Deborah Rita Paterson

05/05/2016

Life once gave me the gift of a skull fracture, traumatic brain injury and concussion, which resulted in me being crazy enough to start a business in the middle of college/hospital appointments. It then gave me the craziness to give away what I'd built to another part of the team, who then gave it away to part of their team, and now that part of the team is giving it away again.

Why? Because we all believe in giving away opportunities for young people to make a difference and learn what they need to succeed.

So if you know a young design graduate in New Zealand who could benefit from an opportunity to learn how to run a creative agency and make opportunities for other young creatives, you know where to find me and Denny..

It probably doesn’t sound like a good business strategy to just give someone your business right? We’ve put a lot of work into building DesignGel, so it’s worth explaining where we’re coming from here when we say that we’re looking for a team of emerging designers and entrepreneurs to take over the...

04/05/2016

Today was my FIRST DAY (!!) as an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Coach at the Merck Accelerator in Nairobi, Kenya! This is my first gig working with start ups on the ground in Africa and in the accelerator/venture capital space. The challenges are definitely plentiful, but in these cases so are the learnings and that is why is what I came here.

I still haven't figured out how to take the informal bus to work (Matatu = 14 seater van that vaguely follows a route), so I walked for 30 mins along the informal footpaths (clay/mud track carved out by insistent pedestrian traffic) that line the roads.

I took a leap and it paid off. Last week I didn't have a job or a home here, just a plane ticket from the Middle East and a pack full of stuff. An incredibly generous venture capitalist and his wife (from Australia and Singapore) let me use their house as a base, gave me an office to work from my first day and took me to Nairobi Tech Week where..... an awesome lady who runs a social innovation programme found me a home full of international social innovation fellows who are now my little (non) Kenyan family to share these adventures with...

01/05/2016

Exploring a new way of life means you are often venturing through the forest blind. You may be able to find clues or vaguely sense which direction to go in when there are no paths, but it can even be hard to recognise the trees you’ve walked past even if you’ve been in that forest before. Although it’s often a daunting journey and you often feel like you should’ve just stayed home by the fire, it’s a journey full of adventure and learning that once you’ve found your way out, you realise you couldn’t have done without being thrown into the mud.

Going into a new adventure blind is a revealing way to find your blindspots. If you think you don’t have any, then perhaps you might consider that they do exist, but you can’t see them and that is why they are called blindspots. Because you can’t see them, they often cause you to go in circles, or go straight down a road for too long when you probably should have done a U-turn or made a right turn five, ten or a hundred kilometres ago.

The pressures of ambiguity and uncertainty of a journey are valuable tools to use as they help create an environment that intensifies the need for those skills you’re lacking. This aspect makes it easier for you to see what those are. So whether you purposefully set out into the unknown to find your blindspots or you stumble across them, never underestimate the learning that blindness can bring if you keep your eyes open to it.

Bring on Africa and not knowing what I'm going to find here!

Photo courtesy of the wonderfully warm and talented Gabriel Bertogg aka Peanut Butter Vibes.

28/04/2016

Opening your mind to a different way of life is inspiring and scary at the same time. You try to imagine yourself doing things a different way whether it's getting to work, negotiating business deals or buying groceries and you start to feel either the 'back-bending' or the 'euphoria inducing' emotions the difference in experience triggers. Those emotions are what travel is all about and they are a sign you are learning or at least starting to put yourself into someone else's shoes.

A week is by far not enough to understand a culture and it's unique intricacies, especially if you're only experiencing the surface as a tourist, but it's enough to trigger an imaginative thought about how life could be different.

Thank you Doha and all my wonderful friends there who gave me a great first taste of the Middle East and what life here can offer. It was an inspiring addition to the end of my post-chapter creative retreat! Now to figure out life in Nairobi...

23/04/2016

There are many things we learn in life and it’s important to reflect on them. Sometimes that means the awkwardness of taking time to record your mind looking in on itself which can be a bit like a sophisticated, thought soaked, selfie actually. But, the satisfaction after the desolation comes from absorbing them from a future mindset and seeing the growth from the distance that is time and experience.

This week marks the end of the second post-chapter creative retreat of and almost a month of reflection, story crafting, tinkering, building and exploring how my brain has restructured and what I can create from the new things I've learned. To me good reflection means honestly recognising patterns in your life and giving yourself the ability to change or strengthen them.

When you reflect and record what you build with your mind, what might you see looking in on yourself in the moment, in a week, in a year? What patterns might someone else see looking in on you beyond your time?

Photo courtesy of the wonderfully warm and talented Gabriel Bertogg aka Peanut Butter Vibes.

05/04/2016

Challenges can be often be overwhelming and solutions hard to find. However hard they are to tackle, it's really important that we do, but sometimes this means locking them somewhere safe and coming back for them later, just like we do with our treasures.

We use our bikes to get from one place to another, locking them up safe while we rest or do other important things. Solving the challenges we face should sometimes also be put on hold till we are ready to burn energy on them and be accelerated forward on our journey. Every solution to a challenge has a different value at a different time and maybe it isn't quite the right time for this one, but it will be later.

Life is full of finding the right thing, for the right purpose at the right time. Right now, the right thing for me is rest, a slice of home and a bit of family... Then we can pick up where we left off and continue this journey and all the challenges we've put on hold that will teach us a world of good..

Photo courtesy of the wonderfully warm and talented Gabriel Bertogg aka Peanut Butter Vibes.

30/03/2016

What does business development have in common with dating?

Amy Bonsall, a design director at IDEO whom I had the pleasure of working with in Singapore, shares how she's using what she's learning from the world of dating to make her more successful in the business development world.

I mean, after all, business can be quite 'Romeo and Juliet' too right? "You can't work with them, their our arch rivals", "They went behind our backs", "We must do it in secrecy", "Our love and loyalty will never die."

Like most people, I tend to make new year’s resolutions, but find reasons not to stick to them before the first quarter …

28/03/2016

There are many emerging CEO's I've interacted with who have huge potential and all of whom have a unique way they want to add value to the world through businesses and their lives. What's common though, is the way they think about leadership and the way they go about creating a sustainable business through their team, for their customers and ultimately themselves as CEO's too.

"As a young CEO in a new generation, I would like to redefine my role and replace the words that make up that acronym to that of Chief Experience Officer. I believe that my job is to make sure that everyone - our users, customers, stakeholders and employees ... basically everyone that comes into contact with our brand in any way, has a truly positive experience...... if you can create an amazing experience, it's going to help improve your business."

As an experience designer, I realises just how relevant my skills are to leadership and business design. Although my process is usually centred around design for customers on behalf of brands, I am particularly passionate about how I apply it to design a synergetic experience for my future team, clients, partners and ultimately myself as a leader..

What experience would you create at a CEO?

Close your eyes. I want you to think of the first person that comes to mind when I say, "CEO." Who did you think of? Was it the visionary Steve Jobs clad in his trademark black turtleneck? Or was it

26/03/2016

A lovely piece of writing by my friend, the talented Simone Stolzoff... Simo never ceases to inspire me with his wholesome, down to earth nature and general lust for an authentic, creative life and this is one the beautiful ways he expresses it..

One of the elements of was finding my own authentic way of starting the day before you get swept into the autopilot of the city and business life. Just like Simo is reclaiming his meals, I also set out to reclaim the start of my day, breakfast in particular, by connecting with the people who inspire me most over a good plate of eggs. It gives my body the fuel it needs for a productive day as well as my mind a fresh burst of inspiration to create something new that day.. I've written speeches, done brainstorms, planned my next career move, pondered on the future, cried, ranted, you name it. It happened over toast at some point.

Thought you might wanna try it sometime. If you're ever in a city I'm in don't hesitate to send me a breakfast invitation and help me continue to reclaim my meals.

Alarm. Shower. Coffee. Commute. Email. Coffee. F̶a̶c̶e̶b̶o̶o̶k̶. Slack. Food.

21/03/2016

"Respect is something not automatically given. It must be earned. When you’re in a leadership position, it is imperative that the people with whom you work respect you. They might respect your work habits, your intelligence, or your ability to close a deal. Yet, there’s more to respect than that. If you can earn their respect as a person, then you’ve really won the game."

There are many people I've worked with, experienced things with and observed from afar, whose extraordinary talent and skill I greatly admire, but the people I admire the most are the ones who know how to became great at something by being respectful to the people they interact with and not walking over people to get there..

I've learned a lot about how different cultures view and earn respect in my journey, but it can be a painful process understanding the different intricacies and getting them right in practice. Sometimes the respect you give is completely misunderstood and offensive, sometimes people walk over the respect you give out too easily, sometimes you need to understand how respect is manifested for others and sometimes you just have to hold true to yourself and keep your standards of respect even if others don't meet them...

Here's a more universal view perhaps....

Leaders are judged on their results and respected for how well they treat people.

17/03/2016

Jetting off somewhere new isn't all that easy because you often leave a lot of awesome things and people behind, but thank you easyJet for getting me to London in one piece (almost vomited from the turbulence!).

In the last week, I successfully packed my life up into a few suitcases and I finally made it to Kent to enjoy the English countryside for my post chapter creative time and a break from the craziness of trying to function in a new culture and language.

Thank you to everyone in Berlin who made chapter two of so full of lessons, celebrations, tears, yummy new food, eye opening sights to see and amazing new experiences...

Thanks especially to the Mimi crew, whom I spent most of my days with trying to build a company and a product to help people enjoy the sounds of their lives in the best possible way.. Two Moleskins and hand written notes are pretty appropriate gifts for me and it just goes to show how much you've grown to know me and what's important to me over the last 7 months.

Now it's time to unpack, enjoy this beautiful green view and get some reflection, creativity and design done..

Vielen Dank meine Freunde...

17/03/2016

My boarding pass collection is one of my most prized possessions. It includes every boarding pass I’ve ever had from an international trip since I was 18 and represents an adulthood full of memories, adventures, friendships and learning. From New Zealand to Sri Lanka to Greece, there’s a whole spectrum of cultural and geographical distance that I’ve travelled.

It’s time to add one more to the collection. Where to next? While I am figuring out where I am going in Africa, I’m off to Kent and London, then Southern Spain for some much needed reflection and creative time.