About Blink Digital Strategy company in Seattle, United States
Founded in 2000, Blink is a user experience strategy, research, design, and development firm dedicated to helping clients achieve their business goals through a flexible user-centered design approach. Blink has worked with hundreds of innovative clients
We have four studios across the United States. Come visit us in Austin Boston San Diego or Seattle.
There are five ways to make coffee at Blink HQ. Say hello and let#39;s get coffee.
Karen is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-founder of Blink. Karen is primarily focused on company vision and developing strategies to get there. Karen has a long history of execution and implementation and her leadership philosophy is grounded in the idea of prototyping everything staying fluid open and adaptive. Karen supports Blinks mission enriching peoples lives through her dedication and work with employees Blinks clients and their end-users.
Karen implemented Blinks cultural framework with six pillars to measure and ensure that employees leave at the end of the day feeling valued and positive and are able to create a bigger impact in the world around them as a result.
Karen began her career studying fine arts in Vancouver British Columbia at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She holds a degree in art history and visual arts from the University of Victoria and is a graduate of the Information Technology amp; Multimedia program at Capilano University in Vancouver. Karen also started a Ph.D. program in values-driven leadership at the Benedictine University in 2015.
Through her work at Blink Karen was a winner of the 2016 Enterprising Women of the Year award and a finalist for the Ernst amp; Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2015. In 2016 Blink was listed on Forbes Magazines Best 25 Small Companies in America list.
Karen writes a column for Forbes.com on the Entrepreneurs channel discussing many topics including how UX is Revolutionizing Business she has been written about in several articles with a recent biography talking about her leadership through chaos in Seattles tech authority Geekwire. For fun Karen was featured in a small-business commercial for MetLife which aired internationally over two years.
Karen is a member of the Small Giants Community the International Leadership Association (ILA) and is the Executive Director for the nonprofit organization she founded in 2014 Girls Can Do. GCD is an event series for girls with the mission to inspire a generation of possibility thinkers and ignite a vision for equal opportunity. In 2016 First Lady Michelle Obama gave a keynote video address and Karen received a thank you letter from President Obama for her work with girls.
Karen lives in Seattle Washington and was born and raised in Victoria Canada. She loves to trail run garden backcountry ski kitesurf and hang out with her amazing daughter. You can read Karens LinkedIn bio and follow her on Twitter @karenclarkcole.
Kelly is the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and Co-Founder of Blink. He focuses on the future of Blinks tools services and methods while also working on projects with unique challenges. He is passionate about making our daily interactions with technology more innovative intuitive and rewarding.
Over Blinks 20 year history he has worked with hundreds of clients from tech-sector heavy hitters like Apple Google Amazon Microsoft to startups and non-profits. He enjoys working on cutting edge projects in the data visualization healthcare and the IT spaces. He feels lucky to have contributed to some of the largest and most successful product launches in history.
Kelly has been a featured on the topic of UX and innovation at dozens of conferences courses and events including presentations at San Diego Design Week (The Future Meets the Drive Thru) in 2020 multiple guest lecturer appointments at the University of Washington and keynote lectures at Convey UX and Seattle Interactive Conference.
In 2019 Kelly was awarded the Myron L. White Award by the University of Washingtons Human Centered Design amp; Engineering department for his service to the organization. In 2011 he was featured as ’Geek of the Week’ from GeekWire magazine. His work has been recognized with a number of awards including several IDSA IDEA awards for design excellence. Always eager to share his passion for design and technology with others he volunteers his time as an instructor and external advisor for programs at Lake Washington Institute of Technology and the University of Washington.
In 2016 Blink made Forbes Magazine#39;s Best Small Companies list and has won the Puget Sound Business Journals Washingtons Fastest-Growing Private Companies award in 2015 and 2012 Seattle Business Tech Impact Silver Award in 2015 and was listed on Inc. Magazines Top 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies in America list in 2015 2014 2013 and 2012.
Kelly holds a degree in industrial design from Arizona State University and a Masters from the Illinois Tech#39;s Institute of Design in Chicago. Prior to co-founding Blink UX Kelly led user-centered design teams at E-Lab Personal Health Connections and Bowne. You can read Kellys full LinkedIn bio read his blog and follow him on Twitter @kfranznick.
As CFO and Partner of the company Randy oversees Blinks finances and administration. He is in charge of the overall health and viability of the company ensuring log term sustainability and profitability.
Randy has more than 30 years of accounting and finance experience including 14 years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and later serving as the Chief Financial Officer of several public and private companies including CellCyte Genetics Corporation and Ascentium Corporation. At Ascentium Randy was a key member of its management team from its inception in 2001 through its dramatic growth period ending in 2008. Randy left Ascentium in 2008 to start an accounting consulting firm working with start-up technology companies.
Randy has a BS degree in accounting from Central Washington University and became a CPA in 1987. He is the treasurer of FEAT of Washington and is on the Board of Directors of the Greater Seattle Youth Bowling Association. He spends his free time coaching youth bowling and driving his daughters to local youth bowling tournaments.
Jason is the chief operating officer (COO) of Blink bridging business operations with practice areas in ways that allow Blink to make the biggest impact possible for our clients and in the world.
With training in finance innovation and design thinking Jason started his career in secondary battery technologies and software product management for streaming video and IoT applications. Prior to joining Blink he helped launched three enterprise software products including a smart city platform aimed at activating human safety and sustainability initiatives for the city of Denver. Most recently he was Chief Product Officer at Panasonic where he led teams working on the intersection of AI and Connected Home.
Jasons education includes the University of Texas at Austin Stanford University and The London School of Economics all building on his Business and Finance MBA from Pepperdine University.
Outside of running Blink Jason can be found with family and friends or working on his kick serve.
John Dirks is a UX research leader and user researcher with over over 20 years of experience. Joining Blink shortly after it was founded in 2000 John continues to be instrumental in growing the company#39;s research practice to the highly capable team it is today. John specializes in complex research engagements including multiphase field studies involving consumer electronics auto technology andmore recently VR/AR systems. Over the years John has managed numerous international research studies;through which he has developed partnerships with top UX research firms in other countries. Johns diverse list of clients includes: Microsoft the Allen Institute for Brain Science Nike Google Amazon Starbucks the Seattle Seahawks Arc#39;teryx and F5 Networks.
As Blink#39;s Chief Research Officer John is excited about expanding Blinks research practice to other locations. He sees boundless opportunities to empower organizations with foundational and evaluative research insights so they can make better evidence-based decisions about their products and services.
John holds Master of Science from the University of Washington and a graduate certificate in human-centered design. When not at work John enjoys reading sea kayaking playing saxophone in a big band and embarking on outdoor activities and adventures with his wife and two daughters.
Geoff Harrison is a partner and the chief design officer at Blink. He has been instrumental in building a full-service user-centered design practice at Blink uniting the firms research expertise with innovative design prototyping and development. This work relies on evidence-driven design strategies to help Blinks combined teams create more desirable and useful products for our clients. He created a workshop on evidence-driven design which he delivered at UX Week and Convey UX and has also been a guest lecturer for the University of Washingtons Human Centered Design and Engineering program.
Prior to Blink Geoff founded Eye Level a design studio and was the creative director at Modern Digital Seattle. He holds bachelors degrees in graphic design and mass media management from Miami University in Ohio and a graduate certificate in user-centered design from the University of Washington.
When not at work he designs rockets Lego forts and scavenger hunts with his three boys and takes them skiing hiking or anything else that burns energy. He also enjoys cooking and finding great places to eat with his wife.
Linda Wagener Blinks Chief Culture Officer has over 35 years of experience in organizational leadership consultation training and research. She is an expert in the areas of organizational culture leadership and team dynamics. Linda is committed to building resilient work cultures that enhance employee engagement and productivity.
A Minnesota native Linda received her doctorate in psychology at Clark University. Lindas work on resilience has been published in various scholarly journals. She was an academic psychologist for 25 years before co-founding Marigold Associates an organizational consultancy.
One of Lindas commitments is to provide training and counseling on resilience and trauma to international aid workers who are living and working in fragile and hostile contexts. Linda enjoys travel movies books skiing and hiking. Linda is executive producer of the documentary ’Once There Was a War’ which examines the capacity of young people to flourish in Bosnia Central Asia and Iraq.
Bill Flora is an award-winning design director and strategist with more than 20 years of experience in leading teams and shipping product. During his two decades with Microsoft he led design efforts for Xbox Windows Media Center Zune and Encarta and he was the design force behind Microsofts ’Metro’ design language. Floras influences can be found in the design of software that lights up millions of screens around the globe every day.
Before joining forces with Blink Bill founded Tectonic a strategic experience design firm where he worked with the worlds leading companies envisioning next-generation content platforms and expressing brand through software. Clients included HBO Microsoft Bang amp; Olufsen Amazon Beats by Dre Cisco Samsung and NBC.
When Bill isnt designing the future you can find him trying to plan another trip to Iceland with his family waxing his skis or learning a new chord on his banjo.
Nickelle Sletteland is the general manager of Blink#39;s California studios. She is responsible for growing and supporting our California business.
An innovative business and product leader Nickelle leverages vision and leadership market and technology expertise and sales and marketing knowledge to successfully deliver organizational frameworks new strategic growth solutions and business goals.
Nickelle lives in San Diego where she likes to walk her dog spend time with her family and try new hikes.
Dan Pepper works with our design teams and clients to craft engagements that solve complex problems with inspired design. Hes also responsible for positioning Blinks services in ways that connect our core capabilities with new market opportunities.
His career spans over 30 years in creative service entrepreneurship. Most recently he was a partner at Tectonic where he led client engagement and managed business and finance. Dan has also owned a broadcast post-production studio and launched digital media sites including legalforms.com stockphotography.com stockfootage.com and soundeffects.com.
Dan lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons. When he#39;s not at his boys soccer games youll find him in the San Juan Islands hiking and fishing restoring vintage cars entertaining friends or exploring roads less traveled.
David Westen is Blinks Chief Strategy Officer. An expert in user experience and digital strategy David has designed built and marketed products for many of the worlds best-known brands. He now leads Blinks strategy practice which works with senior leaders to make smart evidence-based decisions for growth innovation and change.
In 2010 David founded Redshift an award-winning UX agency in San Francisco whose clients included Google Kaiser Permanente T-Mobile J.D. Power Panasonic and Western Union. Redshift became part of Blink in 2019.
Prior to Redshift David co-founded Internet Learning Corporation a VC-backed startup that earned numerous awards for creative customized e-learning solutions. After leading the company to a successful acquisition in 2002 David served as CTO of the combined company.
David is a graduate of Stanford University. He has lived and worked in many great world cities around the world including Singapore Sydney Kyoto Istanbul Buenos Aires and New York. He speaks fluent Turkish Japanese and English and makes outstanding cocktails.
Alexi Glines is a Project Manager at Blink who loves working with clients and team members to solve problems. She especially enjoys finding ways to become more efficient and improve processes.
Prior to Blink Alexi cut her teeth in project management working for a web development agency which specialized in e-commerce sites. She also worked in digital marketing managing omnichannel marketing projects for clients across industries including Fortune 100 companies.
Outside of Blink she enjoys baking (and is currently trying to perfect her sourdough loaf) going to concerts road trips and finding the best americano in town.
Ally Lucas is a UX researcher in Blink#39;s San Francisco. Ally graduated with a B.A. in English from California State University Sacramento and immediately entered the world of startups. Prior to Blink she helped develop digital products through QA data analysis and application support.
Outside of Blink Ally can be found reading a book road-tripping around northern California or chasing her dog Larry around Golden Gate Park.
As a visual designer at Blinks San Francisco office Andrew crafts modern digital experiences that make peoples lives both easier and more enjoyable.
His breadth of experience ranges from creating next-gen interfaces for mobile and web developing product direction and strategy offering brand guidance as well as producing interactive prototypes and motion studies. He has helped design products for companies such as Visa Samsung Microsoft and T-Mobile.
Before having lived in the Bay Area he grew up in San Marcos CA and received his BFA in Graphic Design amp; Marketing with a minor in Computer Science from California State University San Bernardino. He now lives in San Francisco CA where he and his boyfriend binge trash TV with their Instagram-’famous’ cat. Meow
Anne Vande Creek is a seasoned and accomplished leader in client services business development and strategy in design services across industry verticals. Anne has over 20 years of experience in creative and strategic design organizations supporting the technology industry and leading consumer brands. She is recognized for her leadership across a broad range of disciplines and for her success in determining strategies teams and approaches to account management.
Most recently Anne has been involved in digital transformation developing approaches and processes for the reimagining of complex systems applications and customer and user experiences in all phases of the product lifecycle for healthcare finance technology retail IoT AR/VR and emerging technologies.
Annes areas of expertise include business development; client and account services; strategic planning; process and approach development; user research; UX framework design systems and design management; complex systems design strategy; and new product design and development.
Benjamin Shown heads up Blinks Boston office in Cambridge Massachusetts. As design director at Blink he leads multidisciplinary UX teams tackling projects focused on product envisioning dynamic design systems and brand expressed as software with clients including Amazon HBO Microsoft and NASA.
Ben joined Blink in 2018 as part of an acquisition of Tectonic an experience design studio where Ben was a creative director for four years. Previously he worked on future design concepts at Microsofts Envisioning Lab and as an exhibit designer at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.
Ben loves collaboration heady problems Murphy beds grids typography unity and variety. He is an alum of UWs visual communication design graduate program and currently lives in Somerville with his wife and two adorable clients (kids) 4-year-old Percy and 1-year-old Della.
Bill Flora is an award-winning design director and strategist with more than 20 years of experience in leading teams and shipping product. During his two decades with Microsoft he led design efforts for Xbox Windows Media Center Zune and Encarta and he was the design force behind Microsofts ’Metro’ design language. Floras influences can be found in the design of software that lights up millions of screens around the globe every day.
Before joining forces with Blink Bill founded Tectonic a strategic experience design firm where he worked with the worlds leading companies envisioning next-generation content platforms and expressing brand through software. Clients included HBO Microsoft Bang amp; Olufsen Amazon Beats by Dre Cisco Samsung and NBC.
When Bill isnt designing the future you can find him trying to plan another trip to Iceland with his family waxing his skis or learning a new chord on his banjo.
Brett Campbell is the head of client relations for Blink. Hes responsible for building the business through strategic client relationships.
With 18 years of consulting experience with global companies Brett has developed a focus on solutions to help clients build trusting authentic relationships with their customers. Brett is typically accountable for seeing those programs through to completion measuring the business impact and providing continued justification for investments in customer experience improvements.
Bretts experience spans various business initiatives including customer and user experience product planning and execution business information management and analytics organizational transformation social collaboration and various technology platforms.
Brett#39;s approach to business fosters innovation and experimentation. His focus on listening and collaboration helps him build long-lasting trusted relationships with clients such as those with Ford Amway Humana and Microsoft. His attitude is easily described as Lets make it happen!
In Bretts downtime he enjoys time with his wife Bambi and two kids Colby and Casey. You can also frequently find him out on Puget Sound fishing.
Brian Ledford is a project manager at Blink ensuring our projects stay on track and succeed. With extensive organizational and practical business experience Brian is adept at delivering large- and small-scale software projects on time with quality.
Brian joined Blink in 2018 following program management roles at Tectonic and Microsoft where he worked on various Xbox projects. He is a graduate of Texas Tech University.
Outside of work Brian enjoys spending time in Port Townsend and listening to music.
Brigitt Rains is a highly skilled and outgoing head of operations with more than 17 years of experience in a range of industries. Brigitts work features a wide selection of project experience from web mobile graphic game design and development to custom SharePoint applications video and print production. Clients include Disney Nickelodeon Fremantle Media MTV WB Viacom and CBC along with Mattel Fisher-Price Microsoft Xbox and the Clinton Foundation. She has spoken on the topic of UX and project management at the Hive design and technology conference.
Operations wrangler by day musician by night shes usually preparing for her next gig at the local honky-tonk juke joint. Shes also fanatic about vintage motorcycles and snowboarding. In her spare time youll find her at the monthly motorcycle rallies or high on top of the mountain searching for her next steepest or deepest adventure.
Brittany Johnson is a UX researcher at Blink who is passionate about people and technology. Her goal is to improve peoples lives by delivering insights that help create human-centered products services and experiences.
Brittany has been in UX for the past decade. Most recently she worked in the education industry to help teams build personalized learning and career pathways for an international audience.
Outside of work you might catch Brittany on a run at the dog beach with her two pups adventuring with her wife and daughter or trying out the new local coffee and kombucha shops.
As Blinks head of design and a Blink partner Byron Baker is a design leader with 20 years of experience in design consulting with a focus on strategic product envisioning. He has worked with teams at Microsoft REI Mastercard Apple GE and Tableau to seek out whats possible and bring it to life.
Byron has presented at several conferences on the benefits of UX design and was a part-time faculty member at the iSchool department at the University of Washington. He holds a BFA with a focus on photography and visual communication from the University of Washington.
Byron is a self-acknowledged adrenaline junkie and is raising two more in his likeness. When not standing at his desk chair he can be found going downhill fast in the mountains surrounding Seattle.
Caryn Arredondo is a UX designer at Blink San Francisco. She enjoys solving complex problems for users and handcrafting random stuff such as silkscreen posters just for fun.
She grew up in Mexico and moved to the United States to study visual design. Prior to working at Blink she worked in advertising and design for various firms in Denver and London. After arriving in San Francisco she added UX/UI design to her design palette.
A traveler at heart she now lives and hikes in the Redwood Hills of Oakland CA with her freckly Aussie dog Mishka and her son Ander.
Chris Mueller is a UX designer who loves solving complex problems just as much as he loves making things that are utterly pointless.
He grew up in Scottsdale AZ and studied Computer Science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. After a few years in the wild he realized he was more interested in making cool stuff than analyzing algorithms so he pivoted to design with a master#39;s in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon. Before Blink Chris was leading design and research projects at NASA and Redshift Digital.
Outside of work you can find Chris at a show in the woodshop or getting his heart broken by the Arizona Cardinals.
Christen is a visual designer in Blink#39;s Boston studio. With over fourteen years of experience in visual design brand strategy and art direction Christen helps deliver innovative world-class experiences.
Previous to Blink Christen worked at several advertising agencies around Boston where she had the opportunity to supervise and contribute to hundreds of projects ranging from an AR experience for Celebrity Cruise Lines to a gamified customer engagement experience for Acuvue Lenses. She has also led the redesigns for several digital experiences including projects for BIC Google for Education Panera Bread (?) Royal Caribbean and Beth Israel Hospital.
In her free time Christen enjoys practicing yoga reading comics in coffee shops going to concerts and playing guitar. She lives in Somerville MA with her husband and cat Ridley Scott.
Christine Kim is a project accountant at Blink. She is a well organized multi-tasker with a proven ability to achieve and very detail-oriented. She enjoys working with coworkers and customers at all levels.
She brings her 10 years of accounting experience and knowledge of several accounting softwares in various industries including publishing and insurance.
Christine loves exploring foods and art. In her spare time she likes to explore cultural events concerts hiking or other outdoor sports and visiting new countries on her bucket list.
As a UX designer Claudia strives to design experiences that make peoples interactions with technology more meaningful productive and joyful. She is enthralled by user-centered design because it melds her love of psychology with her drive to solve problems.
Claudia has 20 years of design experience working with clients in a wide variety of sectors including manufacturing technology development music production and brain science. She has a B.A. in psychology and postgraduate certificates in both graphic design and user experience design.
When not at work Claudia is most likely thinking about food or eating. If shes not eating you might find her hiking in the mountains paddle boarding on a lake or singing karaoke in a bar.
As the solutions architect at Blink Dan develops strategies to connect design with solutions. He helps Blink and our clients develop strategies for an optimal flow from design into engineering lead architecture design and aims to ensure that solutions successfully incorporate high quality design.
Dan has experience building software and leading technology groups as a CTO for companies like MarcomCentral. During this experience he has built and grown product engineering IT and InfoSec teams to launch multiple SaaS products to market amp; profitability with clients spanning the financial healthcare franchise amp; manufacturing industries.
Dan lives in Southern California and was born and raised in Adelaide Australia. He loves the outdoors and disconnects by camping and hiking around Joshua Tree and the San Jacinto Mountains with his friends amp; family.
Dan Pepper works with our design teams and clients to craft engagements that solve complex problems with inspired design. Hes also responsible for positioning Blinks services in ways that connect our core capabilities with new market opportunities.
His career spans over 30 years in creative service entrepreneurship. Most recently he was a partner at Tectonic where he led client engagement and managed business and finance. Dan has also owned a broadcast post-production studio and launched digital media sites including legalforms.com stockphotography.com stockfootage.com and soundeffects.com.
Dan lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons. When he#39;s not at his boys soccer games youll find him in the San Juan Islands hiking and fishing restoring vintage cars entertaining friends or exploring roads less traveled.
Dave Kennedy is a UX Researcher with a background in product marketing advertising communications branded content and tech. He is a strategically creative minded person with over 10 years of experience working with the creative and technical staff of several local national international advertising agencies technology companies and game developers such as AMP Publicis DDB Microsoft and Cranium while pursuing his creative endeavors in photography and filmmaking.
As a UX Researcher Dave is passionate about collaborative research participatory design and applying research and design thinking toward creating thoughtful products and environments. He sees curiosity empathy and the ability to uncover insights as the key to creating meaningful experiences that work.
Dave has a Master of Science in Human Centered Design and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of Washington. When not at work Dave exhibits his artworks both locally and internationally. His works have been published globally in such magazines as Art21 and Numero Cinq and exhibited at such venues as the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art Photo Center Northwest Bellevue Arts Museum Chicago Industrial Arts amp; Design Center Escuela de Belle Arte in Spain Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society Museum Studio la Citta in Italy and the Seattle Art Museum#39;s Gallery.
David Westen is Blinks Chief Strategy Officer. An expert in user experience and digital strategy David has designed built and marketed products for many of the worlds best-known brands. He now leads Blinks strategy practice which works with senior leaders to make smart evidence-based decisions for growth innovation and change.
In 2010 David founded Redshift an award-winning UX agency in San Francisco whose clients included Google Kaiser Permanente T-Mobile J.D. Power Panasonic and Western Union. Redshift became part of Blink in 2019.
Prior to Redsh
Blink has offices in Austin, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Blink also owns Insight Space, a Seattle-based research recruiting and focus group company. To learn more about Blink, please visit blinkux.com.
