Michael Seeley stands out as more than your typical “run-of-the-mill” designer; he is a dynamic consumer solutions strategist and disruptive visionary. With over 17 years of experience and numerous accolades, Michael has transformed multiple consumer product industries with his innovative and strategic approach. He has worked with some of the world’s most renowned companies, such as IKEA, Walmart, Whirlpool, Panasonic, Qualcomm, P&G, KitchenAid, and many more, to create and launch hundreds of successful products and experiences that delight and inspire consumers all across the globe.
Michael’s career is marked by a series of triumphs in leading and managing creative teams across many diverse environments and challenges. He has shaped the home appliance industry through various leadership roles at Whirlpool Corporation’s Global Consumer Design Studio, where he led the design and development strategies for multiple $6B+ consumer product categories spanning 15 brands across four continents. He has also since established his own Strategic Design and Innovation Consultancy, where he advises large corporate organizations and various startup teams.
With nearly 100 patents to his name, it’s clear Michael is a trailblazer in disruptive innovation. He is constantly charting new territories and exploring new possibilities for the future of design, innovation, and branding. He is a globally distinguished leader who thrives in upfront ambiguity, has left an indelible mark on multiple consumer product categories worldwide and does not intend to slow down anytime soon.
A Strategically Diversified Portfolio
Michael is the visionary Founder and Managing Partner of Liminal Group, a private integrated business entity that houses a dynamic ecosystem of strategic and tactical product and brand development companies, committed to delivering innovative and sustainable growth for clients.
Michael and his partners are dedicated to maximizing strategic growth for clients while contributing to a more conscious and purposeful future for our planet. His unique business strategy and framework revolves around aiding clients in two key domains:
- Growing Revenue by driving consumer preference and loyalty through Product & Brand Excellence
- Saving Costs by optimizing internal innovation and development efficiencies with Innovation Excellence.
To achieve these goals, Liminal Group offers a wide yet focused range of consumer-centric and planet-conscious product and brand development services.
The Product and Brand Excellence services are aimed at externally facing objectives, such as achieving top-line growth through optimized product and brand experiences that attract and retain customers, partners, and top talent.
“Our Innovation Excellence services and programs focus on optimizing specific areas of innovation and product development processes, saving time, costs, and headaches by streamlining operations and alignment across teams and departments internally. This helps teams not only deliver higher quality output more efficiently but also increase employee engagement and team morale throughout the process,” says Michael.
One of Liminal’s strongest Innovation Excellence programs, NOVA™, is an innovation provisioning program that helps large and medium-sized organizations increase innovation success rates – not just post-launch – but first focusing on increasing innovation traction and increasing launch frequencies internally, ensuring a higher rate of launch success.
They’ve developed a simple yet robust program that walks organizations and teams through the proper innovation preparation measures to ensure proper knowledge, people, and process foundations are in place prior to engaging in co-creation and innovation workshop events. This boasts a greater chance for success and de-risks each innovation event the client pursues.
Specialized Support Services
In addition to the above-mentioned services programs, Liminal supports robust end-end product and Brand development support through a shared ecosystem of strategic and tacticalorganizations spread across three specialized entities within Liminal’s umbrella:
Seeley Designworks, Sustainnovation, and Zibra. These organizations and resources are utilized based on the client’s specific goals or operational needs.
Seeley Designworks is a Strategic Product and Brand Development Company helps organizations Clarify, Navigate, and Deliver world-class product and brand Solutions for growth at scale. Specializing in navigating complex product and brand portfolios with a consumer-centric approach, Seeley Designworks offers a full range of end-end Product Development services including Consumer and Market Research, Industrial Design, Strategic product planning, Graphic Design, UX/ UI design, Prototyping, packaging, literature and more.
In addition, Seeley Designworks has just released a new Sensorial Quality Focused Product Design & Development Program called NEXUS™. This unique program augments existing design and development processes and teams by converting intrinsic brand values into measurable multisensory product design & development criteria. A process that not only helps improve product and brand experience but also improves internal communication and development efficiencies throughout the development process. This unique program drastically improves product quality and consumer product experiences by translating intrinsic brand values into measurable product attributes and development metrics across all 5-senses. This helps organizations take their Visual Brand Languages to a more sensory immersive Experiential Brand Language. While differentiating brands far beyond visuals, this program also helps designers put actionable development targets to their designs and helps them track and maintain their winning design intent while allowing engineers to achieve and track measurable targets against the development process and even post-delivery. This is a breakthrough in streamlining design to production efficiencies and both designers and engineers love it. Who would’ve thought that was even possible!?
Sustainnovation is a sustainability-focused innovation consultancy that helps organizations turn sustainability needs into strategic growth opportunities beyond compliance. Sustainnovation has just launched a new program leveraging its deep competencies in product development to help organizations magnify their return on sustainability investments through strategic modularity programs in both products and cross-product portfolios, all while tracking sustainability investments against impacts on their Brand and customer experiences. Until now, many sustainability experts and organizations struggled to bridge the gap between sustainability compliance, product development, brand positioning, and consumer experience.
Zibra, (the newest addition to the Liminal family)is a strategic and tactical brand development company focusing on maximizing brand value found at the crossroads of Brand, Consumer, and Employee value streams. While Zibra’s Co-Founders both house decades of tactical brand experience independently, Together, they can offer a wider range of strategic brand development services and is now expanding its services to also offer what the team calls “Resonance™” a 360-degree Brand Synergy Program that helps organizations identify dissonance across brands, customers and employee value streams and use those findings to guide and translate intrinsic brand values into tangible multi-use brand assets that form deep emotional connections with both customers & employees simultaneously.
“By strategically allocating distinct yet complementary competencies to each of these groups, Liminal Group provides comprehensive end-to-end Strategic and Tactical Growth services for a wide range of organizations specializing in Product and Brand Development. Our unwavering focus remains on delivering innovations that not only drive client growth and profitability but also prioritize consumers and the future of our planet at the core of our operations,” says Michael.
Donning Multiple Hats
Michael has a unique role within his organization(s) as the business structure is fairly unique in general. Firstly, he personally leads all customer interactions and client relationships to ensure each organization understands that while Liminal’s teams provide world-class services rivaling the largest innovation consultancies – it is a boutique consultancy at its core and prides itself on building deeper, more personal relationships with its clients to ensure trust and improve loyalty long term.
Liminal Group has created an ecosystem of industry-leading experts across the entire spectrum of product and Brand development. They also ensure that each contributor and expert have hands-on experience and expertise in DELIVERING and DEVELOPING innovation and not just experience in facilitating it. Michael and his experts have climbed the proverbial mountain of delivering successful innovation in various contexts and organizations and know what it takes and help its client’s teams every step of the way – just the way a mountain Sherpa would guide climbers safely and efficiently throughout the expedition.
“We are not like other consulting firms who only talk the talk. and leave you high and dry with a shiny presentation of WHAT you need to do. WE ARE DOERS that walk the walk and have brought countless innovations and successful experiences to market. We have been in the trenches and can clearly and confidently guide our clients by showing them not only WHAT to do BUT HOW.. We are proud of our difference and experience and our clients can see it too,” says Michael.
As an impact-driven innovator and strategist, Michael has a passion for finding opportunities in some of the most established companies and processes. “The larger and more complex companies and systems get – the more legacy and baggage they have built up in their process and organizations. This is where substantial impact and improvements can be made.”
“I love fostering transformative, step-function change in organizations and industries that bring clients years of success. It’s often more efficient and less investment for organizations compared to reactionary, incremental improvements, one project at a time” he says.
The People’s Leader
For everything in life, business or not – Michael believes that relationships are everything. He has learned from his 17 years of corporate experience, team leadership and raising a family of five that the old-fashioned way of leading by hierarchy, fear, and arrogance is ineffective and counterproductive. He has seen the benefits of surrounding himself with experts that trust and respect him. He applies this principle every day in his companies, where he strives to achieve the impact he wants, his clients need with the help of his teams, partners, and supporters every day.
Michael leads with genuine empathy, interest, and appreciation for others’ perspectives. He cares about people as individuals, not just as assets to the company, or line items on a budget sheet. He knows that if people are only motivated by money, they will eventually lose their quality, efficiency, and loyalty. He wants his teams to be inspired and passionate about what they do, and to work with him, not for him to improve lives everywhere.
Navigating Challenges
Michael recognizes that one of the biggest challenges many professionals face is staying passionate while balancing great work output with the politics and bureaucracy many face while working for larger organizations. This is actually what also pulled him further and further into more strategy-focused roles and drove him into entrepreneurship (beyond his core background in design and branding.) He was intrigued by how complex and “broken” some larger organizations can be and was as passionately interested in navigating the complexities of corporate politics and processes as he was in navigating the individual (project-based) discovery and development of new consumer solutions.
It became clear very early on that discovering and developing successful innovation and consumer solutions was only half of the battle. Navigating, aligning, and optimizing internal structure, politics, and processes of very large, complex organizations to deliver innovation more effectively and achieve tangible market results and greater impact was the other.
Seamless Technology Integration for Optimized Outcomes
For Michael, technology is always something that needs to be seamlessly integrated.
“If you are celebrating the technology for technology’s sake – you are simply getting stuck on the new and novelty that it is and not yet seeing the value or true potential behind it,” he says.
From Michael’s perspective, the biggest challenge with any technology is timing. Understanding the right time for implementation is crucial, per Michael. Timing technology integration to land in the market just as it is approaching consumer acceptability and a maturity that boasts positive emotional response and usefulness is key for long-term success in most cases. “All too often we see companies and organizations launching technology before truly understanding its value, and in some instances implementing it too soon before it is mature enough not to “get in the way”.
Michael does recognize and acknowledge that there are appropriate times and needs for technology to push into society and ensure continued progress, but they value technology that is mature enough to seamlessly integrate with people’s lives, improve it, not frustrate users, and potentially damage brand equity in the process.
So, when Michael’s team uses technology or adopts an emerging one, it has to be for something that (with nearly 100% certainty) cannot get in the way of two very important factors:
- Hindering output quality – if the tool or technology is driving the results because of an inability to master the tool or tech, then it is not yet ready for primetime. Learning curves do apply and they are willing to invest in these technologies if outputs maintain their quality and authenticity.
- Hindering output speed – This is a common issue many organizations face as technology continues to evolve. What Michael and his teams do is make sure to allow beta tech to be tested and proven before they migrate. There are far too many experimental platforms that can slow and distract you if you’re not careful. In their industry – efficiency is hugely competitive – and mastery of efficiency-based technology tools is key. Michael and his team want to constantly test and experiment – but intentionally keep an eye on the right timing to jump on something they are sure will stick long term – then invest the rigor to master and excel fast.
- Always augment never just replace – There’s huge value in maintaining experience and knowledge in any field. To assume any technology can replace one of the most important uniquely identifying features of any individual – personal experience and perspective is wrong and counterintuitive in most cases.
Always Guided by Innovation to Achieve New Milestones
Liminal and its Brands are innovation-focused in every aspect of the company. Innovation is the umbrella service it offers to clients that segment into the many vertices that it specializes in.
The creation of value is the defining characteristic of innovation, Michael feels. Understanding innovation involves both recognizing it as an ongoing process and appreciating its tangible outcomes.
He explains that Innovation, (as an act) is the process of introducing new, improved, or significantly different ideas, methods, products, or services to create value or solve problems. It’s about taking a risk to investigate the unknown and seek value in uncertainty, to improve or progress our lives through change.
Also, Innovation, (as an output) is the tangible result of creative thinking and problem-solving processes. It often includes the introduction of new or significantly improved products, services, processes, or solutions that bring about positive change, value creation, and advancements in various fields.
“Functioning both as an act and an outcome, Innovation plays a pivotal role in introducing novel ideas, methods, and solutions. These processes and outcomes contribute to positive change, driving value creation, and spearheading advancements across diverse fields.
We see that in most organizations today there is a growth gap between opportunity definition and tangible business results. We aim to bridge that gap and help teams take more ideas to market through a more streamlined innovation integration process,” explains Michael.
Words of Encouragement
Michael concludes the interaction with the following message for young entrepreneurs:
“To all of the young entrepreneurs out there. Listen and learn as much as you can. In your earliest years take in all you can, and surround yourself with the best in trade and experts across as many professional specialties as you can. The more you understand everyone else’s perspective, the more you can integrate your specialtyand superpower to create even more impact and gain progress faster.”
The below pointers need to be designed in the PDF:
The Curious Kid on the Block
Ever since he was a child, Michael had a curiosity about how things work. He loved to dismantle and explore the hidden mechanisms behind everyday objects. This sparked a passion for inventing new things or enhancing existing products that he came across. Once he grasped the logic and purpose behind a design, he could easily spot opportunities for improvement.
Michael’s interests, however, did not always “fit” well with the conventional academic curriculum in his early years. It was not until high school that a certain teacher recognized a profession that could harness his unconventional thinking and problem-solving skills. In math, he would often arrive at the right answer, but by using a different method than the one taught. He would uniquely tackle each question or problem regardless of the techniques being taught. This highschool math teacher would frequently question him about his solutions, thinking that he might have cheated because of the lack of alternative work shown on the test. After explaining his reasoning to her, she contacted Michael’s family and told them that he had a talent for problem-solving and that this talent, along with his curiosity for how things work and his desire to improve product experiences, made him a perfect candidate for a career in Industrial Design and Product Development.
Michael took his first collegiate course in industrial design and was hooked almost instantly.
Quote: “Driven by innovation and creativity, my team is here and equipped to take the client’s vision to the next level.”
Quote: “We expect to reach a tipping point in the market where largely dominated sections of the b2b services industry (traditionally owned and protected by the larger consulting agencies) will shift toward more specialized Doers.”
Quote: “We collaborate with enterprise leaders and partners to discover, identify, and deliver on the client’s long-range product and brand experience visions of the future.”
Guiding Thoughts:
A few quotes that inspire Michael day in and out.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter
“True innovation emerges when we uncover meaning within the chaos, embracing the beauty and inherent value of uncertainty.” – Michael Seeley
Both of these quotes speak to innovation – one very directly and tactically, the other more philosophical and nuanced.
“I believe that success is always dependent on a delicate balance of strategy and execution. There are far too many organizations and service providers helping with only half of the equation. We are here to help with both cohesively” says Michael.
“Strategy without execution is useless, execution without strategy is aimless.” – John Kotter
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