Resume

Erik Flowers

SENIOR LEADERSHIP FOR EXPERIENCE STRATEGY & DESIGN

eflowers@gmail.com   —   linkedin.com/in/flowerserik   —   helloerik.com

  • Senior leader in experience, product, and innovation with 25 years of driving strategy, design, and digital transformation. Expert in human-centered design, product strategy, and facilitation.
  • Inventor of the Practical Experience Blueprint and author of Your Guide to Blueprinting the Practical Way. Specializing in customer experience, systems thinking, and data-driven strategy.
  • Trusted advisor, facilitator, and mentor, leading cross-functional teams, coaching executives, and driving large-scale change. Solving for complexity in areas of ambiguity.

Work History

NASA - United States Government
Senior AI & Digital Transformation Leader / Digital Service Expert
6/23-Present — Space travel, climate science, universe exploration — nasa.gov

Leading product strategy, facilitation, and capacity building at NASA to de-risk decisions, align stakeholders, and drive transformative digital initiatives.

  • Led agency-wide AI-Readiness Initiative, shaping strategy and workshops that guided AI investment decisions for the Chief AI and Chief Information Officers.
  • Drove NASA’s first large-scale co-creative design initiative, informing 5-year workforce collaboration priorities through external collaboration research.
  • Secured funding for a NASA-wide Federated Search initiative by leading research and workshops that assessed customer experience gaps.
  • Pioneered the NASA Digital Service business model, transforming project intake and execution. Built a data-backed strategy for prioritizing projects, aligning leadership, and de-risking complex initiatives.

Mural
Sr. Principal Experience Strategist - New Business Initiatives, VR/XR
4/21-6/23 — Digital Collaboration — mural.co

Senior leader driving strategic product design, onboarding, and innovation initiatives. Led transformative improvements in user retention, engagement, and product org culture.

  • Led research and design for Mural + Meta’s VR collaboration, validating virtual teamwork environments through hands-on customer research and events.
  • Drove strategy to overhaul user onboarding, leading a cross-functional team to improve retention beyond a 25% rate with deep qualitative research and behavioral data to redefine the experience.
  • Accelerated product design maturity, driving cultural change through mentorship, executive partnership, and strategic consulting.
  • Designed and delivered internal training programs that elevated design’s role across the org, influencing leadership adoption of human-centered practices.
  • Led innovation for future-of-work initiatives, testing smart AI-driven collaboration, asynchronous workflows, and facilitation tools through rapid prototyping and customer validation.

Intuit
Principal Product & Service Designer, Principal Design Technologist
2/14-4/21 — Financial Technology — intuit.com

Led transformative ecosystem design at Intuit, embedding service design into core strategy and delivering high-impact business and customer outcomes.

  • Redesigned QuickBooks Online billing & subscription, leading a cross-functional effort that reduced support volume (previously 20% of all cases) and improved customer satisfaction.
  • Defined the QuickBooks Partner Program strategy, leveraging deep qualitative research to create a data-driven, tiered model aligning partner growth with business scaling.
  • Led the redesign of the QuickBooks App Marketplace, pioneering Intuit’s first mobile-first, responsive architecture and design system.
  • Pioneered service design at Intuit, embedding customer-backed methods into product ecosystems. Built internal capabilities through workshops, speaking engagements, and executive coaching.

Jive, Design Director
6/13-2/14 — Cloud Video & Voice — jive.com

Venafi, User Experience Manager
8/11-6/13 — Cybersecurity — venafi.com

User Experience Lead, Helix Education — 10/10-8/11 — Vertical Marketing — helixeducation.com

Sole-proprietor design consultant — 2006-2010 — Design Consulting

Web & UX generalist, Various web and product firms — 1998-2006

Education

B.S. Psychology, Southern Utah University, 2005

Emphasis in applied psychology, research design, neuropsychology, and practical methods of psychotherapy

Social Work intern for the State of Utah Division of Child and Family Services, working with foster children, case workers, at-risk youth, and court-ordered adults.

Intuit-trained Innovation Catalyst

Presentations, Publishing, Projects of Note

Speaking and Workshops

  • Service Design Network Dallas 2020 - Exploring the Practical Service Blueprint
  • Google's “Sprints” Conference 2017 - Service Blueprinting at Scale
  • Service Design Week Boston 2017 - Service Design Bootcamp, Board Member
  • St. Louis STLX Design Conference 2017 - Service Design Super Powers
  • Service Design Network National Conference 2017 - Introduction to Service Design
  • San Francisco Design Week 2017 - Beyond the Product: Silicon Valley Needs Service Design
  • Service Experience Chicago 2016 - Life on the Service Design Working Ranch Workshop
  • O’reilly Design Conference 2016 - Demystifying Service Design
  • Evolve UX 2016 - Turning Customer Experience Pain into Service Design Opportunity
  • Adaptive Path Service Experience Conference 2015 - Practical Service Blueprinting Workshop
  • Service Design Chicago 2015 - Practical Service Blueprinting Workshop
  • Adaptive Path Service Experience Conference 2014 - A Service Design Odyssey

Co-founder of Practical by Design

Practical by Design is an online learning resource focused on practical methods that make it easier to do design, innovation, and strategy. Co-creator of the best-selling online course “Introduction to Practical Service Blueprinting” with students from around the world utilizing the format in companies throughout the Global 2000.

Co-author of “Your Guide to Blueprinting the Practical Way” book, a detailed, step-by-step guide on the method, framework, and facilitation of creating current- and future-state experience blueprints.

Personal interests

I have a deep and uncompromising love of fiction storytelling and the fundamentals of story and plot structure, and maintain a consistent level of effort in the pastime of fiction-crafting.