The Power of Design: How Nicole Dery is Driving Climate Tech Innovation

Episode Transcript
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Marc Bernstein (00:41):
Good morning America.
How are you?
Ange continues to be out fromsurgery, recuperating.
We wish her well.
Have Jess Hallahan with ustoday as co-host.
Jess has been here before andshe is Stress Less with Jess.
Jess is what I call her.
It was the name of her podcast,which I think you can still
find out there.

(01:02):
I'm bugging her to try to getback to doing that, because I
think it's a great idea and Iwant her to be part of our
podcast family and also Journeyto Yourself is her company, and
so we'll start out theconversation and I'll introduce
Nicole in a minute.
But my story today, what's on mymind, is that I got sick again

(01:24):
and it's driving me crazy, andthe quick story was we were
traveling.
I got back late at night fromFlorida.
I had a full day on thatTuesday, which was two weeks ago
, and a full day Wednesday intothe evening, full day Thursday,
and by Friday I wasn't feelingwell, and so I'm starting to see

(01:45):
a pattern, because I think it'shappened two or three times
this year already and I'mrealizing that.
You know, I allow this tohappen to myself.
Of course, it's harder onplanes these days because
everybody's got all kinds ofstuff.
I've gotten COVID twice, Ithink that way, but this turned
out just to be a common cold.
But the symptoms were worse attimes than having COVID a couple

(02:08):
days ago and my throat's stilla little funky.
So Jess is going to help me out.
I may get quiet during the showtoday, which some people might
really enjoy, or I might have alozenge in my mouth and I was
telling the ladies in the studiowith me that Bill Clinton does
it all the time.
You can hear him when he speaks, so I may have to get away with

(02:29):
that.
Anyway, it felt like I hadglass in my throat.
It was so bad.
A couple days ago Went tourgent care.
They said you don't have strepthroat, you have a cold.
So I'm like, why does this keephappening?
And I can see what happened andI see what I have to do going
forward to protect against that.
Jess, thoughts on that, sinceyou're helping people deal with
stress all the time.

Jessica Hallahan (02:56):
You know I have thoughts on this.
So, first off, you know ourphysical response is our first
response.
We have to really start tolisten to our bodies, and so my
mindset is your body is tellingyourself that you need to find
that time to relax in betweenthings.
And we're always on this go gogo mindset, whether it's like
okay, I just got back fromFlorida, so now I have to make
up for all the time that Imissed.
And so now I'm on this go go gomindset.
And before Nicole and I hoppedon today, we talked about the
transition period, and so areyou setting a transition period

(03:19):
from vacation, but also when Icome home from work or when I'm
switching different hat songs?
We all have multiple hats, soare you giving yourself those
transition periods?

FOMO is a factor too, so everyone knows what
that is right.
Yes, so you know, it runs in myfamily.
It's like genetic, so don'twant to miss anything.
But I do realize that because Ido pay attention to the
physical symptoms.
The problem is I didn't havethem for a few days.
I was like, oh, this is goinggreat, I did this pretty well,

(03:50):
and then boom, you know that'swhat happens.
It's the stress.
After the stress is what Ialways say, right and, nicole,
your thoughts.
I know you have thoughts onthis as well.

Nicole Dery, MAA, PMP (03:59):
I sure do .
As someone who also likes tolive a very full life, I can
appreciate the need for payingattention to rest, even though
sometimes it's not what we wantto do.
And the way I've found successin doing so in my own very full,
very hectic world is by doing afew things like scheduling in

(04:23):
every quarter a couple of daysto completely unplug.
And then, in your situationwhere you're like traveling and
back-to-back meetings and goingfrom one thing to another, those
also can include a little10-minute meditation or a tiny
little break here and there,just with your cup of coffee and
no computer or phone, to do alittle resetting, calming down.

(04:46):
It's hard, though.

I have talked on the show and Jess knows this, I
actually meditate twice a dayreligiously.
I'm good about that's the onething I'm good about, but that.
So because of that I think Ican keep going, going, going,
going.
So it's not the whole answer,it's part of the answer.

Nicole Dery, MAA, PM (05:06):
Absolutely .

So well, thank you, nicole.
So our guest today is NicoleDery, Dery right M-A-A-P-M-P,
because I never really asked youhow to say your last name
properly, but it's Dery.

That's it , you got it.

Founder and principal of Allelo Design.
I said that right too, and hercell number is no, I'm kidding,
it's on my sheet, I'm justjoking.
So Nicole Dery is a designstrategist and founder of Allelo
Design, a user experience andinteraction design studio
helping climate tech companiescreate digital products that
drive positive impact.

(05:40):
I just have to stop.
I love this.
We're having so many people onthe show, young people.
This is so encouraging to methat lots of these very
industrious businesses likeyours are about, you know,
creating positive impact on theworld and climate.
I think it's something wereally have to watch out for and
I think it's great.
So, with over 17 years ofexperience leading

(06:03):
human-centered research anddesign initiatives across
Fortune 500 companies,government agencies and startups
, she combines her training asan applied anthropologist, which
is very interesting, with herpassion for using design to
tackle complex challenges likeclimate change.
So welcome Nicole.

Thank you , great to be here.

Give us a little history of how you got there.
You know your education, yourbackground and what led you to
start this company.

Sure.
So, as we were just chattingabout, I'm a Southerner.

There it is.
That's what I want to be.

Born and raised in North Carolina.
I actually am a high schooldropout, although I have a
master's degree and quite a lotof educational training at this
point in life.

But I had a kind of a so you dropped out, went
back to school.

I dropped out, went back to school.
Yeah, I had a challengingchildhood.
I was kind of a wild child.

And let's get into that a little bit.

School saved me.
Let's talk about that.
School saved me.
When I went back to school, Iwas more of a young adult and I
had been in the workforce awhile so I could appreciate the
value of school.
I fell in love withanthropology because it was
about everything and I'minterested in everything
speaking of FOMO because it wasabout everything and I'm

(07:26):
interested in everythingspeaking of FOMO.
So I studied it, went on tograduate school.
Anthropology is about the studyof humans, meaning it could be
about anything, and I got reallyinterested in the interaction
between people and theirenvironment.
So I started studying that ingraduate school and afterwards I

(07:47):
worked in academia looking athow the interactions between
people and their environmentaffected things like policy.
Then I got into design becauseI was very interested in using
the knowledge that theseresearch methods could generate
to actually drive positivechange.

Did you study design, mm-hmm, okay.

And I've always worked in design as a
researcher.
Design research is a veryimportant component of design.
Many people who are designingthings need to understand what
they're designing for and thefuture that they're designing
for is dependent on what thecurrent state is and the
problems people are experiencingin the current state.
So you have to have a reallysolid knowledge of the current

(08:30):
state in order to design well.
So yeah, I've worked in designresearch my whole career, lots
of different contexts,consulting government, small
firms.

So what prompted you to start this company?

Well, during the pandemic I was
working with Ernst Young in adesign studio that they run.

Were you a contractor then, or you were
employed by Ernst Young?

I was employed by Ernst.
Young for several yearsInteresting and I was working
with one of the organizationsthat was working on the vaccine
for the pandemic, and so it wasextremely high intensity, which
always was the case in consultbig four consulting.
But this particular project wasextremely high intensity

(09:17):
because they needed tocompletely transform their
digital operations for theirmanufacturing for the vaccine,
and it was under a lot of timepressure because obviously
people were dying and we neededto generate the ability to
manufacture these vaccines anddistribute them at scale.
That work both exhausted me andthrilled me, and so, when

(09:40):
everything started to calm downa bit, I decided that I wanted
to use this power that I knewexisted in design and in design
research and in digital designto continue to have an impact
like that work did.

So I started Allelo.
So this is a post-pandemiccompany then.

Yeah, well, we started in 2022.
Gotcha.
Yeah we're pretty newInteresting Jess, would you in?

2022.
Gotcha, yeah, we're pretty newInteresting.
Jess, would you like to take upfrom here?

Yeah, of course.
Of course.
This is so amazing what you'redoing.
Thank you for what you're doing.
Can you explain a little bit ofhow you're helping them create
an impact?

Yes, so we're working with climate
technology companies, andthey're generally aiming to have
some sort of impact by the verynature of what they're doing.
So an example would be a toolthat we recently redesigned,
which is enabling people to doenergy audits who aren't trained
energy auditors, so it's likemaking energy audits easily

(10:38):
accessible to anyone.

Somebody within a company is an example.

Somebody within a company or somebody.
They're for commercial.
They're for small commercialbuildings.
These audits there's audits aredifferent.
There are different kinds ofthem.
So this is for small commercialbuildings, so somebody within a
community could go in and do anaudit, for example, of their
church or their community center.
Um, so it's basically enablingpeople to do these energy audits
, which are very difficult andexpensive and inaccessible for

(11:05):
some communities.
So they're not only having animpact on carbon emissions
because the energy audit getsdone and savings are identified,
but they're also having animpact on the communities
because people have access todoing this work in the new
energy economy that theywouldn't have otherwise.
So that's an example.

(11:26):
We helped design that tool.
It's basically a digital tool,like an app.
Anything that you might use onyour phone you could think of as
an analog.
Wow, this is great.

Good.
What does your company looklike today?
You have a partner, I believe.

I do.
I have a co-founder, we haveabout 12 folks that we
collaborate with regularly, andwe also have a pretty extensive
partnership network.
We're big believers in,especially in climate.
Partnership is more importantthan competition, so we're very
connected to other agencies thatdo adjacent work like branding

(12:00):
and marketing.
We're also connected withorganizations and other
companies that are engineers andbuild digital products.
We do front end design, so wedon't actually build the
products themselves.

Well, I believe you are the future, because
collaboration I've had somebodyon the podcast before that has
her own podcast named LoisSonstegard, and she works a lot
with manufacturers and she worksin healthcare and she talks
about for a lot of differentreasons collaboration is the way
forward because that's the wayyou get the best talent, it's

(12:33):
the you know, it's a, it's a wayto control costs, it's a way to
you know to beat internationalcompetition or whatever else is
going on.
So I think that it's brilliantthat you do that.
So it really sounds like you'rea company of independent
contractors and collaborativepartners.

Yes.

Interesting.
So do you, and this is one Jessmay want to explore a little
bit, but I just want to ask youabout company culture, because I
have a sense you still have aculture, oh, yeah.
Even though you're not inoffice and you really don't have
employees as such right.

We have a very strong company culture and
designers in general are prettycommitted to having a
collaborative culture in anyengagement that they're involved
in.
So it's a norm in the designfield for culture to matter and
we absolutely care about that.

What does that culture look like?

Yeah, how are you measuring your company
culture?
Field for culture to matter andwe absolutely care about that.
What does that culture looklike?
Yeah, how are you measuringyour company culture?

How are you saying, like how do I know
that you have this positivecompany culture?
Explain a little bit.
Well, we do.
Measuring is an interestingidea.
We talk a lot about measuringbecause we're interested in
understanding impact in what wedo, and that involves being able
to rigorously assess andmeasure that impact.
And then there are things thatare difficult to measure, of
course, as you know.
So we evaluate the effectivenessof our culture in a number of

(13:51):
ways.
One of the ways is by askingour clients how they feel about
working with our people, and wealso ask our people how they
feel about working with ourclients.
They're heavily involved insome of the things that we do to
reflect on our culture.
Like, at the end of the year weusually do this year-end review
where we look back at some ofthe things that we've

(14:12):
accomplished and learned, andthey're all heavily involved in
shaping that story.
They're also involved indeciding which projects we take
on.
So if we have a questionableproject or something that we're
trying to evaluate whether ornot we should do, we'll ask our
designers who might be involvedin working on that project if

(14:33):
it's something they'reinterested in contributing to,
and they usually have prettyclear and direct answers for us
about that, so nobody is reallyshy.
In our group of collaborators.
That includes partners too.
They'll definitely tell us whatthey think.

If you could take three to five words to
describe your culture, whatwould you call it?

Oh, supportive, autonomous,
independent, effective and Iwould definitely say
collaborative, connected.

Connected.
I love that.
That's great, and that's areally great time to take a
quick break and be right back onFounders Forum, talking to
Nicole Dery.

Announcer (15:16):
Calling all climate technology founders out there.
Are you ready to scale yourimpact?
But can't justify a full-timechief design officer.
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Allelo provides strategicdesign services that give you
executive level leadership andteam support when you need it
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They help you evolve yourproduct market fit, build
compelling stories that closedeals and create irresistible

(15:38):
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Their approach combinesstrategic design leadership with
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customers to designing featuresthat make impact tracking
seamless.
They help your teams transformcomplex climate solutions into

(15:59):
products people want to buy anduse.
Get the design leadership youneed without the full-time
overhead.
Visit HelloAllelo.
com.

That's H-E-L-L-O-A-L-L-E-L-Ocom, great
minds.
We're back, just talking aboutgreat minds, because Jess is
going to take it and she's, asusual, on the right track, so go
ahead.

We're on the same page, all right, nicole.
So growing a business, you were, you know, in the corporate
world and you decided to startyour own.
You know your own journey.
What are some challenges thatyou feel you've overcome from
starting a business to where youare now?

So many.
Well, one of them is learningthe value and importance of
focus.
It's been really challengingnot to get pulled in 27,000
different directions everymoment of every day and, as a
business owner, I'm required towear many, many hats and know

(17:06):
about many aspects of thebusiness beyond just the
execution of the work.
So that has been a hugechallenge.
I'm not sure I've overcome it,but I'm in the process of
working on overcoming it.
There's also always challengeswith being able to build the
pipeline we.

(17:28):
Most of my work previous tostarting Allelo was in pharma
and consumer goods and financialservices, so climate was
relatively a fresh start, andbuilding out an entire network
and trying to find a place inthe climate space has been a
challenge, a wonderful andinteresting challenge.

(17:50):
I'm still working on that onetoo.
But yes, those are some of thekey challenges.
I would say there are littletiny ones too, like which events
should we have a presence?
How do you make decisions aboutthings like that and how do you

(18:12):
have the right evidence to makethose decisions and who do you
rely on for guidance?
And things like that havealways been tricky as well.

And there must be some trial and error involved
.

A lot of trial and error, Marc.

And, as we know from doing this show and from
being entrepreneurs ourselves,you learn more from your
mistakes often than from yoursuccesses.
So it's all part of the journey, right?

Nicole Dery, MAA, PM (18:35):
Absolutely .

So what strengths have you recognized
that you?
And what's your partner's name?

Samantha.

Samantha, that you and Samantha have to meet
these challenges.

Yes, one of the strengths that's been
most important to lean into ispaying attention.
I think to and this is apersonal thing paying attention
to my own signals.
Attention to my own signals.

(19:09):
Sometimes I'll have anintuition about something, but
I'm too busy running around toreally hear it.
And so one of and this is thehard way ignoring those signals
and then realizing oh right, Ihad a thought about that, I had
a feeling about that, I had athought about that and I ignored
it because I was too busy.
And then it turned out that Ishould have listened to that
thought.
Those moments of just awarenessare really important to lean

(19:33):
into.

So we talked about.
I might remind you some thingswe talked about earlier.
Sure, when we first talked, andone of your things that you had
said was when, in doubt, you'restrengthened by your commitment
to starts with a P purpose.

Oh yes, oh well, then that's so core.
It's like I didn't even thinkof it.
It's so fundamental toeverything that we do Right, and
it drives the decisions aboutthings, which projects to work
on, where to invest resources,where to show up.

(20:10):
Those are all decisions thatare driven by our purpose.
I don't know if I mentioned ourpurpose.

No, you didn't, so that was my next question.

Yeah, our mission at Allelo.
So Allelo it comes from theGreek word that means to be in
symbiotic relationship, andthat's why we named it that
because we are in symbioticrelationship with the companies,
that we help their product,build their products.

And you're in partners with them.

We are partners with them and we are in
a symbiotic relationship.
Our design affects theirability to have an impact and
their ability to have impact isaffected by whether or not we do
a good job with our design.
So we are interdependent andthat interdependence is
something to celebrate and itenables us to be a catalyst.
So our mission at Allelo is tohelp use the power of design to

(21:01):
create a more equitable andregenerative economy, and we do
that by enabling otherbusinesses to have an impact.
So that is 100% a driver forwhat to pay attention to.

When you talk about design, I don't think I've
asked you this before.
What are you designing?
Are you designing things?
Are you designing devices?
Are you designing strategies?
Are you designing systems?
Yep, all the above, all theabove.

We're designing.
User experience is what it'susually called, which is
basically there's strategy andtechnology involved.
All of that is feeding how aperson interacts with a tool.
And we're designing thatinteraction.
What does it feel like when youwork with your Nest HVAC

(21:48):
setting device?

So do you have programmers, do you have coders
as part of your team?

Our designers generally have some
coding capabilities, but we work, as I mentioned earlier, with
partners, and we work withpartners who do the back-end
coding for any of the productswe work with, and often our
clients have their own engineers.

So you really are designers, and then you have
implementers on the outsidethat are like engineers and
coders and things like that.
Gotcha Very interesting.
This is very interesting.
What's really fascinating isthe businesses that people are
coming up with now are likecoming from the ether, you know.
It's like your whole thing is,you know the climate and

(22:33):
anthropology combined withdesign, and it's like how would
you think of that?
But it's like it's really coolthat you're doing that.
Do you have competition?
Are there other companies doingwhat you do?

Oh, yes, many of them.

Is that right?

Nicole Dery, MAA, P (22:45):
Interesting , definitely.

There are a few particularly focused in the
climate space, but many, many,many agencies who do user
experience design.
What would have had to havehappened with your company and
personally, if you want, excuseme for you to feel that this was
a that was a successful 10 yearperiod in your in your career

(23:24):
path, life path Great question.

Thanks, Marc.
So this is related to the impactand purpose of the company.
We need to cut emissions to getto net zero by 2050, which means
we have to aggressively cutemissions almost in half in the
2020s.
So when we talk about 10-yearvision, we need to have enabled
at least 150 companies to have asignificant impact in reducing

(23:47):
those emissions over the courseof the next 10 years.
And in order to do that, wehave to pursue quick wins,
because there's an urgency tothis problem and we need to
implement things that arealready available to exist, in
addition to creating newinnovations for things that
don't yet exist or things thataren't deployable at scale.
So quick wins, aggressive,immediate action are things like

(24:12):
increasing efficiency andreducing waste, and there are
tons of opportunities to do thatin the industries that we focus
on, which are energy,transportation and agriculture
and land use, and digitizationhas a huge role to play in there
.
So we're hoping to get 150companies to significantly
expand their impact in that 10years If we can do that.
So we're hoping to get 150companies to significantly
expand their impact in that 10years, if we can do that and

(24:34):
we're looking back at that, I'msmiling.

That's very specific and very great, great
vision and very hopeful, and youare smiling.
It's great.

So you made me think.
You know, we have these visions, we have these goals and things
like that, and we talked a lotabout our awareness and all that
kind of stuff.
So what habits or things do youhave to put in place to reach
that goal?
Oh my, gosh, definitely.

One of the things that's critical is,
every morning I look at my.
I have a Bujo notebook.
Do you guys know those?
It's basically just a notebookwhere you identify your key
priorities for the day, and youcannot have more than three,
which is really hard because Ialways have 20.
You cannot have more than three, so you have to identify the
top three and you do that forthe day, and you do that for the

(25:20):
week and you do that for theyear.
That habit, that activity ofgrounding in what is today's
priority, is absolutely critical.
If I didn't do that, I wouldjust be running around like a
chicken, and even still I'm alittle bit sometimes running
around like a chicken, butthat's one of the ones that

(25:40):
keeps me straight.

Last question.
We have about a minute left.
Favorite book, and I know youhave more than one.

I do.

What are you reading?

Well, the one I definitely want to tell
everyone they should read isRoss Gay's Book of Delights and
the more recent Book of MoreDelights, which is the one I'm
reading now.
Ross Gay is a poet.
These are short essays.
They're magnificent, Highlyrecommend.
I'm also reading from 2011, anolder book called Good Strategy

(26:11):
Bad Strategy by Richard Roulette.
You guys know that one.
It's really valuable to groundyourself again in what these
components of a good strategyare and how not to get lost in
too many buzzwords and thinkingthat isn't useful.

Nice, that's it.
That's your three.
Oh, because more Book ofDelights.
That's why it's three books.

Oh well, there's a third.
If you all know theneuroscientist Oliver Sacks, he
wrote a book called the man whoMistook His Wife for a Hat, and
I'm very interested inneuroscience, so that was one of
the books I've been reading.
He's written many, many books.
I think many of them are quitegood.

(26:55):
He's no longer with us, butworth checking out some of his
stuff.

Great, we have actually about a minute left.
My timing was a little off.
Great.
What kind of music do youlisten to?
I'll bet you're a music person.

Oh, I am a music person.
I listen to pretty mucheverything, really.
My latest for running is SofiTucker.
Do you all know that it's verydancey.

Is it EDM type of dance music?

No, I'm not exactly sure how I would
describe it.
It's got a bit of sort ofBrazilian rhythm.

Sofi Tucker is a great name, by the way, yeah
definitely check him out.

You can Spotify him.

Cool, I love that.
Well, I think that's about itfor today, and so great to have
you here.
It's been a delight, nicole.
Thank you so much, and you weregreat.
No need for you to have beennervous, you did a great job.

Thank you , and I've been nervous.

You did a great job, thank you, and thank you
all for listening and we lookforward to seeing you next week
on Founders Forum, and you canhear us on WWDB-AM in
Philadelphia and on yourfavorite streaming service.

Announcer (28:00):
We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders Forum
and that you found value to takewith you throughout your day.
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