ABOUT
He tangata tiriti ahau, nō Inia ahau. E noho ana ahau ki Kaipātiki ki Tāmaki Makaurau. Ko Baruk Jacob toku ingoa.
Kia ora! I am Baruk Jacob. I care deeply about helping teams to design better. I do this by asking questions, telling stories, and drawing maps.
I try to work on a basis of relationality - the understanding that everything (yep, *everything*) is in relationship with each other, and that it is these relationships that are most interesting...not so much the 'things' that are connected by the relationships. In network language - I am much more fascinated by links than I am by nodes. I am particularly inspired to learn from oral cultures, and believe that orality has much to teach us about living and thriving in an increasingly post-literate world.
I whakapapa to the Kumbanad family of Kerala and the Hmar tribe of Mizoram, both in modern-day India, and am tangata tiriti in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am currently doing a PhD, exploring how to grow innovation capability. I'm usually (always) up for a chat online or over a cuppa - baruk@feddabonn.com
Services
I'm at my best when working with teams, helping them to navigate their way through complexity. I do this by facilitating conversations - asking questions, telling stories, drawing maps. Some of the contexts and teams I have worked with are below.
Innovation Capability
We often take a cognition-first approach to innovation, trying to 'know more' to innovate. While this sometimes works, it often doesn't. I take an emotions-first, culture-led approach to growing innovation capability in teams, working to enrich the soil that they are trying to create new products/services/ideas in. I love this work so much that I'm doing a PhD in it. Intrigued? Let's chat!
Systems Change
How do you shift the underlying systems that get in the way of change - big and small? How do you understand what to ask, where to challenge the existing orthodoxy, where to even start? Changing the way we see our world can help us work through complex landscapes towards better solutions. Let's chat about how I might help you do that!
Design Research
"...but what do people want?" is a common question we hear. I use observation + conversation to discover people's feelings and thoughts, theming and analysing them to understand deeper motivations than is always obvious. What are they trying to get *done*? What is getting in the way? Let me help you convert 'data' into insight!
