Partnering with another design company, initially struck me as a scary proposition. What are the chances that we’d not see eye to eye on critical aspects of the design?, how would we resolve different processes?, how would we avoid getting competitive in front of the client?. However, our recent project engagement with Carbon, a Seattle based Industrial design and engineering company went spectacularly well, allaying all the fears outlined above. Carbon approached us for our interaction design expertise for a potential engagement with Intel that needed both world class hardware and software design skills. The situation was competitive with other design companies but I think Intel saw that two smaller expert companies with deep areas of specialization collaborating was better than having ‘larger’ design companies with more ‘generalists’. The actual collaboration went very smoothly each company bringing equal parts to the process of tackling the specific creative challenge for Intel. You can read more about the story here. I’d go further to suggest we even learned plenty of things from Carbon around their approach to handling client communications, and doing some improvised ‘live prototyping’ that helped us convince the client at a critical moment in the project. Intel of course were an amazing client, one of the best we’ve had the privilege to work with so they deserve much of the credit for the success of this engagement. We’ve subsequently worked together with Carbon with a Seattle based startup, and are working out the details of another potential engagement with Intel. I look forward to many successful collaborations down the road.