Welcome to the Elsewhere wiki, here you'll find the detailed documentation of who we are, why we do what we do and how we do it.

We use this wiki in order to document how we work for our internal teams and clients. If you want to know more about the inner workings of elsewhere then you're in the right place. If you need a broader overview, then start with our website

Here's some links to get you started:

• An overview of elsewhere

• Find our more about our project leads

• Our process

• Why we do what we do

Otherwise just use the menu on the left and explore...enjoy 🎉

Working with a global non-profit to define a concept and vision, then build, a scaleable platform that helps Civil Society organisations learn about technology. The platform works by fostering collaboration between nonprofits and members of the technology community, creating learning plans, encouraging knowledge sharing and identifying use cases where technology can help.

Visit the website

Read the full case

Foundgood is a digital platform that facilitates the collection of grantees's initiative impact data. This in turn can be used by the funders to measure the project impact and create a healthy dialogue about the project and desired outcomes. It also helps guide and understand how funds are allocated to better societal change, learnings and results.

Together with the founder, Hanne, we worked since day one on evolving the concept into a digital prototype. Five years later, the platform not only engages both funders and grantees, but also provides positive societal changes

The hired employees of elsewhere are a small group of senior people with a high level of skill and knowledge within strategy, technology and design. What makes these employees special is that their seniority means that are able to scope and run a project at any stage of our process.

Any work we do from its initial inception to learning post project will have two of these employees assigned to it. These two people are responsible for ensuring quality and consistency throughout the elsewhere journey whether on a project or not. At least one of those people will be resourced as part of the actual project and be assigned in a production role such as project manager or product manager.

Why we have employees

The more elsewhere employees we have the more projects we can work on and the more positive outcomes we can create for the wider community

Employees broaden our range of knowledge and skills in house helping us to be more effective on our projects and improve those around us

Hired employees cost less than freelancers so we can make more profit more quickly, which facilitates our ability grow and reach more people

Elsewhere employees have their own network of people which broadens our reach in terms of the people we collaborate with

Why employees work for us

Elsewhere provides a vehicle for employees to further their personal and professional goals

Elsewhere provides fulfilling meaningful work that makes work rewarding

Elsewhere provides a competitive salary and benefits that allows employees to pay of the life they wish to lead

Elsewhere provides the opportunity to work with talented people within design and technology and further their skills

Elsewhere provides an attractive way of working to people who wish to establish more fulfilling relationships with the people they work for and who wish to use their skills to help people

Overview

NGUVU /in-goo-voo/ means strength in Swahili. The goal of NGUVU is to empower female coffee farmers in Kenya by ensuring they receive proper payment for the coffee beans and help to improve the coffee farms. That way, you can drink delicious coffee and help make a difference for the women and their children.

NGUVU provides our coffee and is a business we very much believe in

Visit their website

Sourcewhere believes that finding the pieces you love should be easier than trawling through search engines and marketplaces, calling stores or being added to waiting lists. ‍That’s why they built Sourcewhere. ‍ They're the first fashion sourcing app, a place to find and request the beautiful things you’re looking for - past and present, new and pre-owned. Powered by a network of personal shoppers, sales advisors, and private collectors, they connect you to those who can access in-demand and timeless items, so that you can source fewer, better pieces that you’ll keep forever.

Visit the website

Our chartered accountant Rene has than 15 years in the IT industry - as a founder and also as CEO level in larger organisations (US and UK).

He's result oriented and achieving the goals set out.

Specialties: Highly graduated - at MBA level - in Finance and Economics.

See his website here

Sunbrick solve tasks in all areas of the finance function of small and medium-sized companies. They do everything from single tasks to a complete solutions.

They helped us to digitise your bookkeeping, automate bookkeeping, approval and payment of creditor invoices, payroll processing, disbursements and payment cards as well as reporting.

We would not survive without Peters skills and knowhow and attention to detail

See their website here

We work with investors to help them de risk the start ups they fund

People are complicated, but central to impactful success. Through research we help to understand the motivations of the people that align with your purpose, so that they stay loyal customers and advocate for you in the long term.

We believe

Small organisations should prioritise the needs of their people. While many people tend to equate this approach with a customer-first mentality, the reality is that customers are just one part of the equation.

To truly embrace a people-first ethos, organisations must consider the needs of everyone they interact with. This includes empathising with and understanding the needs of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, and anyone else with whom the business regularly engages, with particular focus on those in the community that are true believers.

While this may sound like a daunting task, the effort is well worth it. A relentless focus on people creates a more sustainable and successful business overall, proving better retention rates, increased innovation

The problem for small organisations

People are the life blood of any impact organisation. Their employees, their customers and the communities they surround themselves with can make or break their success. Couple this with hiring new employees, attracting and retaining customers, meeting and building relationships with the right funders are some of the most resource heavy, risky and expensive activities a a start up partakes in.

That's why it's deeply important to de risk these activities as much as possible by deeply understanding the need and motivations of the people that they interact with. This can be a resource heavy job and it can be hard to cut through the noice of what all customers, employees and partners are saying to get to the true insight and what to do about it.

How we help

Our generalists and our skilled experts have the skills in customer and employee research needed in order to make sense of the underlying motivations and needs of the people most important to the organisation.

The steps we take

• Identify business and impact critical audiences

• Understand the organisations purpose and how that maps to its uadiences

• Understand the current knowledge within the organisation

• Identify gaps in the knowledge

• Define research plans to gain deeper knowledge into the audiences

• Facilitate research

• Gather insights

• Provide actionable and pragmatic steps

The skills we use

• Workshop facilitation

• Employee interviews

• Customer interviews

• Customer research

• Behaviour research

• Data analysis

• Service mapping

• Storytelling

• Insight gathering

We work with funders to help them de risk the initiatives they fund where design and technology is involved

We define our wider community as the people and organisation who we do not directly work for or with but instead help to advise, provide and support the work we do and align with us on our

These people and organisations help to nurture elsewhere towards thriving through their knowledge, network, products and services.

It is important to us that everything from the coffee we drink, the furniture we buy and the administration services we use are as people first as they can be.

Here are some of the most notable partners we have at the moment:

Citadel Advokater, which is housed in centrally located premises on the Esplanade, is a company made up of corporate lawyers. At Citadel Advokater, they are passionate about their craft. The various lawyers together cover a broad legal area, mainly in the business area. In this way, the we always receive a service that is adapted to the legal issue.

They know that legal matters can sometimes be convoluted and opaque. Through information before and during the case about how the process proceeds, as well as information about expected time consumption and fees, we would like to achieve transparency, understanding and clarity.

Proud founder of Good City. We they use strategy, design and technology to help companies evolve their ideas. The result is thoughtful digital experiences that we hope people enjoy.

We work with a diverse range of partners who all share the desire to make more people first organisations. You can see the types of organisations we work with in the section.

Below is a selected list of partnerships we've had recently

We are small by design

Elsewhere is a collection of for profit organisations, that uses its profit to enable more positive change over time.

Elsewhere studio

Purpose: We have elsewhere studio responsible for helping organisations who need design and technology skills

Elsewhere holdings

Purpose: Elsewhere holdings where we own shares in the companies we have the closest relationships with and who we help more closely

Holding companies

You can see our annual accounting reports here

Overview

Remotely is a company of one, Anders Hallundbæk

He is freelance frontend developer and can really do a lot of things. The focal point is usually one of the following:

• Web development & consulting

• Digitization of needs & processes

• Development of business-critical IT solutions

Visit his website

Projects

Foundgood

TechSoup

Overview

Martina is an experienced strategic designer, creative leadership coach, advisor and educator. Throughout her 20-year journey in innovation, creative and tech industries, she worked as a designer, strategist and design director both in-house and on the consultancy side.

Martina is a certified coach from the Co-Active Training Institute and is currently in certification with ORSC, Organisation and Relationship Systems Coach.

In her business, Thought Wardrobe, she helps leaders, their teams and organisations align with their purpose and values, create better employee and customer experiences, implement innovation processes and lead change with more impact.

Read her posts

Projects

Martina worked with us on:

Sourcewhere

With our vision for people first organisations in mind, this section moves on to explaining how we - as Elsewhere - are working towards our mission. First let’s revisit the statement:

“At Elsewhere, we firmly believe in the power of people-first organisations. We believe that by building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations we can foster a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community. Ultimately, our humble aim is to enhance the quality of life for the communities around us.”

This section focuses on: “building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations”.

Building people first organisations

We are committed to taking action and demonstrating that people-first organisations are not only possible, but essential. We believe that there aren’t enough people first organisations and we want to create more of them. We do this by:

• First and foremost we want to lead by example by following the strategies we recommend to others. Elsewhere in our eyes strives to be the ultimate people-first organisation that others can learn from.

• Secondly we want to create our own people-first organisations. If we see an opportunity to create a new organisation that can benefit the communities around us then we will. Setting that organisation up with all the strategies of people first organisations that we have outlined

• Thirdly we want to fund and help funders to channel resources towards people first organisations. We use our knowledge and experience to help guide where and how people first organisations are funded and how that money should be spent, helping to minimise risk and further people-first organisations

Nurturing people first organisations

We want to create more people first organisations, but we also know that there are plenty of people out there already doing it. We want to help them by providing the knowledge and skills necessary to help them further their purpose and impact.

• We want to dedicate our employees to working with people first organisations where they have the need for additional resource and knowledge

• We want to connect talented organisations, freelancers and contractors in our community with people first organisations that require their expertise

• We want to bring together like-minded individuals within our community who share similar aims and knowledge.

Championing people first organisations

As much as we focus on action as the way to demonstrate and learn what people-first organisations are, we also realise the importance of sharing what we are doing and what we have done in order to advocate for more people-first organisations and find others with a similar mindset to use.

• Making publicly available the good the bad and the ugly of what we do and how we do it

• Promoting and educating on the wider community on people first organisations

Ultimately we work with people first organisations. This means working with organisations that share our mindset and vision for focusing on their customers, employees and wider community in order to create the most successful outcomes for their organisation.

This approach means that we work across a number of different types of organisation. This section describes how we see each of those types of organisation and how we typically help them.

Elsewhere was started in 2018, by our 2 founders Luke and Billy.

Background to the theory of change

When Elsewhere was just a spark in the eyes of its founders, they endlessly discussed that there had to be a better way. They envisioned a world where successful organisations leave a positive imprint on society, where design and technology can be harnessed for the greater good, and where tangible progress can be made without stress. They believed that there just had to be a better way.

With this in mind, they coined the phrase "using design and technology to make the world a better place" as Elsewhere's mission. A noble, if somewhat naive, aim. As Elsewhere grew and matured, it became clear that this statement alone was not enough. Questions arose: What does it mean to make the world a better place? Who are we doing it for and why? Why use design and technology to achieve it? What makes us qualified to define a better world?

These are challenging questions that have been tackled by philosophers, religious leaders, futurists, authors, and governments throughout the ages. No one at Elsewhere claims to have all the answers, but we do believe that we can make a difference. We want to enjoy our time on this planet by working to make things better for those around us.

We began our journey by reading, listening, and being inspired by those who have approached ways to make the world a better place. We paired this with 4 years of hard work as a company, working with civil society and impact startups. From this inspiration and experience we have created our own humble definition of positive change, a theory of change, inspired by civil society. It is the best method we have found for defining the change we want to see and working towards it.

Define change, define theory

“No same man ever steps in the same river twice”.

To clarify what a theory of change means to us, here’s our perspective on change, theories and this document:

Change is ubiquitous.

The world we live in is constantly changing whether we do anything or not. We do believe that we can effect - no matter how small - the change that is happening.

It goes without saying (even though we’re saying it), we can only effect change with the best intentions, we won’t always get the effect we wanted, we will learn from that and maybe even change our theory based on what we learned.

Change isn’t always positive, often things are better than we think, the grass is always greener fosters a lot of change, but a lot of regret too.

Be the change you want to be and keep changing what that change is.

A theory is just that, a theory. We don’t know that we are right, this theory is our constantly evolving, measurable description on how we at Elsewhere can try to “use design and technology to make the world a better place”.

The role of this document is to help clarify the change we want to effect, so that as we see change happening we are able to proactively effect it with the best intentions.

Overview

A newly established organisation that is seeking to develop and validate an idea's ability to create a successful business via its ability to earn money, help their customers and support their owners' lives.

What the organisation needs from elsewhere

• Help aligning with a clear purpose and vision

• Assistance in turning and idea /concept into something implementable and scalable

• Advice and expertise on what it takes to build a digital product

• Advice and assistance in hiring the and bringing in the right skill sets

• Help with all the multitude of things it takes to build a digital product (from code to content and everything in between)

• A low cost pragmatic team that can trust in

• Help with prioritisation and focus

What elsewhere needs from the organisation

• Availability to meet in person at least fortnightly

• Belief and an interest in the problem that is being solved

• Solving a problem that focuses on putting people first

• Commitment to a long term partnership

• Transparency in goals, financing and relationship with any board or funding

What the team from elsewhere might look like

• One or two main elsewhere people who are always around and available and understand the product inside out

• Specific expertise freelance hires for very specific jobs as and when required

• Team that grows with each iterations of the product

We have been part of over 50 exciting strategy, design and development projects, many of which are subject to an NDA due to the fact they are part of funding rounds or the subject matter must stay confidential due to the competitive industry.

We recommend you start by looking at one of the cases on our website and then reach out to us if you'd like to hear about any more of our projects.

We recognise that our organisation is unique in comparison to typical service providers. By transcending the traditional boundaries of consultancy, digital agency, and venture studio, we are able to offer an unparalleled level of value and innovation. But working this way comes with its challenges in terms of communicating what we do.

Helping people to fully grasp what we do is hard work, but worth it. We truly belive in the way we work, so it is essential that we can effectively communicate how we help our partners, so that we can deliver the most value to them. We accomplish this by acknowledging existing mental models that we break, defining the common patterns through our process, and illustrating it all through tangible case examples.

Overview

To summarise how we help our partners, our approach is to balance a deep understanding of their unique context, whilst acknowledging that there are common patterns in how people behave, how ideas develop into businesses and how digital products are designed and built.

When we start to work with a potential partner, we begin by understanding where they are is in terms of , assess their specific digital context through , all while keeping our consistent, we can provide to deliver the most value to an organisation. We then do this repeatedly as our relationship develops over time.

Theres a pattern to the work we do

We work with individuals and teams throughout their evolution, starting from the identification of a challenge or idea, through to them becoming a happy and confident team that can operate independently of our help. We view this journey as an evolutionary process, with each phase requiring a different mindset, focus and skillset. In the early phases, the mindset is open and experimental, while in later stages it becomes more focused and targeted.

No matter the organisation or department we've worked with we have found these phases always exist even if the number of people involved, the specific activities and the time taken in each phase varies.

We use these phases as a way to identify what we can provide and a common language from which to discuss how we will work with our partners.

Everyone we work with is unique

We recognise that every organisation has its unique context and specific needs during its lifecycle. Therefore, while the model above can provide a useful framework for assessing priorities at different phases of the journey, it is essential that we establish a relationship with our partners and take the time to understand their specific context. By doing so, we can tailor our approach and the team we hire to support the specific challenges our partners are facing. This allows us to be cost effective, pragmatic and selective in the work we do.

We do this through a standard set of steps for each project we work on and by working on multiple projects in "bursts and blooms". Bursts are periods of high intensity action, followed by blooms which are period of learning and understanding .

How we define our services

We have quite a diverse set of skills and knowledge within the organisation. In existing mental model terms we work on strategy, design, technology and impact with our partners. The difference is we define and execute all of our services with your employees, customers and partners relentlessly front of mind.

You can see the skills of each and

How this looks in reality

To see the lifecycle, bursts and blooms and services in action you can take a look at our cases.

TLDR; My background is in design and digital technology. Worked with everything from startups to Google and everything in between. Founded a studio that helps to build organisations balancing people, purpose and profit.

✨ Now here's the rest of it ✨

I've has been working with design and digital technology in a number of different capacities since 2006.

Corporate beginnings

I started out working in the IT teams of large financial organisations as a software tester. In truth, testing was stretch for me. I liked to tinker and understand how things worked, but I wasn't systematic enough to be any good at it. And my attention span stinks.

Startups

In 2009 I moved to London and immersed myself into the startup world. It was here I got more involved in design: how to understand people and build things that made sense to them. This felt like much more of a calling. Turns out that crumby attention span was a bi-product of some sort of hyper awareness that thrives when doing creative, emotionally engaged work, with real people and their needs.

Agency life

After some years I took to life as a freelancer and started to bounce around some incredible creative technology and design agencies. I had the privilege of working with some massively talented people, as part of teams for the likes of Google and The BBC. London is great for opportunities like that.

The elsewhere years

I moved to Copenhagen in 2017 and in 2019 Billy and I founded elsewhere. There was an itch we needed to scratch.. Though at the time we weren't quite sure what it was. Read more about that though.

And to this day, we're on a wild and very fun journey to help people to build organisations that balance the needs of people, and the purpose they are working towards, without compromising on how to get cash in the bank.

Why I'm even doing this

It's my fervent belief that the pairing of design and technology are transformative. We can do an awful lot with them when we put them to good use. The role of organisations, and their influence on the people they touch is the vehicle for how we're trying to affect the change we're working towards.

My Role at Elsewhere

As the Creative Community and Design Lead at Elsewhere, my role combines the art of design with community building and effective communication. I play an invaluable role in shaping our community, fostering partnerships, nurturing talent, and leading branding and design initiatives.

Community building

• Curate events and communities to represent Elsewhere and foster collaboration with like-minded individuals and organisations.

• Nurture leads and maintain a continuous pipeline of projects by connecting with start-ups that can benefit from Elsewhere's expertise.

• Build and maintain a strong talent network to ensure a consistent pool of talent for employment and project needs.

• Ensure the smooth operation and satisfaction of those working within our studio space.

Brand and communication

• Define and refine Elsewhere's brand identity, maintaining brand guidelines for visual and verbal consistency.

• Lead the communication strategy to resonate with our target audience through continuous testing and refinement.

• Create and maintain communication materials that represent Elsewhere throughout the customer and community journey

Experience design

When it comes to project work, I take on the role of Product Design Lead. I am at the forefront of shaping the overall look, feel, and functionality of our products.

• Conduct user research and analysis to understand the needs, goals, and behaviours of our target audience.

• Lead brainstorming sessions and create user personas, journey maps, and wireframes to conceptualise user experiences.

• Design intuitive and engaging user interfaces, creating high-fidelity prototypes and mockups primarily using Figma.

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, product managers, developers, and designers to align design vision with project goals.

• Develop and advocate for a user-centred design strategy that aligns with business goals.

Overview

Alfred is a designer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He helps companies marry product and brand by designing visual identities and user interfaces. He's currently freelancing and building a product of his own.

Projects

Alfred worked with us on:

At Elsewhere, we firmly believe in the power of people-first organisations. We believe that by building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations we can foster a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community. Ultimately, our humble aim is to enhance the quality of life for the communities around us.

Read the detail

The services we provide to our partners all focus on helping them to be the best version of an impactful organisation that they can be. This means both helping them to deal with and see through all of the complex things that a impact start up has to deal with. These essentially fall into 3 areas.

Thought Wardrobe helps leaders, their teams and organisations align with their purpose and values, create better employee and customer experiences, implement innovation processes and lead change with more impact.

We're located here in Copenhagen, come by for a coffee

Reach out over email at [email protected]

Or directly with

Everything has an impact, but you can’t measure everything. We help you to focus on the impact that matters most to your organisation, and how to communicate that impact, so that you stand out from the crowd.

We believe

As the name suggests impact is key to an impact start up. To ensure that an organisation is creating a meaningful impact, it's important to measure its progress towards its desired outcomes. This means setting clear goals, tracking its performance, and using qualitative and quantitative data to make informed decisions about how to improve your impact over time. Not only this communicating the impact you are making helps to attract the best talent, loyal customers and high quality partnerships.

The challenge for impact start ups

Understanding impact can feel like a large, complicated and unwieldy task. It can feel as if you should be measuring millions of data points from CO2 emissions to employees and customer satisfaction. But for start ups that just isn't feasible, it would take up too many costs and resources. The question is then what are the absolutely key things to measure and communicate? here there are many different frameworks, tools and software available to help. This is again creates more work, and takes up valuable resource in finding the right things to use.

How we help

Our generalists and impact specialists can help you quickly cut through the noise of impact and get to a pragmatic strategy

The steps we take

• Define the impact and outcomes you want to reach

• Prioiritise key outcomes

• Identify key measures

• Define process of collection

• Analyse data

• Summarise insights

• Communicate impact to target audience

The skills we use

• Impact strategy

• Logical model mapping

• Measurement frameworks

• Impact frameworks

• Qualitative and quantitative impact measures

• Data collection tools and processes

• Data analysis

• Dashboards and data analytics

• Story telling and communication

• Workshop facilitation

We want to collaborate with people that believe in and work for people first organisations. These organisations can take many legal forms (non profit, foundation, for profit or governmental), follow many purposes and work with many challenging topics. The most important thing for us is that they believe in the people first strategies we’ve outlined no matter how far along with them they are, and believe in putting the effort required in to make them happen.

There are certain organisational purposes that we are potentially more likely to work with due to prior experience, general personal interest or our need to know more about a certain topic to further our own company. These purposes are not a prerequisite for working with us and certainly change over time as the world, our interests and organisational needs change too.

Appreciate Nature

The influence of nature on people's lives can be immensely positive, ranging from spending more time in natural surroundings to gaining inspiration and knowledge from the processes of the natural world. Our goal is to support organisations and solutions that enable people to have easier access to these experiences.

In many ways the current narrative is that technology is removing us from nature, but we believe this doesn’t have to be the case. Technology processes and solutions can learn a lot from the processes of nature. Not only that technical solution can provide us with access and knowledge of nature that can help us appreciate it in new ways.

Enjoy Food

Food is a fundamental requirement for everyone, but many of us are now disconnected from the various stages of food production, sourcing, and preparation. It is our belief that by bringing people closer to the processes involved in making their food and encouraging them to enjoy the experience of cooking and eating with loved ones, people can develop a greater awareness of how their food choices affect the environment. This, in turn, can help people gain a better appreciation for the food they consume.

With this in mind we’d love to collaborate with others trying to help in this space.

Love our homes and shelter

We spend a significant portion of our lives inside buildings, whether it's our home, workplace, or school. However, these spaces should be more than just shelters. They should be environments that we enjoy being in, where we can connect with others and share experiences. After all, the places where we spend most of our time should enhance our well-being and contribute to a positive quality of life.

We are always trying to improve our studio experience to be the best place for our employees and those renting desks, so any chance to learn more about the best way to design indoor experiences would be very interesting to us.

Sustainable clothing

We all need clothes, but do we need so many of them? Do we need to replace them so often? We believe in creating clothing that lasts longer, can be repaired and considers its supply chain. As wearers of clothes (most of the time) ourselves, we’d love to help with solutions that help with more sustainable clothing.

Improve how we learn and educate

Learning and personal growth are continuous processes, our education doesn't end when we finish school. We learn in many different contexts, including in our professional and personal lives. It's essential to recognise that learning is a lifelong journey and that education can take many forms.

We believe that there is a lot more that can be done to enhance our understanding of how people learn best, including how to personalise learning to meet individual needs. Technology has the potential to be a valuable tool in this regard, providing a means to create customised learning experiences that are more accessible to everyone. By leveraging technology in education, we can help more people reach their full potential and foster a love of learning that lasts a lifetime.

There’s so many options and buzz around technology. We help you understand what technology you truly need. We then help you design, build and learn from it, so that you can stay effective and focus on your impact.

We believe

Technology & design has the potential to solve complex problems, improve processes, and make organisations more impactful. It can also create new opportunities for individuals and businesses, and enhance our daily lives. As new technologies are invented they force us to rethink our current ways of doing things and ask, is there a better way? Design is a great way to do this.

However it is important for impact led organisations to use technology thoughtfully and considerately, taking into account the potential risks and downsides. This includes being mindful of data privacy, ensuring equitable access to technology, and providing training and support for employees to use technology effectively and safely.

The challenge for small organisations

The challenge is there are too many different technologies, approaches to technology and a large amount of skills and employees required. This means that the small organisation doesn't have the money and resources to best explore what technologies to use or the capabilities to implement them effectively. This means they may be missing out on reaching their impact more quickly and effectively

How we help

Between our generalists and our specialised experts we already have the design and technology knowledge. By partnering with you to understand your organisation we can then provide pragmatic and actionable suggestions on how be best utilise design and technology to be the most impactful organisation you can be.

Not only this we have the team and the skills to then effectively design, build any technology you need. This means we are accountable for any suggestions we might have made earlier in the process and there's no need for any handover to a 3rd party

• Save time and resources on understand why where and how to use technology within your organisation

• A pragmatic a approach to the implementation of the technology you need focussing solely on the most impactful and value adding areas fist

• Reduce the risk and uncertainty of costly implementing technology wrong by using us to effectively implement the technology you need

The steps we go through

• Understand your organisations technology needs

• Align around a vision for how technology can be used within your organisation

• Create a roadmap for implementation

• Design, build and test the first version

• Keep learning and improving from what is released adding new things as required

The skills we use...

• Technology experimentation

• Emergent technology research

• Concept building

• Product roadmapping

• Product ownership

• Project management

• Agile process facilitation

• Brand design

• UX design

• UI design

• Design systems

• User testing

• Digital analytics

• Web development

• Systems architecture

• Content creation

• Workshop facilitation

Introduction

I have worked in many senior roles throughout my career. My diverse background as a strategist, technologist and research allows me to understand and empathise with organisational challenges at all levels. This has helped me to gather a wide ranging understanding of effective strategy and processes all focussing on doing the most for people.

This experience means I am able to work in close collaboration with designers, product managers, domain experts, engineers, and organisational leaders to align between peoples motivations, market opportunity and organisational capabilities to workshop innovative solutions and follow those solutions from inception all the way to thriving solutions.

You'll find more shameless self promotion on my LinkedIn

#DigitalStrategy, #Innovation, #roadmapping, #StrategicPlanning, #UserTesting, #CustomerResearch, #DesignThinking, #TechnicalConcepts, #CustomerExperience, #ChangeManagement, #InnovationWorkshops, #WorkshopFacilitation, #ClientManagement, #UserResearch

A bit of history

Learning to work in online companies

My work life started as a need to earn a bit of cash to survive and in doing so I stumbled across digital technology and online businesses as a place I felt most at home. I worked as a website administrator and a couple of different jobs. Website work came naturally to me and supported my computer science degree well.

Honing my technology craft

After finishing my degree I jumped headfirst into coding, helping to build and maintain a multitude of websites, platforms and blogs along the way. Most notably by the time I reached lead developer at a content marketing agency I learnt that coding itself was not the solution. To truly make successful digital products I needed to talk to users, measure their success and have business needs at the forefront of my mind.

Not only this, my seniority meant I had to train new developers, work with other departments and meet with clients. The complexity of people's own needs, motivations and the way they affected the work I did was becoming ever more apparent.

Embracing the strategic and people focused

It was at this point I was promoted into a more senior management position where yet again it was people that were the main challenge and what I learned most in this time. The boardroom I was in had a very diverse set of personalities, opinions and skills sets. The clients I worked with were being pulled in all directions by their bosses and staff. No matter how good the process, strategy or solution, it was being held up by conflicting agendas, motivations and success criteria.

What I know now is that I was trying to do what was best for our customers, my department and team members but this was conflicting against the need for fast growth and profit. I thought at the time it was because I didn’t enjoy my job and so decided to change my career path and move to Denmark.

The Denmark years

I moved to Copenhagen in 2015 and started a Masters degree with a focus on Artificial intelligence and user experience. I wrote my master's thesis with Hello Great Works and then started full time employment with them soon after.

Given my aptitude for strategic thinking I succeeded in learning a lot about design thinking, qualitative research methods and innovation strategy. Essentially how to understand what people need and bring a whole team of people along with turning that understanding of needs into a solution that people truly want.

But I missed being involved in implementing the things I’d strategise about, I needed to learn if the strategies I made were working over the following years. Luckily this is when I met Luke, my legend of a business partner, and Elsewhere started to form

The elsewhere years

Now here I am.

All my work and life experience has all culminated in the creation and running of Elsewhere, the studio I am so proud to have helped to start and turn it into what it is today.

Elsewhere is a studio where I get to use all of my previous experience working in strategy, technology and design to help talented people to build, nurture and champion their people first organisations. Truly balancing the organisations need for profit alongside what is best for their employees, customers and community.

I get to work with some of the most innovative organisations and people, to help them take the seeds of an idea or problem and turn them into thriving solutions. I get to strategise and research, then see and learn from solutions out in the world to hone my skills. I get to have my cake and eat it, then bake an even better cake next time.

My role at Elsewhere

My role as Impact strategist and researcher involves shaping both elsewheres’ and clients' visions, making sure everyone is heading in the right direction and knows the steps to get there. It’s all about charting the path to success and creating an environment of continuous informed learning to get there effectively.

Whether it's helping to grow individuals, organisations, or digital solutions, my role is to give clear guidance on the direction and back it up with solid evidence. When people are looking for someone to show them where we're going and why we're going there, I'm the person with the best current answers.

Of course, I can't do it alone. Effective communication and collaboration are key parts of what I do. I work closely with different teams and stakeholders to make sure we're all on the same page and moving forward together. After all, teamwork makes the dream work!

Digital strategy and roadmaps

• Work closely with cross-functional teams to define digital strategies that support project objectives.

• Develop roadmaps outlining the necessary steps and milestones to achieve digital transformation goals on a project.

• Collaborate with technology and design teams to ensure the successful execution of digital project work.

• Stay updated on emerging trends and technologies, providing recommendations for digital advancements.

• Facilitate the collection of data from users and customers to inform strategic decisions and roadmaps

Impact measurement & research

• Establish frameworks and methodologies for measuring the impact of organisational initiatives. for elsewhere and its clients.

• Collect, analyse, and interpret data to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of implemented strategies, for elsewhere and its clients.

• Prepare reports and presentations to communicate impact findings to stakeholders, for elsewhere and its clients.

• Identify areas for improvement and recommend actionable insights based on impact measurements, for elsewhere and its clients.

Organisation strategy

• Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop and refine Elsewhere and it’s client's strategic goals and objectives.

• Conduct thorough research and analysis to identify opportunities for growth and improvement for elsewhere and its clients.

• Develop comprehensive strategies and action plans to align the organisation with its long-term vision, for elsewhere and its clients.

• Monitor and evaluate the progress of Elsewhere strategic work, making adjustments as necessary for elsewhere and its clients.

• Collaborate with employees to help them define their goals, vision for their role and how to get there

To summarise, our approach is to build a strong foundation of trust and understanding with the people we work with. By using existing well established digital processes, frameworks and tools and pragmatically customising our process to suit the needs we are able to create a safe space and high quality digital products that encourage innovation, trust and ultimately leads to the most successful projects.

Our approach can be described in detail through our principles below;

Principle 1: Digital product principles

We approach the design and development of digital products with commonly accepted methods and principles. We will use all of these principles, but the fidelity of each might vary. We approach each with a sense of pragmatism and match of both project needs and resources required, as per our .

Principle 2: Partnership principles

We look at partnerships slightly differently than a typical agency or consultancy. We don’t have a linear set of steps we always follow, we don’t have out of the box team setup’s and we aim to work with partners for a long time. By being agile and pragmatic in terms of how we design our projects we are able to stay cost effective and achieve a high quality output, by putting focus on trust and the relationship early we are able to work on multiple projects with our partners over many years (see 2.3 Prior performance examples for this service) .

Principle 3: People principles

We’ve already said people are the hardest part. These principles are defined to help us make sure we address and understand the complexities of what it means to be human, whether that's the people on the project or the people we aim to help with the digital product we are creating.

The values below represent how we approach our lives and the work we do. They are what you can expect from working with us and an idea of what it might feel like to be on a project with us.

Digital product process

Our digital product process doesn’t follow a linear process. We utilise our burst and bloom approach to custom design each burst project by selecting what is required from our work clusters. Our work clusters are essentially the phases of a typical product design & build process.

The difference is that we allow for the fact that each organisation's digital product is at a different stage and doesn’t fit exactly into one phase. Rather each burst project might require and mix these phases with varying fidelity. For example an existing digital product may need a small bit of discovery, a large bit of research and a small bit of coding and releasing and a small bit of training and onboarding.

The work clusters we choose from can be described as follows:

Our project process steps

Each burst project involves specific steps aimed at fostering trust with us and our partners, collectively deepening our grasp of the digital solution, and enabling practical actions that consistently enhance user satisfaction and drive organisational success.

We are Elsewhere, a digital product studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

We help small organisations to enhance their digital innovation, effectiveness, and sustainability through top-notch digital services.

We are a small, experienced group of who have decades of experience working with design & technology. We are a small group by design, so that we can work closely with a select group of partners, stay cost effective and stay abreast of the rapidly changing digital landscape.

Our is to tailor make projects to fit exactly what you need, ensuring our projects are pragmatically scoped and delivered to a high quality.

We do this by leveraging all of the best practices of digital product process and tools, then designing projects that take only the best bits. We assemble dynamic bespoke teams, based on our each project's needs by combining our broad digital knowledge with our specialist tailored skills working in of intense work, followed by a period of listening, learning and reflection before the next project.

We recognise that genuine success demands more than just advanced design and technology. As part of our digital product work we foster outstanding teams, implement thoughtful processes, promote sustainable business models, cultivate inclusive communities, and nurture thriving organisational cultures.

This means that the people we partner with benefit from

• The best environment for creativity and innovation

• Accountability for the work we do, all the way from inception to real world results

• A fun, collaborative and respectful working environment that gets the most out of everyone who is working with us

• Flexibility and pragmatism in project scoping and planning. Our partners use us when they need us, no need to make costly and risky full time hires until they’re ready

• Fast, effective and agile projects that deliver high quality digital results at value for money

• Hand on experience learning about everything we do, so that you can do it without us one day

There’s so much more, you can read on through our , look deeper into our or .

In a world where organisations are often focused on money and growth at all costs, the idea of a "people-first" organisation can seem like a utopian dream. But it’s not, such organisations exist, and they're thriving.

At the heart of a people-first organisation is a simple but radical idea: that the well-being and flourishing of the people should be the primary focus of the organisation. This means prioritising not only their physical and financial needs, but also their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. In other words, people could actually enjoy the thing that they spend 34% of their waking hours doing and get paid for it too. We believe that this is something worth dedicating our working life to and it is why elsewhere exists.

Finding the balance between creating impact and generating profit can be challenging, but it's certainly achievable with careful planning, a strategic approach, and the assistance of design and technology. By leveraging these tools, organisations can successfully pursue both goals without sacrificing one for the other.

Below we have outlined the strategies truly people-first organisations follow. To achieve a people-first culture, it's crucial to consistently follow all of these strategies in harmony, with support from those inside the organisation. While people-first organisations may not always execute these strategies perfectly, they strive to do so and are transparent about their successes and failures.

Supporting the elsewhere employees is our network of freelancers, contractors and collaborators. These are highly skilled specialists who we rely on to execute on specialist tasks that require more high level skills than a generalist assigned to a project or if the work requires additional resource

What this means is that we are able to flexibly resource projects of highly skilled specialists who can deliver to a high quality, all whilst maintaining consistency and quality and keeping our costs and overheads down

Rikke is a freelance UX designer and researcher with almost 10 years of experience in building digital products and services. She's a Hyper Island alumni and has been working with big global brands and small startups within mobility, retail, healthcare, the public sector etc in Copenhagen, Amsterdam and London. She's been running my own tech startup and been travelling the world to teach and talk about user centered design.

We talk to Rikke if we need

User research - Getting to know the needs, pains and expectations from end-users

Synthesis and analysis - Identifying patterns, insights and opportunities from the research

Workshop and ideation facilitation - Turning opportunity into ideas

Prototype and experiments - Turning ideas into measurable prototypes

User testing - Putting prototypes and products in the hands of users to validate

Interface design UX & UI - Delivering designs and working closely with developers to ensure the best user experience

As projects evolve, unforeseen complexities can arise, whether it's due to a lack of expertise, dwindling resources, or the sheer scale of the undertaking causing bottlenecks and internal challenges.

Our highly experienced professionals are available to seamlessly integrate into your ongoing digital projects. We bring a wealth of knowledge gained from two decades of executing diverse digital initiatives. Acting as an independent voice, we cut through complexities, offering support and guidance to steer your project in the right direction.

Unlike traditional consulting firms, our goal isn't to take over your project; instead, we collaborate with your team to provide the necessary expertise and resources. Our approach empowers your team to regain control and momentum. Once you're back on track, we gracefully step back, allowing you to continue with the newfound momentum.

Teresa specialises in private philanthropy and strategic development consulting with a strong focus on impact donations, early-stage project management and the dissemination of the CSR framework. Experienced facilitator and have worked with entrepreneurs, students, the private sector, municipalities and NGO's, to help them see their great ideas become reality.

Meet her on LinkedIn here

We now know what our vision for people first organisations is, and how we want to help them, so that leads lastly on to defining what outcomes we want to achieve for this and for who. Here’s the statement again:

“At Elsewhere, we firmly believe in the power of people-first organisations. We believe that by building, nurturing, and championing people-first organisations we can foster a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community.”

This section focuses on: “ a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes that benefit not only ourselves, but also the organisations we collaborate with, their customers and employees, and the wider community”.

Define organisations we collaborate with

We want to collaborate with people that believe in and work for people first organisations. These organisations can take many legal forms (non profit, foundation, for profit or governmental), follow many purposes and work with many challenging topics. The most important thing for us is that they believe in the people first strategies we’ve outlined no matter how far along with them they are, and believe in putting the effort required in to make them happen.

There are certain organisational purposes that we are potentially more likely to work with due to prior experience, general personal interest or our need to know more about a certain topic to further our own company. These purposes are not a prerequisite for working with us and certainly change over time as the world, our interests and organisational needs change too.

Appreciate Nature

The influence of nature on people's lives can be immensely positive, ranging from spending more time in natural surroundings to gaining inspiration and knowledge from the processes of the natural world. Our goal is to support organisations and solutions that enable people to have easier access to these experiences.

In many ways the current narrative is that technology is removing us from nature, but we believe this doesn’t have to be the case. Technology processes and solutions can learn a lot from the processes of nature. Not only that technical solution can provide us with access and knowledge of nature that can help us appreciate it in new ways.

Enjoy Food

Food is a fundamental requirement for everyone, but many of us are now disconnected from the various stages of food production, sourcing, and preparation. It is our belief that by bringing people closer to the processes involved in making their food and encouraging them to enjoy the experience of cooking and eating with loved ones, people can develop a greater awareness of how their food choices affect the environment. This, in turn, can help people gain a better appreciation for the food they consume.

With this in mind we’d love to collaborate with others trying to help in this space.

Love our homes and shelter

We spend a significant portion of our lives inside buildings, whether it's our home, workplace, or school. However, these spaces should be more than just shelters. They should be environments that we enjoy being in, where we can connect with others and share experiences. After all, the places where we spend most of our time should enhance our well-being and contribute to a positive quality of life.

We are always trying to improve our studio experience to be the best place for our employees and those renting desks, so any chance to learn more about the best way to design indoor experiences would be very interesting to us.

Sustainable clothing

We all need clothes, but do we need so many of them? Do we need to replace them so often? We believe in creating clothing that lasts longer, can be repaired and considers its supply chain. As wearers of clothes (most of the time) ourselves, we’d love to help with solutions that help with more sustainable clothing.

Improve how we learn and educate

Learning and personal growth are continuous processes, our education doesn't end when we finish school. We learn in many different contexts, including in our professional and personal lives. It's essential to recognize that learning is a lifelong journey and that education can take many forms.

We believe that there is a lot more that can be done to enhance our understanding of how people learn best, including how to personalise learning to meet individual needs. Technology has the potential to be a valuable tool in this regard, providing a means to create customised learning experiences that are more accessible to everyone. By leveraging technology in education, we can help more people reach their full potential and foster a love of learning that lasts a lifetime.

Define wider community

The term "community" can have various meanings depending on its context. In this particular case, the term "wider community" refers to the group of people who share a common belief in prioritising people first organisations. This community has no limitations regarding geographical location, race, gender, or other categorizations, as it is based on a particular mindset and a desire to bring about people-first organisational change.

While we have strongly held beliefs about the importance of putting people first in organisations, we don’t believe that people first organisations can solve all of the world's problems or should attempt to do so. We value differing beliefs and encourage them to exist alongside our own, we value hearing them and are thankful for them as without them our own values would not exist.

However, we have chosen to focus its work on providing assistance to those in their community who share their belief in people-first organisations and require support to realise their goals..

Define a virtuous cycle of positive outcomes

When we say a virtuous cycle, we are referring to the interconnected nature of all of the positive outcomes we intended to achieve:

The more successful elsewhere is, the more successful people-first organisations, the more successful the wider community. Not only this but the more successful people first organisation are the more successful elsewhere is, whichever way you flip it, we have a virtuous cycle. All of our respective positive outcomes feed each other, ultimately creating an unstoppable snowball effect.

Defining interrelated outcomes like that is hard, so we have also listed the outcomes we are striving to:

Our outcomes

• Elsewhere employee satisfaction is high

• Elsewhere customer satisfaction is high

• Elsewhere is a profitable organisation

• Elsewhere has strong relationships with its partners

• Elsewhere is seen as a thought leader of people first organisations

• Elsewhere is making progress towards it’s intended impact

Beyond elsewhere outcomes

• Employee satisfaction in the organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve

• Customer satisfaction within the organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve

• The profitability of people first organisations Elsewhere works with and those in the wider community improve

• People first organisations Elsewhere work with and those in the wider community become more effective towards reaching their impact

• The wider community starts to implement and improve their existing people first strategies within their organisations without elsewhere help

• The wider community displays and communicates higher satisfaction with their lives

The end

Wow, thank you so much for reading, we’re impressed that you read all of this and got to the end. If you skimmed straight to the bottom you’re just a liar and a cheat, you’re only cheating yourself 😏.

To those who did truly read it all, thank you again, and we can say with 100% certainty that we should talk this through together, do set up a time for a coffee and title it “read to the end, we need to talk ☕️”. We guarantee we’ll put people first and make time for that conversation.

Big love, Elsewhere 💛

The phases we describe below are intentionally abstract, as they represent the common mindset, focus, and potential pitfalls that individuals and organisations face during their journey towards implementing people-first solutions. These solutions can take various forms, from spin-out ideas within large organizations to newly-formed enterprises with the seed of an idea for positive change.

Regardless of the specific form, people involved in these solutions experience the same range of emotions and biases, such as optimism, despair, excitement, disappointment, and uncertainty. By understanding and acknowledging these phases, we can better equip ourselves to navigate the challenges and capitalise on the opportunities that arise during the journey towards creating sustainable and impactful solutions.

The seeds

We consider seeds to be the beginnings of potential action - ideas or challenges that can lead to positive outcomes for customers, employees, or the wider community. Opportunities for growth and improvement are constantly emerging around us, but not all of them are worth pursuing. The challenge is to identify which seeds will provide the most value with the least investment.

In the seed phase, we help people to navigate this challenge by exploring the seeds that have emerged and evaluating their potential. This process involves understanding where the seeds came from, who they affect, and how they can be leveraged to achieve positive outcomes.

By the end of this phase, you will have a clear understanding of which seeds to prioritise and which to keep on the back burner for future consideration.

Test the environment

Once you have a clear understanding of the seeds you want to plant, the next phase is what we call "test the environment." During this phase, you'll need to understand what the optimal conditions for nurturing early growth are. This can involve asking questions like:

• Who are the right customers for my product/service?

• What kind of team do I need to build to execute my vision?

• What partners and suppliers do I need to collaborate with?

• What infrastructure and resources will I require?

• How can I balance financial sustainability with the social or environmental impact I aim to create?

While it's very rare to have all the answers at this stage, it's important to stay open-minded and be willing to experiment with different approaches. You may encounter setbacks or obstacles along the way, but these can also provide valuable learning opportunities.

Our role during this phase is to help to identify and design experiments that can test different hypotheses and assumptions. We also provide support to execute those experiments and document the insights and learnings that emerge from them.

By the end of this phase, you should have a clear understanding of what a successful version of your people first solution would look like in terms of its target customer base, intended impact, and resource requirements. This can serve as a useful guide for the next stage of development.

Nurture

After testing the environment in the previous phase, it's time to focus on nurturing the seeds in that environment and bringing all aspects of the idea to life. As the idea begins to take shape, unexpected challenges will arise. Successfully dealing with these challenges by adapting and further testing will be crucial to this phase and to strengthening the overall essence of the solution.

While it can be tempting to move quickly and implement many tasks at once, the key to success in this phase is finding the right balance between learning and action. It's important to stay focused on the essence of the solution and to constantly reprioritize tasks based on their effectiveness.

During this phase, we provide support on production work and serve as a scalable set of resources that allow the organization to pivot and validate the essence of the solution. Having been involved from the early phases, we also serve as a useful sounding board as unexpected challenges arise.

By the end of this phase, you can expect to have answers to all the key questions you started out with on this venture. You will have created a new organisation, solution, department, or team that is starting to gain traction and success, even though there are still areas for improvement.

Careful growth

The seeds have sprouted, and the first leaves have emerged in all directions. It can be tempting to grow quickly and take in as many nutrients as possible, but it's essential for a people-first organization to reflect on what growth is needed and focus on effective and impactful growth in the right areas to ensure the best chance of thriving sustainably.

Our role during this phase is to help organizations instill best practices, explore new or refined customer groups, and hire and educate new employees on how to facilitate effective growth.

It's important to remember that growth isn't just about increasing profits or size, but about making a positive impact on your customers, employees, and the wider community. By focusing on impactful growth, you can achieve a more sustainable and effective solution that can thrive in the long term.

By the end of this phase, the purpose and direction of the solution should be clear to everyone involved, and the solution should be running efficiently. While you may not be at the ultimate thriving version of yourself yet, the path towards that goal should be clear, and everyone involved should be working towards it with a shared sense of purpose.

Thrive

You've made it to where you wanted to be, although it may not look exactly as you envisioned it when you started out. The journey to get here was time-consuming, required a lot of hard work, and a great deal of learning. But hopefully, it was worth it.

However, just because you have arrived at your destination, it does not mean that the journey is over. The focus now is on enabling more positive change and ensuring that you can weather any storms that may come your way. As the environment around you continues to change, it's essential to remain vigilant and adaptable. Prioritize exploration, research, and innovation. Keep a close eye on employee and customer satisfaction, keep reevaluating the partners you use, and don't let things slip.

At this stage, our role is to design ourselves out of helping you. You should be well-equipped to handle everything yourself and have the necessary resources. However, we'd like to stay in touch and be a valuable sounding board. We can use our network to help you find new staff and customers.

By the end of this phase, you should be close to achieving your purpose and having a significant impact. However, the landscape may have changed so much that your solution is no longer needed. What's clear now is that you're ready for something new, a change is coming, and you're moving on to the final phase.

Endings and new beginnings

One certainty in life is that everything will eventually come to an end. While this may be unavoidable, it's important to consider how we want things to end and plan accordingly. Throughout all phases of the process, it's important to think about what success looks like, when we've achieved our purpose, and how we can give back to others who are following in our footsteps. It's also important to consider when it's time to call it a day and move on to something new.

By focusing on the legacy of what you've created and planning for a successful end, you can avoid losing sight of your purpose and prevent things from spiralling out of control. It's important to aim for a strong finish and take everything you've learned into your next venture.

Our role in this final phase is to help you reflect on the journey, celebrate your successes, and plan for a successful exit. We can also help you leverage your network and connections to find opportunities for giving back and transitioning into something new. By the end of this phase, you'll be able to confidently close this chapter of your life and move on to new endeavours with a clear sense of purpose and direction.