John Willshire
Founder (Smithery), Visiting Lecturer (RCA), Visiting Professor (IED Barcelona)
John Willshire founded the innovation consultancy Smithery in 2011 and is the foundation of his activities. Smithery supports businesses with the idea of "making what people want." The collective philosophy, process, and tools that we have built over the last 10 years are named Lightspeed Innovation, and we use that methodology to achieve this, aiming for the maximum impact of infinite inspiration and ideas. ing. Recent work includes developing a new central strategic platform for Konica Minolta, developing and delivering a global innovation program for Experian, and building architecture and systems to enhance the UK Government's innovation process. Other clients include BBC, EA, Royal Society, Sayed Business School, Lego, Dstl, British Council, Science Museum, FSA, V & A and more. In addition to teaching at the Royal College of Art, he teaches innovation and future thinking courses as a visiting professor at IED in Barcelona. He has given keynote speeches at conferences around the world, including dConstruct, Webdagene and The Conference (Malmo). John Willshire founded the innovation consultancy Smithery in 2011 and is the foundation of his activities. Smithery supports businesses with the idea of "making what people want." The collective philosophy, process, and tools that we have built over the last 10 years are named Lightspeed Innovation, and we use that methodology to achieve this, aiming for the maximum impact of infinite inspiration and ideas. ing. Recent work includes developing a new central strategic platform for Konica Minolta, developing and delivering a global innovation program for Experian, and building architecture and systems to enhance the UK Government's innovation process. Other clients include BBC, EA, Royal Society, Sayed Business School, Lego, Dstl, British Council, Science Museum, FSA, V & A and more. In addition to teaching at the Royal College of Art, he teaches innovation and future thinking courses as a visiting professor at IED in Barcelona. He has given keynote speeches at conferences around the world, including dConstruct, Webdagene and The Conference (Malmo).
Smithery (https://smithery.com/)
John runs Smithery, an innovation consultancy founded in 2011. All of Smithery's work is rooted in the idea that it is better to help organizations make things people want rather than make people want things. This is achieved through the lens of Lightspeed Innovation, a nested collection of creative philosophies, processes and tools forged over the last decade to generate endless inspiration for the imagination, and maximise the impact of ideas. Recent work includes developing a new central strategic platform for Japanese manufacturer Konica Minolta, developing and delivering a global innovation programme For Experian, and building architecture and systems for the UK Government's Innovate UK arm to increase the country's innovation processes. Other clients include the BBC, EA, The Royal Society, The Saïd Business School, LEGO, Dstl, The British Council, The Science Museum , the FSA and the V & A. John also tutors at further education establishments such as the Royal College of Art in Lond on, and is Visiting Professor at IED in Barcelona, where he leads their annual summer Innovation and Future Thinking course.
He is a Visiting Lecturer to the Design Products program, Royal College of Art, and Over the past 4 years he has provided the following support to our senior tutors on the DP program; career and development to our students, design led workshops, lead expertise John is exceptionally trusted and has been invited back to the RCA Design Products programme on countless occasions, his professional approach, thought provoking expertise and outputs are He is a highly respected member of an extended visiting lecturer team.
He also delivers keynotes at conferences around the world such as dConstruct, Webdagene, and The Conference (Malmo).