Site News on Avanceé.Agency

Welcome to 2026

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0400

Welcome to 2026. If you have been a long time, follower of this initiative, welcome back. If you are relatively new, we hope that you stick around. There will be connective tissues, experiments, and a few new wrinkles per our norm.

Since it’s the beginning of the year, let’s refresh on how you can connect with us.

Follow via MicroBlog: @Avanceé
@Avancee@avancee.agency in most Mastadon and ActivityPub-compatible clients
npub176ar97pxz4t0t5twdv8psw0xa45d207elwauu5p93an0rfs709js4600cg in most Nostr-compatible apps/sites
BlueSky: @Avancee.Agency
Twitter/X: @AvanceeAgency

Now, email is definitely also doable, but we don’t tick into that box until we start talking about advisory engagements. Stay tuned to the contact/calendar page for some updates in that respect.

Otherwise, we wish you have an awesome start to the year and look forward to connecting with you whether it’s for information that we pass your way, information you pass our direction, or perhaps one of those wrinkles we previously mentioned 🤓

Avanceé 2025 Review

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 15:24:50 -0400

Once again, we have concluded another year with this initiative. 2025 start golf really slow, picked up a little bit, and then transformed into something else entirely. What that means going forward is still in flux and evolution; but perhaps there’s something to this shift: “I don’t move things forward — I decide what forward is.”

Using the same heading format as last year’s review, we will break down what’s happened in 2025 for Avanceé.

Refining Vision

Don’t know if it makes sense to call this a harder year, but after leaving much of 2024 for research and development, there was certainly more optimism in store for 2025. Probably the best call was to go into the vision for Avanceé and dig deeper as to what this offering has needed to mean. We came away with what seems to be the best tagline to date, and this meant a lot less “explaining ourselves” when connecting to other companies or potential clients:

Avancee is a micro-consulting platform delivering strategic guidance, tailored to the competency maturity of a user or team.

Driving Research

Research this year landed in the space of “what should AI mean” more often than not. The abbreviated use of the Humane AI Pin meant some considerable resetting of expectations around “agents” and platforms. While there was also some gentile play with integrated “AI” in many of our backstage products (AirTable, ChatGPT, GPT4All, etc).

Experiments and Insights

For as much as we have enjoyed the Brilliant Labs Frame/Noa experience, there was the aforementioned negative impact to the Humane AI Pin one. We jumped into a few other edge positions in strategic design for a few partners, helping to add context and approachability where marketing noise around AI/LLMs has been a hard sell. Still, we are finding the gaps less in the tooling, but in the behaviors folks don’t want to change. For knowledge workers, salespersons, and support managers, LLMs break everything, even if they don’t shape individual tasks and roles specifically.

Looking forward to more here, but not yet as much in terms of front-stage experiments (minus 👓 that is).

Fractional Leadership

Leadership has been quieter than in past years. Part of that has been less “getting out there” on our part, but the other being a notice of less of this being desired by similar audiences. Folks would rather have advisors and coaches, for contextual guidance and the human touch, rather than on-staff. And especially true for smaller organizations who are crunched for resources and people, but overcome with delivery expectations.

This might be a shifted offering in 2026.

Articles Published

Dec 2025

Nov 2025

Replacing Wipers and Wearable Tech Characteristics

Oct 2025

Sept 2025

Aug 2025

July 2025

June 2025

May 2025

April 2025

March 2025

Feb 2025

Jan 2025

Avanceé 2024 Review

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 11:56:38 -0400

Another year of reflections, connections, contemplations, and experiments have concluded. 2024 was certainly a challenging year for Avanceé. But, it wasn’t something that is insurmountable, just a ripple from an intention of more deliberate research, networking, and refining the goal of this initiative.

Refining Vision

Avanceé has always been shaped as an experience derived from consulting a single person who is able to swing between industries, methodologies, and technologies to connect strategy and leadership. This year found a clear refreshing of things as an anchor into the local business community unveiled a gap in language and need. The about page was updated with the following as a result:

“What if your vision had a concierge? Some kind of guide to the future you envision - but they aren’t taking you there. They are merely informed-enough of the possibilities and then you could “rub the bottle” for that insight to be specificly manifested to you?”

This came along with updates to touchpoints such as the business card and AiPin, a simpler flyer of sorts, and resetting some of the cross-posting behaviors happing to Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Nostr networks.

Driving Research

One of the delightful positives of this venture is the intentionality to research. While the mainstream “year of AI” made itself present in several pieces here, it was the diving into the details which made its way through notable reads the most. The nuances of talking about machine learning were the lesson just as much as the studies and news notes. Crypto stays in view because of its volatile nature in edge socials. There’s a shape of ML/AI that’s less explored poked towards in a few pieces and will come out in some upcoming concepts.

Experiments and Insights

That research extended to the experiments which are always a part of this venture. The aforementioned AiPin featured heavily from the summer forward. Brilliant Labs’s Frame glasses picked up where the Monocle was ‘23’s play. Machine learning/LLM play continued with GPT4All, OpenAI, Nomad Labs, Perplexity, and a few others - noting the increasing challenges of ethical concerns, expertise vs marketing, and novelty being the juggle.

There should be some clarity and increased focus movement with a lot of these experiments in 2025 - especially as the AiPin and other tooling becomes grafted into something of a research assistant.

Fractional Leadership

This year saw the (abrupt) conclusion of working in a fractional design leadership role with an identity and access management company. There were positive experiences and solid product/process modeling. Though also, the realization that we can only show the possibilities forward, not guarantee success when there’s a lack of movement or operational maturity.

That experience led to some clarity to a previously published “what do we do” page. And conceptualizing the role of “thought leadership” into more than just pointing fingers and dashboards.

Networking intentionally made itself a characteristic this year. However, conflicts between some behaviors/practices and outcomes will have this under a more discerning eye going forward. Avanceé will be a part of some DC/MD networking groups (121NetworX, Central Maryland Chamber, etc) to help expand the consistency of using outcomes from research and experiments in fractional and consultative capacities.

Articles Published

Lastly, there’s been a good deal more opinion/insight pieces posted this year. The following list adds necessary context to the previous sections of this report.

Dec 2024

Mindful of Crypto

Nov 2024

October 2024

Sept 2024

Aug 2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

April 2024

March 2024

Feb 2024

Jan 2024

It isn’t too hard to create all of this, but could be challenging to some. You can use RSS, or any of the socials noted on the About page to catch things as they happen.

Onward to 2025

And with that, Avanceé is onward to 2025. Who knows, it might be the “AiPin secretary” or similar becoming the means things show up on the site. Or maybe, we finally break into other tech which will be a part of positive and challenging conversations. Whatsoever might happen, it’s all about helping you take your next steps forward. Don’t hesitate to reach out directly - or be surprised if you hear from us.

Sounding Board

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 09:00:00 -0400

“Can we talk to you about… we are exploring this thing and not sure which path we should take. There’s what we know which is… And there’s a lot that we don’t know. How do you think we should approach this? What steps would you take in our shoes?”

For some of the conversations since starting the Avanceé initiative, the previous blockquote has more or less been accurate to a number of them. Sometimes, it’s just one conversation. Other times, it’s reoccurring conversation. One where there’s not necessarily a rhythm or cadence; but when the email comes in, the DM notification is seen, or a text message comes in, there’s an understanding that this is a topic where someone needs an ear that is outside of their usual. They trust in the guidance made available, and have a sense of responsibility to carry out the next steps from what’s recommended.

Someone we were talking to recently complimented Avanceé on being a “soundboard.“ And while the initial reaction to this was positive because it was encased with a compliment. It was a small turn of phrase that was very insightful to what specifically this initiative is really focusing on being. In order to help teams and organizations get to their next phase, more often than not they just need to bounce their voice off of something. They need a soundboard.

So do that end, Avanceé is sharpening its focus. This doesn’t mean that the blog posting will cease. Only that the voice and tone for the articles will come across more from the perspective of “things heard from the soundboard.“ The weekly connectivity that are the boards for notable reads will continue for now. But that is only because the generative expression of connecting various points of media and contemplative content is how a soundboard reinforce itself.

Expanded Service Offering

Avanceé is also making a small change to the “connect“ page in light of this.

Previously, there were only options for networking and scheduling workshops. We’ve now expanded to include the aforementioned “sound boarding“ as a separate offering. This would be a session of no more than one hour/60 minutes, billed at a flat rate. An open ear and perhaps some questions for you to take forward. That is all. But, for those of you who have desired to take a step forward and need something a little lower fidelity than a consultation or a workshop, perhaps scheduling a soundboard would work.

View the scheduling calendar to book your time now

The navigation for the site has also been updated to reflect this change. You can more quickly get to booking a consultation, and the blog archive is now pushed a bit further to the background.

More to Come

Other changes, coming down the pipe in regards to projects, partnerships, etc. are planned. When those items are available, we will make a note of that here and then give you an opportunity to engage.

As always, you can connect with Avanceé directly using the following:

Follow via MicroBlog: @Avanceé
@Avancee@avancee.agency in most Mastadon and ActivityPub-compatible clients (maybe Threads)
npub176ar97pxz4t0t5twdv8psw0xa45d207elwauu5p93an0rfs709js4600cg in most Nostr-compatible apps/sites
Twitter/X: @AvanceeAgency
And occasionally via LinkedIn

Avanceé Articles in 2024 So Far

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 08:00:00 -0400

Theres a lot published in the way of articles and opinions. So, it makes good sense to give a breather to recap what’s been put forth.

Jan 2024

Feb 2024

March 2024

April 2024

May 2024

June 2024

Avanceé 2023 Review

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 18:30:00 -0400

As has been the case each year since this venture begun, Avanceé looks at what has been shared, contemplated, and experimented towards in the past 12 months. Similar to previous years, bits will be light and brief, though pointing to what might be coming next is also par-the-course.

Previous year reviews can be read at the following links:

Much about this year could be grouped into the themes of “instigating more research and experiments” and “agility in the face of uncertainty.”

Research and Experimentation Investments

Regarding Avancee’s research and experiments, there’s been a significant increase in the investment in various hardware and software assets. Part of this is due to the resonance behind machine learning and augmented/artificial intelligence across the IT space. Part of it also due to re-finding some old sea legs around edge tech and experiences.

In terms of hardware, those investments have looked like:

Brilliant Lab’s Monocle (link)
Everysight Maverick Developer Edition
XReal Air (link)
Flipper Zero (link)
TapXR wireless keyboard

Even managed to evolve the NFC Ring’s use a few times.

Major lessons from the hardware investments has been a need to increase various levels of technical knowledge around implementation tactics, regulatory risks, and the nature of an internet that’s (naturally?) pushing beyond the confines of browsers, applications, and visual-first modalities.

Leveraging and learning about LLMs has actually been a neat wrinkle in the adoption of some of this. Assuming that LLMs as a research assistant might be the better shape of how hardware-oriented projects continue to find themselves of positive ROI here.

The evolution of crowd-funded hardware seems to have found a niche in this exploration. Some, while still using crowd-funding methods/sites, find leveraging local manufacturing, 3D printing, and even smaller international partners, have taken lessons from the stoppages of 2020 to heart - making small batches of hardware in a more resilient manner, and perhaps giving a lens to what larger companies are doing at scale. Avancee hasn’t jumped into these blind, there’s some definite risk. But, for what has been acquired, and what is yet to be delivered, there’s some excitement towards the various canvases compute is turning into.

In terms of software, there’s been increased attention to or the addition of:

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Developer Tools
XCode
GPT4All and several Local LLMs
Microsoft’s Power Automate
Microsoft CoPilot
Nostr Protocol incl. apps such as Damus, Snort, etc. (link)
Decentralized Identities & Protocols
spatial interfaces and gestural input (Apple’s VisionOS sparked old bits)

Lessons from the hardware are weird. There’s excitement of open source and large company innovations and methods. There’s lots happening. On the other side of that is software. There’s lots happening, but it’s more like a simmering pot of something which might not look anything like the ingredients within.

For example, right now, there’s a distinct blend of “software which expects you to speak its language” (Python, C, Swift, JavaScript, etc.) and “software which as you to refine your own languages” (low and no-code approaches, prompt engineering found in GPTs, etc.). Both are more than capable to make a main course, but what’s able to be created is still up to the imagination of the caster/programmer. That said, the text-heavy emphasis of much of this is something of a discouraging development - we are back to the style of spells and DOS prompts, rather than something a bit more fanticasical IMO.

As mentioned in the hardware section, the alignment of learning new applications and services alongside a local or connected LLM will be a wrinkle to further pursue. Modeling one or several LLMs in this fashion might reveal some inherent weaknesses in one’s own data models, just as much as it would display insights across various applications and a potential fragility to auditing what software is doing when the model or its transformer is IP.

Agility As Currency

The other shape of this year has sat around a significant amount of work in a fractional executive role, embedding humane design behaviors and realizing agility beyond the ceremonies and processes of a project management framework. That’s not to say that practices, doctrines, and eventual behavior change are not a part of what has happened, only that there’s more to agility than these characteristics. The focus to outcomes manifests in the shape of what’s been learned.

In one shape of the observations and lessons of the past year, am firmly more entrenched in the inability for edge technologies and behaviors to make any impact until they either threaten some state of mind, or they offer a significant benefit and opportunity that doesn’t change how that person is viewed within their peer group. For example, offering an automation to improve the bandwidth available during status meetings makes sense, right up until it challenges a (or several) person’s view of the value of the meeting and its ability to make decisions widely known. Introducing technologies and behavior changes encounters this ripple effect outside of the tool or even the imprinted asset itself.

Therefore, some patience, and longer-term measures are needed when agility is needed, but those who have to own it have a longer road to ownership of it.

In a similar view, simplifying the workspace and technology stack continues and challenges what many might consider as “necessary skills” in order to do what is thought of as “work.” The pace at which persons are able to capably use services like CoPilot and ChatGPT are no different than the last decade’s adoption of low/no-code workflow and process management tools, or even the decade previous’ asynchronous and collaborative tools. While it seems the speed to adoption and applicable use is faster - it is not. It is the relevant value, and speed to understand “necessary skills” or “necessary skillful use” which is the hurdle. And many persons are finding they have a signifiant hurdle with sensemaking in light of such movements. While there are a few ways around building this sensemaking muscle individually and corporately, few have the discipline to see it through. Business transformation will be cause of and casuality to an inability to comprehend change - and make sense of the roads to come.

Avanceé’s posture pushing edge technologies has certainly improved understanding the fidelity of what can be achieved with gestural and spatial tool integration. Going forward, these will be more explored - and challenged - as these tools not only disrupt the workspace (iPadOS, Muse, etc.) and the research platform (macOS, GPT4All, etc), but extend it towards a shape of working and connecting which has been used and embraced long before the inception of this initiative. It is assumed (prophesied) smaller teams will also look to take advantage of such lessons, while larger companies will look to invoke more skunkworks projects for learning the pitfalls and accessibility constraints of gestural interfaces before they are met with wider adoption and training.

Speculative Continuances

Have made a “mostly” decent point of not trying to plan out the upcoming year too far. There’s much which happens when coaching and fractional leadership come into play. And yet, there’s a shape of what-can-be permeating a prospective view forward.

No doubt that all things around machine learning, language models, platform decisions, and regulations around the creation, storage, and transformation of data models will be part of the narrative. What is expected to also jump into this is a struggle between those who are able to wield these items to augment themselves into capable arguments for these tools, and those who might wield machine learning’s applications just enough to realize they might already be where many of the transformations portend to be.

Humane, Apple, Dot, and other spatial computing devices will arrive out of the storybooks and movies and into the hands of many before the middle of 2024. There’s gated optimism for the excitement to ignite some rethinking of the purpose of “productivity computer.” But, just like the previous paragraph regarding ML, there will be a struggle between those who will find an ease in a spatial or (nearly) invisible computing construct, and those who will find such efforts highlight where they don’t want to be, or already are but were not ready to launch into that use.

Lastly, there’s always a hope to expand and contract here. As a single-person operation, there’s necessary energy given to what can be handled at one time. Some positive conversations over 2023 provide some hope for efforts in ’24 which might allow Avancee to impact more than direct connections, but not at the cost of time, expense, or quality. Staying tuned here would be the posture advised - or, one can always engage directly and re-engineer your complexities for the future you have been shaped for. Your call. For this space, Avancee means to always be pushing forward.

Thank you for your audience and attention to Avanceé this year. 2024 is advancing, and we look forward to exercising agility and affinity to help current and new clients re-engineer complexity.

Reviewing Avanceé’s 2022 Research and Experiments

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 19:27:19 -0400

Around this time of the year, we revisit some of the research and experiments which have been a part of the ongoing development of Avanceé. Often talked to lightly, but frame a good bit of what becomes the insights and lessons shared with (incoming and potential) clients. The following is a small summary of some of these.

For a lens into past experiments:

All caught up? Good. Let’s get into what’s been happening in 2022.

Hold-Over Experiments from 2021

The beginning of the year started looking at some of these experiments as a means to drum up some business. But as the year has gone on, some of these have either gone into a further hiatus, or become something else entirely.

Building A Secure Store/Wallet via McLear’s Omni NFC Ring

One of the longest projects. This one really hasn’t moved very much further. But it’s possible that there’s some light at the end of the tunnel here. Or at least there’s an inner change to which it can begin to accelerate for 2023. All I can say is, stay tuned.

Reshaping the Business Card with McLear’s NFC Ring

On the other hand, an older experiment came back and has been a pretty novel success. One of the things that it seems that was able to be galvanized with the release of lockdown measures has been closer communication. And the fist bump, or in this case, fist to phone, has proven to be a pretty neat instigator to conversations and subsequent business.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and IFTS Domains

One would think that this area has been fairly quiet, into some extent that’s true. Most of the work around alternative currencies has been around research and understanding the space, not so much in terms of investing. However, there’s still a presence here as the building blocks that are being pulled apart right now seem to be building towards what some are using in machine, learning, and quantum technologies that are upcoming. So for here, we are just staying put for the moment.

Helm Personal Email Server

An absolutely marvelous idea. To be able to host your own email, files, etc. It’s a shame that the server is going down, well, the service that manages the gateway is. At the end of 2022, this will no longer be something actively worked on. But there is a Reddit for self-hosted tech; there’s a chance that something could pick up here.

Newly Started in 2022

New 2022 experiments (research) are a bit slower in pacing, but more deliberate in lessons.

ESOS Payment Ring

After many years of waiting and looking, finally found a payment ring available in the USA. For the most part, not disappointed. The ESOS Ring makes a lot of sense as a “carrying cash” kind of tech. Really would have liked to have finished some concepts that addressed the app. But, that, and using it, will have to wait until their next version - the Gulf of Mexico took my ring for a swim.

Sentien Audio

A big fan of what happens around audio interfaces, was excited to take delivery of Sentien Audio’s bone conduction headset. Though not as far in front of the market as it was when announced, one thing very much nailed has been the battery life. Officially now the “workday headset,” am enjoying the mix of quality felt with Apple’s AirPods Pro, but solid gestural control lessons from the Bragi Dash.

Muse for Teams

If you’ve been following for a while, the use of Muse is no surprise. This fall, got a chance to begin using a collaborative branch of Muse, called Muse for Teams, and it’s been an insightful look at how this application expands to collaboration between different types of people. The team I’m using this with has given lots to think about regarding this type of software. And overall, the shape of spatial interfaces might be one where augmented tooling has the best chance to positively improve the human connection with knowledge-based workflows.

Artificial/Augmented Intelligence and Machine Learning

Lots of different and interesting action happening here. Nothing specific to speak on yet in terms of tools. But, will state that it is increasingly difficult to see knowledge work that doesn’t include some competency with these methods, or architecting the tools which use them. In a very real sense, it will take folks who can think in focused manners to be able to grow with these methods and tools.

Micro.Blog versus Mastodon and Others As Twitter Replacement

And probably the most popular topic, #LeavingTwitter. There’s lots of people running here and other places for a Twitter replacement. And truly speaking, there’s viability with Mastodon, Post, Substack, Pateron, etc as options. That said, much like what had been done with Twitter, am taking a step backward and looking at things from the federated blogosphere. And from here, maybe something neat will be the next space(s) to relay-through

Humane Wearables Chat with Everett Advisors

Probably better than the experiments was a means of sharing the reasons for these, and the ways I shape Avanceé, through an 80min chat with Sean Everett of Everette Advisors. Check out this chat for a bit more about some of the aforementioned experiments, and some hints to what’s next.

Podcast: Theology and the Metaverse

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 11:55:46 -0400

The other week, got a chance to hang with an old friend Nigel Scott (@ExCapite) on his new podcast conversations space Wealthy Tiger. The topic of this conversation started around the idea of the metaverse being another theological expression. And per usual, the conversation took some delightful routes (rites of passage, the depth of connecting, and more).

Take a watch or listen and use your social spaces to comment and add variety (tag us on Twitter via @AvanceeAgency).

From A Future 2021 (#FaF21): Discussions and Discovery on Protopian Themes

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 23:04:00 -0400

Excited to have participated once again with the From A Future discussion/conference. An extremely multi-medium conference, it happens physically in Hong Kong, but virtually globally. Which is good. Avanceé is based in the USA, on the East Coast, a clear 12 hours behind the physical attendees. This lends itself to a unique dynamic - all attendees have to maintain a cross-connect of awareness to what’s happening both in space and cyberspace.

One could admit to some bias in this year’s discussion. The topic - protopia (inclusive, interactive, culture affirming vision of futures shaped by non-white, non-Western/capitalist perspectives) - is one part some of the genesis of Avanceé. Truly, there have been many branches sparked by keynote speaker Monika Bielskyte which have landed here thru discussions, experiments, and projects. Yet still, this bias isn’t a wrong one. One should be looking to a valuing the view of and creation towards futures which are neither dystopian (worst possible for all) or utopian (best possible for an exclusive few). From A Future presented a canvas to navigate several lanes of protopian lessons, all of which are valuable beyond simply having intellectual conversations.

The canvas #FaF21 offered was indeed quite wide and deep. From an engaging and empathy-building discussion by Jeff Rottmeyer of Impact HK, to Joshua Davies impressive use of mmhmm and Otter to orient the group to the matrix of conversational intent vs performance, the early discussion might have felt more grounding w/n oneself than a vision of a future self. Next discussions on education (or learning vs education vs…), the elements of and decisions sustainable movements cause, and a topic of aliens (missed by this participant, sleep did call) continued to shape the conference’s intention to not just converse about wanted futures, but drive participants to consider their roles within it.

The continum given by Jon Alex’s topic of understanding citizenship as the age after capitalism, into Bielskyte’s keynote to which I (Antoine) was invited to share the stage and discuss lessons, frameworks, implications of protopia could be perceived as both fulfilling and challenging. There’s a difficulty in finding one’s place, while also shaping this space. Writing this as Brandy’s cover of the Sounds of Blackness hit Optimistic plays, this song is exactly what one cannot help but to contemplate and feel after both of those discussion concluded.

Several hours, and many presenters, later awoke in time to hear David Goldsmith reshape everyone’s perception of “being outside of the box.” There is no box, there is just you and your curiosity or willingness to expand. And then Avanceé/Antoine gave a small demo of spatial connectivity in tech and notes thru sharing #FaF21 notes and concepts created within Muse. Wild how Goldsmith and Avanceé presentations synced, maybe it was due to sitting in the same time zone, and being opening to the intuitiveness and wisdom granted by sharing this physical/online space.

Unfortunately, cannot speak to the day two activities of building/modeling protopian concepts. Surely, if any attendees are on Mico.Blog or Twitter, replies can capture the bounty offered in those design thinking-like activities. From the group chat, it seems like it was an amazing and worthwhile experience.

There is not likely to be a recording available. Unfortunately, the conference was Zoom-bombed and while there is a recording before and after, am not sure that it will not be for a while if it’s posted as the post-production to knit two recordings, and pull off an overall piece able to be shared. It might make for a better route for folks to visit Posit Place and follow the meetups and discussions thru their various social channels (IG, Discord, Twitter, Clubhouse, etc.). There is a Twitter list, with some of the attendees/speakers a part of it for following as well.

And about this… well, there’s notes. Appended here is the Muse board spoken of earlier. There’s almost enough there to connect with folks. Beyond that, well, perhaps there’s another shape to connectivity beyond physical and virtual (zoom) which might be in one’s imagination which layers conversations like those found here. Perhaps even, some of those conversations turn into art, entertainment, tools, policies, and other building blocks for the kind of future which is better suited to be authored by those voices currently finding their legs.

Can you imagine answers which have never been? Can you take a step towards the you which has been awaiting to be unveiled? Are you a consumer of this age, or a citizen of the next? What future voices are you enabling, disabling, creating? What protopias are you authoring, or setting the stage for others to build? From this future to the next… what are you a part of?

Hearing Sight

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 21:01:00 -0400

Casting new patterns for a new year

The past two years, Avanceé has been something of an experiment, and another part a package. The experiment: to put into a business model, an approach to design and process which elevates individuals and companies from “do what they’ve seen modeled” to “invent and do what they’ve imagined.” Experiments are hard — especially this one where it’s also got to be a package. It has been the “package” bit which has been hardest to clarify for Avanceé. But, that’s ok. That’s why this space was shaped. Hearing what you see is not a simple construct.

In light of this, have had some roaming thoughts of where to take Avanceé for 2020. To some, describing the year as “an invitation to clarity and contentment” resonates. Yet, it’s not clear enough on this site that “designing experiences and (re)engineering complexity” does that. It happens in conversations, and in coaching/mentoring, and in design-birthed work. But, not quiet hearing-seen.

Came across a phenomenon called grapheme synesthesia not long before drafting this, and it seemed to make sense. In the article it was found, the author describes her experience of synesthesia and a tool she’s developed to help others understand it. It was in seeing Avanceé in this frequency that hearing what 2020 could be began to take a better tone.

As much as there’s been the technology and methods talked about here, the things actually heard has been more around coaching, mentoring, and strategy. Much more the “hey, let’s walk alongside you for a bit and figure out what’s actually complex.” And more often than not, one or two conversations are all it takes to unpack — demystify — the wall or speed bump. Is there design strategy and organizational redirection? Sure. But, more of the re-engineering happens as a result of relational stacks, not technological ones.

To that end, let this be a shift to posing more of that relational content here. Maybe more along the lines of what’s shared with current friends and mentees. Because what’s best seen, is often just a better color of what’s heard, At least, for 2020…

image by Bernadette Sheridan’s Synesthesia Project

Avanceé Teams with Tymbals

Mon, 05 Nov 2018 09:19:00 -0400

Avanceé announces a teaming with Tymbals, an Edge Design House.

Meaningful design is impactful, sustainable, ethical, and (can also be) profitable. Embracing this ethos, Tymbals has reconnected with its own design ethos, enabling companies and movements to understand that “an investment in design is an investment into the future of enterprise value”. Demonstrating this investment, Tymbals has brokered a new partnership with Avanceé (and Inkadoo); using their enhanced design experience to change the positioning, technology, and growth prospects of their clients.

For more information, visit Tymbals or contact Avanceé

Welcome to Avanceé

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 12:39:00 -0400

Avanceé is a new organization - one part design consultanty, another part inventor’s factory - where we empower relationships through being out-of-the-box by design and function.

Birthed from its founder’s restlessness with the safety of the status quo in design and business processes, Avanceé aims to take design to its logical extremes of changing the converstation from “what do we do” to “this is why we do.”

What happens from here will simply push life forward - in every shape beyond the box that looks like.