Leadership

Larry Irons is the Principal of Customer Clues. Cclues accesses an extensive network of expert colleagues who bring complementary strengths to projects. Larry practices Experience Design, with over 20 years performance leading multidisciplinary teams in the planning, research, conceptualization, design and development of products and services across multiple channels with humans in mind. 

Over the course of his career, Larry has consulted with Fortune 500 companies to:

  • Design, develop, and assess collaboration platforms, with a focus on social software and Web 2.0
  • Design and develop customer experience management strategies for support services
  • Design, develop, implement, and assess learning architectures including formal and social learning
  • Design and manage online communities for technology products and learning services
  • Design and devleop digital sales tools for marketing programs

Larry writes the blog, Skilfulminds, which blogs.com listed as one of the top ten Customer Experience blogs in 2009. Skilfulminds is also listed in the top 99 Workplace eLearning blogs by eLearning Technology. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a University Fellow.

Larry's doctoral research used ethnographic techniques to study the communication process, in particular the conversation and storytelling practices used by knowledge engineers involved in knowledge acquisition. He has served as an adjunct Professor of Communication at the University of Missouri -- St. Louis (UMSL), and as a Research Associate with the same department. He has also served as an adjunct Professor of Sociology at UMSL.

Larry has published in numerous professional publications, with an overarching focus on the centrality of collaboration and social networking, including:

  • Handbook of Research on Electronic Collaboration and Organizational Synergy,
  • Management Communication Quarterly
  • United States Distance Learning Association Journal
  • Education Technology and Society
  • Theory and Society
  • Co-authored the McGraw-Hill Catastrophe Preparedness series, a set of books focusing on social network, collaboration, and risk management challenges in the preparedness professions.