Sign In

Jonah Burlingame

Design Strategist who turns big concepts into actionable plans | Connector | Ally | Artist

Jonah Burlingame is a seasoned professional with 25 years of experience in aligning growth objectives with digital strategy and product design for mid-size to large organizations.

With a proven approach, Jonah accelerates the innovation journey by employing an 8-week time-boxed innovation sprint methodology, minimizing risk and maximizing team skills.

Specializing in digital product strategy, innovation program design, product vision, prototyping, roadmaps, workshop facilitation, and strategic narratives, Jonah's expertise spans industries like FinTech, FitTech, HealthTech, Media, and MusicTech.

Jonah has worked with notable clients including Accion Opportunity Fund, Wells Fargo, Google, and Salesforce, among others.

He is a sought-after speaker on topics like Design Strategy, DEI, Speculative Design, Design Fiction, and Fintech, and has a background in Graphic Design, Advertising, and Marketing from Kent State University and The University of Akron.

Jonah's rich organizational involvement includes positions such as Advisory Board Member at Harvard Business Review, and roles at RevGenius, The Connective, and Marin Open Studios.

Throughout his career, Jonah has held key roles at various companies, contributing to their strategic development and user experience, showcasing his diverse skill set and industry knowledge.

Highlights

Jul 25 · linkedin

𝗜𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗱? 𝗠𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲. Over the past few days, I've been working on a side project that left me questioning the very core of prompt engineering.

A friend pitched an idea for a game: players need to find food-related anagrams within a recipe title. He’d need hundreds of recipes and their associated anagrams. Seemed like a perfect use case for AI, right? My goal was to generate a few hundred recipe titles with their corresponding anagrams. I tried using increasingly complex, multi-step prompts, which brought me to the limitations of my prompt engineering skills. The results were disappointing, full of inaccuracies and undesirable results.

Out of frustration, I took a different approach. I asked the LLM (Large Language Model) itself for the prompts necessary to produce the results I wanted. The LLM provided an 8-step prompt sequence which showed me a few steps I had missed. Out of curiosity, I responded, "OK, do those steps," and the results were astounding. Within seconds, I had 100 accurate recipe titles with their food-related anagrams.

This experience leads me to ponder: Is the skill of prompt engineering dead? If an AI can provide the optimal prompts itself, why would we need to invest the time to become good prompt engineers? I realize that this is provocational. Obviously I had to employ an intermediate level of prompt engineering to receive the correct steps, but it’s clear that the ability to formulate good questions remains an essential skill no matter if we are working with people or AI.

As we stand on the frontier of AI, it's essential to continuously question and redefine our approaches. This experiment has shown me that sometimes, the best results coming from asking a simple question.

#AI #Innovation #ProductLeadership #PromptEngineering #FutureOfAI

May 14 · linkedin

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗺𝗶𝗱 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗶𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘀' 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆

I recently attended The Conference Board's excellent 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚, 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙊𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙯𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣: 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘼𝙢𝙞𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙧𝙪𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 event in NYC. While there were many insightful speakers, one that really stood out was Nanda Burke from Siemens, who shared her company's inspiring journey to transform into a truly global, integrated solutions organization.

Here were my top 4 takeaways from Nanda's talk:

  1. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼. When undergoing a strategic transformation, it's just as critical to explicitly define the areas you will deprioritize or not pursue in the strategy.

  2. 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 "𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆."  Siemens created an internal platform called Cosmos that empowers employees to form ad-hoc, organic groups across the enterprise beyond their direct reporting lines. This enables much greater cross-functional collaboration.

  3. 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 "𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀" 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. Siemens did away with traditional performance reviews in favor of frequent, candid 1:1 "growth talks" between employees and managers. This unstructured format provides opportunities for healthier and more timely conversations to support individual growth paths.

  4. 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁. Siemens launched their Xcelerator marketplace, which not only offers their own digital solutions but also sells third-party vendor products and services. This demonstrates a deeper understanding of customer needs.

As organizations of all sizes grapple with accelerating disruption, Siemens' transformation principles offer a powerful model for thriving amid change.

#digitaltransformation #innovation #strategy

Jonah Burlingame
Add to my network

Location

San Francisco Bay Area