How child-like fearlessness can benefit the innovative workplace
Patrick Hunter, a Design Thinking lead from DXC Technology’s New Orleans delivery center, is responsible for stimulating innovation and creativity to solve problems, and for leveraging human-centered design methodologies. Patrick is a leader in New Orleans, serving as an ambassador who works to ensure DXC’s strong reputation in the community, on site and with customers. Outside of work, Patrick is nationally recognized as a live performance painter, and he frequently uses his artistic skills at the center.
What’s the difference between working at the New Orleans delivery center vs. a traditional office?
In my experience, at the New Orleans delivery center we have collaborative workspaces where customers can come to present their challenges and their vision of the future. We can take that concept and quickly turn it into reality by developing proofs of concept and minimally viable products to satisfy rapid innovation for the customer. I think that’s the exciting part — we get to be a part of the process and see and hear the voices that matter.
There is a lot of youthful energy here, and everything in the office is about being agile yet safe, from the types of furniture we have to rooms that are convertible or that have whiteboards so we can collaborate. Being in this highly collaborative workspace reminds me of being in college. Working in this type of space really promotes creativity. I feel as if it also promotes personal expression, which I felt was missing in the more traditional workspace where I spent over 10 years.
How have you used your artistic ability in your career at DXC?
My role is to use images for visual storytelling to communicate business outcomes and the technical journey for delivering solutions. I use images during customer engagements, both in person and virtually. Using pictures helps with root cause analysis and ideation to facilitate more collaboration. I like to say that in the simplest form, ideas are invisible; the quicker we can make an idea visible — through pictures — the quicker we can collaborate, innovate and ideate on it.
What is your advice to fellow employees who also want to incorporate their technical skills and artistic talent?
We understand with business transformation that change is expected and constant. The critical skills of the 21st century, such as information literacy, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and flexibility, can be strengthened and enabled through digital technology and the arts. Technology literacy in how we use data is foundational, and the arts provide the tools to effectively collaborate and tell a story that engages our employees, customers and partners.
Why would you recommend someone work at the New Orleans Digital delivery center?
If someone is looking for an opportunity to collaborate, have influence on the final product, be involved in every aspect of the process and in projects that have a huge impact, the New Orleans delivery center is a great place to be. I believe it’s an amazing opportunity to be able to be in a place where we can create our own careers, to a large extent, and yet have the support of a large company.
Watch Patrick's TEDx talk about the intersection of the arts and technology.