One of the great ironies at XPLANE is that while we are well known for simplifying and clarifying our client’s value proposition, commonly referred to as “the elevator pitch,” our own elevator pitch is surprisingly difficult to succinctly articulate. But as with our clients, we’ve used visuals to help.

And as we’ve evolved our services and value for clients, we’ve needed to evolve our graphical depiction of our core value.

For years, we used this graphic to talk to clients about what we did:

As we’ve evolved however, this graphic has become less accurate in depicting the value we bring to clients today. We used to frame our value as, “the people who are great at pulling relevant stories out of mountains of content in order to produce compelling deliverables like maps, brochures, websites and animations.”

As we’ve continued to evolve from primarily a design studio into a more strategic design consultancy, our clients have come to understand that underlying their desire to communicate with greater clarity is a deeper need to address ambiguous, ever-changing environments in a way that keeps people aligned, focused and inspired.

It was never just about the artifacts – our value was always in the ability to help clients navigate and drive the people side of change.

Our most recent evolution of these additional values is now depicted in our latest visual elevator pitch – the value of co-created solutions, multi-disciplinary teams and people-centered design.

Co-created solutions: When dealing with complexity and ambiguity, solutions cannot be outsourced or created in a vacuum. This is where the principles of co-creation come in. When the solution is co-created it brings with it a pride of ownership and support from the client, and a practicality and usefulness that solutions built from outsiders seldom achieve.

Multi-disciplinary teams: Marrying subject matter experts with experts in different disciplines creates a formula for fresh thinking, innovative ideas and opportunities to come up with something new, inspiring and effective.

People-centered design: People willingly dropping or adopting the right behavior is the critical (and oftentimes missing) ingredient to any change. The newest process or greatest technology won’t really move the needle if people don’t embrace the change required of them. Our approach focuses on insights and empathy gathered from the broader organization and affected stakeholder groups, to ensure that what we bring to people will be well received and acted upon.

This newer graphic places more emphasis on the people side of the equation of complexity, clearly showing the involvement of the client in the solutions created. And our results are now noticeably focused on internal benefits of adoption of the change desired as well as all the typical measures of business success.

You can download our latest one-pager here, which showcases this image in the context of our company overview.

There is no doubt this graphic will continue to evolve, which brings up one of our final value proposition elements — the value of rapid prototyping and iterative design. Sketches like the ones in this post, though they reflect a lot of thinking and synthesis of information, are relatively easy to draw up, share and solicit feedback on. This allows us to learn quickly, and swiftly create the right solution.

Let us know what you think of our latest value proposition sketch and the values it reflects. Are these what you think of when you think of working with XPLANE? Are these the elements you think set us apart from others? Inquiring minds want to know. pdodson@xplane.com.

XPLANE recently sponsored and participated as a conference exhibitor at the 2013 Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Global Conference, one of the largest gatherings of professionals focused on revolutionizing results and igniting changes within their organizations.  This year, conference presenters included Erik Wahl, internationally recognized author, entrepreneur, graffiti artist and featured TED presenter, and David Rock, co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of “Your Brain at Work.”

The theme of the 2013 conference reflects the importance of change in moving the global economy forward. Attendees heard new ideas on how to change habits, understand the human brain at work, and identify organizational belief systems that impede progress. You can learn more about this year’s conference by visiting ACMP’s website here.

More than 30 professionals gathered at XPLANE’s Portland office to participate in April’s Visual Thinking School (VTS): Music, Ethnography & Design.  The April session was designed and run by Dave King, vice president of client services, and Roel Uleners, senior consultant, and required participants to create a poster visualizing a product or service idea for a distinct American subculture.

To create their posters, teams were given the lyrics to five popular songs representative of a particular subculture. Musical genres explored were country, rap, R&B/hip hop and heavy metal. Teams examined, deconstructed and synthesized the song lyrics to reveal the assumable values, themes and imagery of that subculture. The end result varied from apps to websites, and consultative services to physical products.

VTS is held the first Thursday of every month in our Portland office, and is open to the public. If you are interested in more information, please contact Dave King.

Three years ago, XPLANE opened its office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The office represented XPLANE’s strong growth in Northern Europe and desire to have a closer presence with key customers.

Today, we are proud to tell you that the office is expanding as a result of continued client growth and the need for additional staff. XPLANE is bringing on new local talent and relocating two members of our U.S.-based team to Amsterdam. Shawn Wright and Charyl Looper are relocating to Amsterdam from Portland, bringing the number of current full-time staff to four.  We recently had the opportunity to talk with Shawn about her relocation plans:

Q&A with Senior Project Manager Shawn Wright

Q: What prompted you to take the leap and move to Amsterdam?
A: This is an incredible opportunity to work professionally in another culture and also to help build XPLANE’s reputation globally.

Q: What does the move mean to you?
A: Personally it means leaving friends and family behind, and starting anew! It’s scary and exciting at the same time.

Q: What will be your role in the Amsterdam office?
A: Senior Project Manager and all-around support person where needed.

Q: Shawn, you lived there before – tell us about that experience.
A: This is actually my third time living and working in Amsterdam – though only my second time with XPLANE. When I came over here three years ago, it was a short-term stay of six months, during which I was part of a three (eventually four)-person team that was helping establish XPLANE’s presence in Amsterdam. Since then the team has moved into an office located along the famous canal, the Herengracht, which is where we plan to call home for a very long time!

Q: What are you most excited about?
A: Everything! I love Europe, and Amsterdam in particular. While I already feel completely “at home” here, I find myself walking around in a constant state of amazement and wonder. My favorite thing? Not having to drive anywhere!

In late March, President of XPLANE, Parker Lee, was invited by the Moscow business Wonderfull project lab to present XPLANE’s thoughts on visual thinking at a Visual Thinking Live! event.

This was the first event of its kind in Moscow, bringing together illustrators, designers, creatives and entrepreneurs. Visual Thinking Live! was designed to share new tools and techniques to help ignite creative thinking and visualization. XPLANE was invited to participate and offer some context on how visual thinking impacts behavior. Parker’s presentation helped guide listeners through techniques that will enable better organizational performance and empower change.

The event gathered 600 people in Moscow’s Artplay creative cluster, at the center of the Russian capital, and another 620 people tuned in to watch the event as a live webinar.

Maria Stashenko, co-founder at Wonderfull project lab and host of Visual Thinking Live! praised the event. “The presentation made a great impact on the minds and hearts of all our 600 participants in the hall and even more who watched our digital channel,” she said. “All the information was new to us, precisely selected and connected to each other, and perfectly structured. This was an invaluable knowledge brain shake!”

For more information on Visual Thinking Live!, check out the program release, found here.

Abbott Molecular has engaged XPLANE for consulting and business design services to help define, visualize and bring to life current solution offerings.  XPLANE will drive a transformational change within Abbott’s sales strategy – moving the organization away from a tactical/functional approach to rich, value-based go-to-market positioning.

Managing through times of change can be difficult. At XPLANE, we often work with clients who are change makers in their organizations. They recognize that change is needed, but the next step can feel daunting. We realized that an alignment tool was needed to help visualize at the simplest level how organizational change works. XPLANE developed a diagnostic tool called “the change lever,” which is used to help cast a clear picture of a company’s current and future state, in order to cultivate a targeted set of strategies and tactics to empower change.

The change lever works like a real mechanical lever. There is a load that can be lifted if the right amount of force is applied. In our model, the load is the organization and it’s behavior is what we want to move from where it is today to where it can be in the future. The interventions, strategies and tactics we apply to the organization will create this change. But the organizational context and capacity for change matters, too: does your business readily adapt to new ideas and ways of working or is it entrenched and difficult to shift? The more adaptive an organization is, the less force is needed and we can move larger loads longer distances. Entrenched organizations will require more intensive interventions, or should be moved in smaller increments.

The change lever has proven to be a successful tool in diagnosing our clients’ needs and scoping how we can help. It has become part of the XPLANE culture and a best practice in discovery sessions. What’s your current state? Where do you want to take your organization? And how do you plan to get there?

XPLANE is very pleased to announce that its work with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is expanding! Based on the recent success of the project to help visualize the ICANN policy making model and Internet Governance ecosystems, ICANN has engaged XPLANE to facilitate the development of additional clarity and understanding for key areas in which ICANN is involved.

One of the new projects is to help ICANN increase clarity and understanding of key recommendations provided by experts in the area of Internet Security, Stability and Resiliency. This effort will help visualize the security relationships between ICANN and the broader community, and enable better understanding of the interdependencies in these relationships.

Additionally, ICANN is engaging the Domain Name industry in an effort to drive greater collaboration and leadership in the face of new industry-wide changes and opportunities. These include some major companies who provide consumers opportunities to register names and website addresses. In support of this initiative, XPLANE has been asked to help with the creation of visual maps designed to drive greater understanding and alignment for an industry that is not well understood.

The 20th annual 100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon was announced this month. There were 273 companies participating in this year’s survey, which analyzes Oregon companies’ best practices toward creating great places to work. This year, almost 14,000 Oregon employees completed the survey. We are proud to share that XPLANE ranked #23 of small business in Oregon!

The 100 Best list recognizes large, medium and small companies for excellence in work environment, management and communications, decision-making and trust, career development and learning, and benefits and compensation. The winners and their rankings were revealed at the 100 Best awards dinner and are published in the March 2013 issue of Oregon Business and online at OregonBusiness.com.

Winners are determined by participating in an employee satisfaction survey. XPLANE was rated high among employees in the areas of workplace environment, flexibility and a sense of shared accountability for company performance. Thanks to all our employees that participated in the survey and for making XPLANE a great place to work!

In March, Patrick Dodson, senior vice president of business development at XPLANE, completed the Desert Triathlon in California. Get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the race and how he managed to squeeze months of dedicated training into his busy work and family schedule.

Q: Have you participated in a triathlon before?
A: Yes, I have participated in short-format triathlon race but it was at least 10 years ago – before marriage and kids and career took over my schedule.

Q: What motivated you this time to participate in the Desert Triathlon?
A: I started to feel inspired to get in shape after watching last summer’s Olympics. I also had a milestone birthday coming up, so I decided to find a race that I could participate in around that timeframe.

Q: How do you stay motivated to exercise?
A: I’m definitely one of those people who needs to set a goal to be motivated to work out. I signed up at a local gym so I could swim and run indoors (definitely not motivated to run outside in Oregon’s wet winter).

Q: What was your exercise program to prepare for this race?
A: I worked out six mornings a week, and I started eating better as well. With a healthy diet and exercise, I was able to shed 20 pounds during this process!

Q: How did you learn about this triathlon?
A: I did some research online and found a race that looked appealing in Palm Springs. My wife and I decided to go together and make a vacation out of it. Being somewhere warm and sunny in early March was terrific. The timing was great because we were able to celebrate our wedding anniversary and my birthday, in addition to the race itself.

Q: How did the race go?
A: The race itself was fun, and I was happy to come in under my goal time by several minutes. The weather was amazing, and it was fun to participate alongside other athletes.

Q: What is next for you?
A: Well, I have already signed up for my next race which is in Portland in June. And, I really could not have done this without the amazing support of my wife. She took care of the kids in the morning so I could work out, and was always supportive of the hard work I was putting in.