We recently connected with Abigail Joseph and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Abigail thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I have spent most of my career out of graduate school thinking dreaming up business ideas. When you enter a field that doesn’t pay a huge salary figuring out ways to make extra money is very logical. As a computer scientist with a deep love for art and all things creative, it made sense that my first step into entrepreneurship would be about technically helping people. I married this with my natural design sense and started creating websites for folks, but soon the time and commitment of teaching in K-12 schools would take over my life, and the dreams of creating a business were put on hold.

I would have spent over ten years teaching technology, digital storytelling, and computer science to middle school students before figuring out another angle from which I could enter the world of entrepreneurship. I had been working as a K-12 specialist teacher of technology and computer science for 15 years when I hit yet another wall that had me spinning, feeling stuck, a little bit trapped, and wanting more out of my career. I knew something was missing and that I deserved more. I was frustrated by not feeling seen, known, or valued for my hard work and efforts in and out of the classroom and I knew there had to be a better way.

When opportunities set themselves before you, you should run to them and this is just what I did. At this time of burnout from teaching a revolving door of 300 students a year once a week, I was fortunate enough to take a gap year away from teaching full-time and found myself playing, being joyful, and getting curious in a maker space. Here, I continued to cultivate my innovative mindset in a manner I had never experienced before. In my darkness, I sparked my affair with creativity. When the year ended I knew that the innovative strategies I was experiencing and developing were the keys to designing a creative life that would allow me to thrive professionally and personally and I wanted other educators to experience this joy I was able to experience. I set out to bring creativity and its many benefits to educators bringing them quarterly creative experiences and creativity inspirations in the form of a calendar that would immerse them in creativity all year long. This was the path until it wasn’t. When I realized that educators were too busy to take the time to cultivate creative practices that would help them be innovative forces in their classrooms I took a pause to assess what I was trying to do.

When I got my next job as the Director of Learning, Innovation, and Design in charge of running a maker space and charged to collaborate with teachers to bring innovation into their classroom by way of designing lessons that used the power of design thinking and making to turn learning into active creative experiences it clicked. In my reflection on years of conversations at parent nights and student showcases there was a sign so bright, how could I have missed it? Parents were always telling me that they would love to be a student in my class learning everything that I was teaching and empowering their children to design and create. This was the place from which The Innovation Doctor would rise.

In 2022 I delivered a TEDx talk at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California titled, Ubuntu Innovation: A Beacon for Humanity. This was a call to action for the young and all to create a technology that was inclusive of diverse perspectives and challenge the status quo. In this world, a person like me, a black woman, would not have to claw her way to success, but be invited to make contributions that matter because her voice matters. Somewhere between parent desires and this TEDx talk, I decided that I was going to bring the power of innovation into the lives of everyone because the world needs more creative thinkers, risk-takers, and creative problem solvers to make a difference in the lives of everyone. Now I am The Innovation Doctor empowering professionals to unleash their creative potential and foster a practice of innovation. Through thought-provoking questions that deepen reflection, fresh outside perspectives, and collaborative environments, I guide individuals and groups on a transformative journey, sparking a passionate affair with creativity and unlocking a world of innovation filled with play, joy, and wonder.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My adventure into innovation started with my parents. My parents were immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago, they migrated from the very warm Island Shores at the southern tip of the Caribbean to Montreal Canada in the dead of winter looking for a better life for themselves. I guess one can say I come from a line of risk-takers, collaborators, and problem-solvers. I was destined to live a life of innovation. I was a very happy curious, child. I loved to play with my Legos, play in the depths of my dark basement with our Atari with my brother, and enjoy my Speak & Spell. E.T. was everything to me Speak & Spell was my beacon for dreaming of faraway places and the many things I created. My creations ranged from hand-made books to sewing creations and baking cakes with light bulbs.

My undergraduate and graduate career were devoted to the craft of computer science As I pursued my myriad of CS degrees I made sure to involve myself in the arts along the way through painting, drawing, art history, and dance to keep the joy in my challenging choice of major. And now I help professionals bring their who selves to their careers and the lives they desire to live. With great design there is no reason that anyone has to make a choice, you just have to ask the right questions and come up with creative solutions to try out.

As The Innovation Doctor I am a creative exploration buddy, who encourages my clients to step outside their comfort zone and embrace the joy of experimentation. Together, we conquer creative barriers, fueled by thought-provoking questions and mind-bending challenges. I provide innovation coaching for individuals, teams, and organizations to help them supercharge their productivity with creativity and work smarter, not harder with innovation. There are many ways people can work with me through my small group programs for individuals designed to open doors to a creative life where they design and develop solutions that are uniquely them and give them tools to become the unstoppable force of nature they deserve to be in all aspects of their life. I help teams and organizations grow into their limitless potential by cultivating their innovative mindsets and growing the organization’s innovation tool chest through workshops and talks.

Ultimately if I do everything the way I am setting out to do, I will the Innovation Commons will come into focus. The Innovation Commons is a revolution to empower all people to be creative designers of ideas and solutions that make the world a better place. I am building and nurturing a vibrant community of professionals, where collaboration sparks incredible innovation.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

You can only live a creative life as a full-time artist, musician, writer, or photographer. For most of my life, I have been fighting the myth that we live in a binary world of left and right-minded people. The division was clear when I went to university. There I could choose to major in computer science as a liberal arts major or take the hardcore path as an engineering major where extra science and engineering courses were necessary and an extra class every school year. Practicality one out when in high school I decided to take AP Physics versus AP Art and decided to major in computer science. As an undergraduate, I made the deliberate choice to immerse myself in some time of art class if I could do it. And as I spent late nights in the computer science building working on programs and problem sets I also was drawing pipe structures in the depths of the art building or learning to appreciate the art of class painters. I even had the opportunity to combine of computer science and art and that was when it clicked. I did not have to be a right or left-brained person, I was both.

And from there I was off to the races exploring computer science and art. I danced my way through graduate school, taking PE ballet and jazz classes and performing in dance showcases. My dissertation mixed the fields of music and graphical visualization. My career as an educator has been about using art and making as a gateway to computer science opportunities for traditionally minoritized persons in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) fields. We live in a time where fields collide in beautiful ways and I am glad I get to show people that they can make the deliberate choice to use all parts of their brains in everything they do.

Have you ever had to pivot?

It was 2002 when I completed my dissertation and was awarded my Ph.D. in computer science. After all the pomp and circumstance was complete, I was faced with choices. Six of my seven years of graduate education were funded by Bell Laboratories (Lucent Technologies at the time, but at some point AT&T and Nokia), so it would make sense for me to go out into the field and increase female representation in the field. However, the stories that my female counterparts shared from their journeys of working in the Tech Industry were not illustrious and froth with the challenges of working in a male-dominated field in an era where the dot com bubble had just burst and people were thinking the tech industry fueled by computer science was not the place to be.

Throughout my graduate career, I tutored and ran workshops for community college students and some children and I knew I had enjoyed that, so I set out to see what the field of education could offer me. I worked numerous part-time positions working with kindergarten through adults to figure out the place I wanted to be. In no time, I settled on middle school. I know you just shivered. That age group is only for the brave of heart, but they keep you young. Middle school was the age group where I saw students making judgments of what they were good at and where they belonged. I was the perfect place to become a role model and encourage girls and students of color to see that there was a place in computer science if they wanted it. That pivot has led to over 20 years of working with students and adults to see themselves as designers and problem-solvers of their world. I did not know that this journey of many hats as a technology teacher, computer science teacher, tech coordinator, academic technology director, and director of learning, innovation, and design was setting the stage for what is The Innovation Doctor.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heyinnovationdoctor.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drabigailjoseph/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drabigailjoseph/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@heyinnovationdoctor
• Other: Substack: https://drabigailjoseph.substack.com/