all of our devices and turned into a deep understanding of what identity means and implies.

The initial idea was to become an alternative to our smartphone dependence through a wearable device. This exploration and given the hardware implications and restrictions led our team to pivot into an exploration of the meaning of identity.

I led the research (both secondary and primary) aspects plus the implications and cases that could lead to a better fit with corporate initiatives. We explored the implications in retail, marketing data, security and finally cities, where the project ended up as a possibility of a pilot. 

Models, prototypes, scenarios, results and further explorations cannot be shown in this site.

Contextual research and scenario validation. Scenario enactment for a payment situation related with identity

The idea before joining the conversation was to place inspiring messages to foster a culture of innovation

The question that led to reframe the project was...WHY?

After some observations, interviews and inviting decision makers and other stakeholders to experience how working in the office feels and works, we were able to switch the project into a space design one. One that led to implementing spaces that have been successfully rolled out in some Telefonica's corporate buildings where conversations happen both informally and spontaneously. The feeling of the physical workspace has changed. Collaboration and communication flow better these days.

Research for All was a personal initiative turned corporate to help non-specialists understand the importance of proper research and asking the right questions in the right way. 

Lean Startup / Customer discovery approaches have become the mandate of many companies that aim at leading the digital space. However, most teams are told to to “get out of the building” without the right tools and training to face people with a focus on learning and discovery instead of a sales approach.

By sharing this knowledge, we aimed at explaining that just because we are lean and agile, we must not lose rigor in research. As a result, it became a mandatory training for all the innovation initiatives within Telefonica R&D.

I've been lucky enough to see many stories and be part of them

Some stories might be shareable in person. The areas/industries where I participated were focused on:

Tech and corporate related:

• Creating a platform for Small and Medium Businesses to take advantage of the EU post-COVID recovery funds

• Defining the Digital Workplace and employee experience for a global oil & gas company (not available to show due to confidentiality)

• Understanding merchants for opportunities in financial services

• Determining the cultural implications of an intrapreneurial culture.

• In-Store observations for improvements in the overall retail experience

Social oriented:

• Starting the Mental Health initiative at Fjord Madrid

• Redefining living spaces in Mumbai

• Empowering women in low income countries

• Rethinking retirement planning for the baby boomers in the US (AARP)

• Understanding Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous

Other:

• Volunteering activity with DMI to understand the value and measure the value of design (download PDF)

• Launching a shampoo brand from scratch in Peru

Public speaking, teaching and workshop facilitation are also part of my personal stories.