Paul van der Gijp and Emiel Nawijn about the kick-off of the Design Guild

Paul van der Gijp and Emiel Nawijn are the drivers of this ambitious project at Conclusion. They are determined to make it a success. Emiel: ‘Really putting this guild on the map requires a lot of time and attention from us, especially in the first year. After that, we hope that the members of the guild will be able to find each other more and more by themselves.’ 

Introducing

Paul: ‘At Conclusion Consulting, we guide digital transformations by applying business, change and digital expertise in a people-oriented way. I have been working here since November 2021. As a principal consultant here, I work with a team of service designers within the domain of digital strategy. Early in my career, I realised the importance of design for business transformation. This impact goes beyond just ‘making pictures’. At Conclusion Consulting, I had the opportunity to develop further at the intersection of design, strategy and transformation. This was exactly what I was looking for.’

Emiel: ‘At Bikkelhart, we design and optimise digital customer journeys in the broadest sense. I have been design director of this company since January 2022, but I have been working here since its foundation 15 years ago. I was asked at the time if I wanted to set up the entire design discipline within the company. At the time, I had no background in design, but I did have a background in psychology. This certainly came in handy, as we use a lot of behavioural science in the way we work. About 2.5 years ago, we became part of 4NG, which is now called Conclusion Experience. I still enjoy working here after all these years.’

Why a Design Guild

Emiel: ‘Before Paul and I wanted to start the guild, we mapped out what we wanted to achieve with it. In the end, we formulated 3 main goals. Knowledge sharing is an important goal; with the guild we want to lift the design expertise in breadth and make it better throughout Conclusion. The second goal is that people can find each other within Conclusion. That you know who is a specialist in which field and where you can turn for help, advice and cooperation.’ Paul: ‘And this is linked to the third goal. Because you know who to call on if you can't help a client yourself, you can still be of service to the client and thus build a long-term relationship.’

A guild, isn't that something from the Middle Ages?

Emiel: "The principle is indeed the same. In the Middle Ages, as an apprentice, you were employed by craftsmen who shared their knowledge and experience within the guild. We also want that with the design guild. Only then not explicitly focused on the idea of juniors learning from experienced employees."

Paul: "I think it's also natural for like-minded people to seek each other out. We have a unique ecosystem of over 25 IT and business-oriented companies. These companies already work together a lot on customer projects. This ecosystem is quite technically oriented. Within this guild, we want to seek out the breadth of the design profession and intensify collaboration. Emiel and I introduced this guild some time ago to another guild at Conclusion, the architecture guild. We noticed that there was a lack of clarity there about what exactly we do and how broad our field is. From product design to service design and from UX design to photography. We all do it. Then it suddenly became clear to them that regularly recurring questions from customers, which they could not solve themselves, could be solved by us."

Emiel: ‘Even at Conclusion companies that do broadly deal with the same field, there is still a lot to gain in terms of knowledge sharing and discovering opportunities to help each other. At Bikkelhart, we have 16 designers and as ‘doers’ we work mainly from the creative side with behavioural science as the foundation. Within this field, however, you also have ‘design thinkers’. These are people more concerned with change management and the guidance of creative processes. By coming into contact with professionals working at the other end of the spectrum of this broad discipline, we too can greatly expand our knowledge of the field.’