FotoNation is a successful innovator of in-camera digital photography software. One of their customers, Nikon, looked to them to develop a web-based photo repository and community. FotoNation built a team with impressive technical capacity, but little design/innovation vision. Nikon hired an IT strategy consultancy ( ) and a UX design firm (Dubberly) to do the visioning and design of the service, leaving the technical development to FotoNation.
However the FotoNation management saw a bigger opportunity in the technical know-how they were developing. So they spun the web development group off as a new company called Piclinq and brought Neil on as CIO (Chief Innovation Officer) to develop a venture strategy.
Neil worked with the management team and investors to create a social photography value proposition. He built a team with user center design capabilities and worked closely with the CTO to develop proprietary and defensible technologies to support the unique photo sharing platform.
The outcome was an innovative software platform that allowed users to take and share photographs in fun and creative ways and build a continuous and personally meaningful life story that could be viewed on any device.
Piclinq was sold to a group of investors.
