Designed for Life - In conversation with David O'Coimin

David is the founder and CEO of Do Company, a company founded in 2016 to "Deliver smart solutions to the challenges posed by rapidly changing living and working environments". He describes himself as a digital nomad and a serial entrepreneur. In this podcast, he talks us through his journey from school in rural Ireland to becoming a product designer, social visionary, and successful entrepreneur. Do Company is about product creation but also so much more. The company is focused on creating new ways of working while at the same time empowering more sustainable, inclusive and mindful work and learning environments. As such, it is bang in the centre of how we redesign what 'the office' looks and feels like as the world returns from a period of forced home working and learning to a new rethought and refocused hybrid way of working. Do Co utilises product creation (Nook Pods...which we will come to in a minute), thought leadership, workshops, events, retreats and editorial to drive these goals. This conversation with David hopefully captures the passion that he has around designing better solutions for both established and emerging problems while remaining focused on the study of the psychology and empathy required to identify how we help people to connect, collaborate and create in environments that are sympathetic to the process and the neuroscience around the very concept of what we generically call 'work'. Nook is a Bristol Made award-winning family of pods, shelters and booths designed with introverts and people on the spectrum in mind and built for the future's hybrid work, networking, and learning spaces. Nooks are designed with the needs of the worker or learner foremost and following the concept that a happy and comfortable worker is more creative and productive. This is a podcast about how to play to your strengths as a creative and an entrepreneur while at the same time recognising where your weaknesses lie and surrounding yourself with a team that collectively cover every base successfully.  It is also heavily rooted in how to make a business from a passion. I so enjoyed this conversation, and I think you will too. So take an hour to yourself, and while you settle with a coffee, go for a run or work out in the gym, enjoy Designed for Life in conversation with David O'Coimin. 

Om Podcasten

This is the official podcast of the Design and Technology Association. 'Designed for life' aims to entertain, inform and inspire, bringing the worlds of business and industry together. Design and Technology is a wide-ranging curriculum subject that, along with qualifications in other facilitating subjects, can open doors to students across an ever-increasing breadth of career. England was the first country in the world to introduce this subject to its mainstream curriculum offer in 1988. Where we led others, have followed and in various guises, it is now taught in countries around the world including India, Australia, China, USA, France and Finland. This podcast consists of a series of short, informal conversations with people from across the worlds of education, industry and design. The intention is to help to link business, industry and education, as the solutions to tomorrows problems are being educated today!