About

This is the ranting blog of John Feland.  I’ll talk about innovation process, evolving technologies, and chase my continued fascination in the creation of compelling and fulfilling user experiences…

Who am I and why should you pay attention?  It’s up to you to decide. I have been involved of some major shifts in user behavior but mostly on the fringe.  I have worked on the design of everything from medical devices, military intelligence satellite systems, office furniture, mobile phones, and toys.  My passion and expertise is consumer innovation.  I’m agnostic about the source, whether it is from technology, market shifts, or new business models.

I am currently doing consumer insights and AI strategy work at CableLabs.  Prior to CableLabs, I worked with some incredible educators at the Nueva School where I was a teacher in the I-Lab at the Upper School, teaching classes on Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship, Data Science, Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics.  Yes, to high school students!  And these students were (still are) incredible.  It was a joyous experience.

I also ran my own consumer insights start-up, Argus Insights, based on the relationships I uncovered between good design and good business during my PhD at Stanford.  I ran the company full time for almost 8 years, where I learned eight different ways not to build a sales team.  We build an incredible SaaS platform that continuously harvested consumer generated content from reviews and social media in a bid to help teams build better products and brand experiences.  We had incredible clients, including Acer, Best Buy, Vivint and more.

I was the Executive Director of the ME310 Global Design Innovation Course at Stanford University and a Consulting Assistant Professor. The course (http://me310.stanford.edu) has a forty year history of developing tomorrow’s innovation leaders.  I am also working on a start-up called Argus Insights.  In semistealth mode, we’re transforming how market research is done and driving the creation of a new field called Experience Analytics.  We have several beta customer engagements with very positive responses so far.  I’ll post more as it matures.

Formerly I was the Chief Technologist for SK Telecom America’s R&D Group. In this role I was responsible for understanding how the rapidly changing technology landscape would enable SK Telecom to craft new business opportunities in the Americas. My areas of responsibility ranged from NGN wireless technologies (LTE vs WiMaxx, etc), handheld experiences and the interface technologies that enable them (multitouch touchscreens, haptic feedback, smartphone operating systems), as well as evolving influences on the telecommunications market (cloud computing, femtocells, CDN’s, LBS, SNS, etc.) Though primarily supporting the innovation initiatives of the Global Solutions Lab, I also support SKTA’s internal Business Development and Corporate Venture Capital organizations.

Prior to my role at SKTA, I led Synaptics efforts for developing next generation capabilities for handheld devices from within the marketing organization. I was responsible for developing a comprehensive competitive landscape for the various handheld markets, with specific focus on the mobile ecosystem and then driving the product and technology strategy, in partnership with the engineering organization, to architect and execute our roadmap of future capabilties.

I was also the architect of the Onyx Concept Phone, the world’s first multitouch mobile experience (http://www.synaptics.com/onyx). I have been lucky to work with some of the most talented people in the interface industry at Synaptics in partnering with OEM customers to create compelling and intuitive next generation mobile experiences. I worked with all of the top handset manufacturers on the creation of tomorrow’s handsets, ensuring the right marriage of technology and user experience takes place as we see an industry transformation take place around multitouch technologies.