Who We Are
We're A Human-Centered Innovation Consultancy
Smith Assembly helps organizations revolutionize their design and development practices to create more successful + impactful offerings.
We teach our clients how to innovate in more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable ways via consulting services and workshops. Our human-centered methodology involves our clients plus their stakeholders, users, and communities. Smith Assembly's participatory and co-creative approach centers all that experience and knowledge to build exceptional products and programs. Once clients understand and have practiced our approach, they can continue to drive success + impact long after our engagement ends.
Our co-founders honed their rare expertise in human-centered innovation in both the most technologically advanced and least resourced environments of the world (as well as with renowned global organizations like MIT, Google, Starbucks, frog, and NASA).
Interested? Let’s chat. We’d love to get to know you a bit, talk about your organization’s goals and challenges, and see how we can help. No sales pitch, no obligation, just building connection and community.
Why Choose Smith Assembly
What We Do
We Offer Consulting Services & Workshops
Smith Assembly specializes in working with diverse teams who create products or programs for multicultural users. While you might think that our work is solely focused on improving your offerings, that's not the case. The value of our approach is centering the people who create, use, and are affected by them and teaching your team how to evolve their design and development practices to be more inclusive and participatory. Our Project-Based Co-Creation, As-Needed, and Interim Executive (Fractional CPO) consulting services build capacity, deliver incremental results, and provide meaningful outcomes. To support our mission and work, we also conduct online and in-person workshops on Inclusion and Product Management.
How We Do It
Co-Creation Is The Heart & Soul Of Our Approach
We start with connection because it fosters inclusion, and inclusion empowers diverse thinking and produces more innovative solutions. Smith Assembly tailors our consulting services and our role in an engagement to best suit your unique team, goals, and needs. Our approach is participatory and co-creative — ideally involving you plus your stakeholders, users, and communities — so solutions center all that experience and knowledge. We empower and encourage you to learn as much as possible during our engagements, teaching your team how to fish (so to speak), so that you can solve future challenges on your own.
Why We’re Different
We’re Passionate About Inclusion, Equity, & Sustainability
Smith Assembly was founded by two women of different ages, cultures, and countries who infused their diverse perspectives and lived experiences into everything we do. We've been designing user experiences, developing technology solutions, and co-creating a wide variety of delightful products and programs for over 20 years. Our consulting services and workshops provide the tools and structures you need to be more successful and have more impact by showing you how to integrate inclusion, equity, and sustainability into everything you do. We also drive impact — Smith Assembly donates 5% of our revenue annually to community-led nonprofits driving local innovation, participates in 1% for the Planet, and is a Certified B Corporation™.
Who We Work With
Our Clients Own Or Lead Purpose-Driven Organizations
Like you, our clients are looking for ways to make their offerings more successful + impactful. Co-create with Smith Assembly when you need to strengthen connections within your team, achieve a challenging metric, increase resonance with a specific user group, and/or improve your social or environmental impact. During our engagement, we’ll also teach your team how to incorporate the latest best practices in usability, accessibility, inclusion, and sustainability so that you can continue to drive results long after our engagement ends.
Some Of Our Clients
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What Our Clients Say
Invaluable Thought Partner
❝ Smith Assembly acted as an invaluable thought partner throughout the development of our first-ever Building Your Circular Strategy workshop series. Along with the hard knowledge upgrade they provided for our curriculum, we benefitted from their clear depth of knowledge and ability to sense, identify and communicate around our unseen gaps in our teaching methods. ❞
Emily McGill
Collaboration Strategist
Textile Lab for Circularity
Uniquely Powerful & Moving
❝ A new take on JEDI conversations. We were completely blown away by how good the [online inclusion training] workshop was. The experience definitely forced me to reframe my thoughts about pre-recorded content; it can be uniquely powerful and moving. The exercises went quite quickly... time flies when you're having fun I suppose! I will do more workshops with Smith Assembly! ❞
Kristy O’Leary
Co-Founder
Decade Impact
Our Belief
Human-centered innovation is inclusive, equitable, and sustainable and makes businesses more successful + impactful.
We'd Love To Co-Create With You
Contact Us To Make Your Product Or Program Exceptional
Smith Assembly will help you disrupt the status quo and deliver exceptional offerings for your stakeholders and humanity. Our approach centers the people who create, use, and are affected by your product or program. Through consulting services and workshops, we show you how to revolutionize your organization's design and development practices to be more participatory and co-creative. That way, you can continue to drive success + impact long after our engagement ends.
CONTACT US
Our nonprofit partner is OAXIN — an organization driving social and economic justice in the Mexican state of Oaxaca through a community maker space and participatory programs teaching inclusive and collaborative innovation practices.
OAXIN collaborates with several of Oaxaca's 18 indigenous peoples, including an Ikoot community in San Mateo del Mar, a Mixe community in Jaltepec de Candayoc, a Triqui community in Yosoyuxi Copala, and a Zapotec community of Santiago Suchilquitongo.
Our Social & Environmental Impact
We Support Global Innovation
Smith Assembly is a Certified B Corporation™ and a Certified WBE (Women Business Enterprise). We participate in 1% for the Planet and donate an additional 5% of our revenue every year to community-led and values-aligned nonprofits driving local innovation.
We're committed to supporting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals with a focus on GOAL 5: Gender Equality, GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, GOAL 10: Reduced Inequalities, and GOAL 13: Climate Action. The policies we enact and the metrics we measure are aligned with B Lab's SDG Action Manager.
Our 2022 Impact Report
