My name is Bob van Hest, I’m an industrial product design student and since the first of march, I’ve been the new intern at Koos. So far I’m loving it. School project never were this exiting, problems never so challenging and coffee never tasted so good! Especially, since it’s now my responsibility to keep up Koos’ insatiable demand for coffee. Being an intern at Koos is a great opportunity for me to expend my knowledge on strategic research and design. Since my study focuses mainly on the technical and ergonomic aspects of the design process, the so called “fuzzy front end” is left behind. (Which sounds kind of strange when you think about it; leaving the front behind)

Being an intern at Koos is a great opportunity for me to expend my knowledge on strategic research and design. Since my study focuses mainly on the technical and ergonomic aspects of the design process, the so called “fuzzy front end” is left behind. (Which sounds kind of strange when you think about it; leaving the front behind)

Luckily for me, Koos focuses at the fuzzy front end of innovation. The part where you don’t know yet with what you’re going to end up with at the end. And that requires quite a bit of different thinking. You have to dare to let go of an analytic approach and make yourself feel at ease in the fuzziness. Immersing yourself in all the rich data from research, like context mapping and making sense of it with strategic tools sometimes make my head spin.

But then Robber-Jan and Jules come to my rescue. They know all about Koos his fuzzy front bits and put me back on the design-road I know and love, each time teaching me a little bit more about the methods and their advantages. It is naive for me to think I will be able to acquire all of Koos his research and design knowledge in such a short amount of time. But still I’ll be like my beloved namesake (SpongeBob… of course) and try to absorb as much knowledge as I can.

What I like to do besides all the design work and making coffee? I’d like to go out for sports: Field hockey, wind surfing and wing chun kongfu make my heart beat faster. Literally. But since you can’t be active all the time, sitting down with a cold beer and a couple of good friends is the ultimate relaxation for me.

Well, this was just a little introduction. If you like to get to know more about me or Koos, you’re always welcome to contact me!

Cheers,
Bob