Great Voyageurs Creative Studio
The world has had enough shallow. Enough adequate. Enough junk. People are hungry - longing - for something deeper, something more. There is a level underneath where the real work lives - where good work becomes great. Where products don't just get bought - they get championed. Where organizations stop fighting and start flowing. Where creative work ships - and matters more.
Matter more. Connect deeper. Leave a legacy.
We go there. Inside Out. That's how.
This work is for people who want to go deeper. Not as a philosophy. As a method. If that's you, let's talk.
Not deeper as a metaphor. Deeper as a method. To the level where the real answer lives.
The founders and executives who know their product, service, or organization is capable of more than it's currently delivering. Who have tried the obvious fixes. Who are tired of solutions that fit the template but not the actual problem.
The creators carrying work they believe in - a script, a series, a graphic novel, a body of work - who know the gap between what it is and what it could be is real and closeable. Who are ready to do whatever it takes to close it.
The leaders who are willing to look honestly at what's not working - and act on what they find.
The difference is where the work starts. Many approaches begin with a framework built for someone else's problem. This work begins inside yours - inside what you're actually trying to do, and what the people you're trying to reach actually need. That shift changes everything downstream.
People come to us because something isn't working and they can't see why. The problem has been named. The fixes have been tried. The gap persists.
For over two decades, We parachute into the unfamiliar, assess what's needed, see the pivots others don't, understand the vision, politics, personnel, and procedures that sway decisions - connect the right people, and do the unglamorous work that makes success real.
The work always starts in the same place. Not with the problem as it's been defined, but with what's true underneath it. Inside the actual experience of the people the work is trying to serve. That's Inside Out.
When Step-by-Step achieved a 93% completion rate for people with severe depression - in a population where most programs see single-digit engagement - it wasn't because of better clinical content. It was because the program was designed from inside what severe depression actually feels like. Not from a framework. From inside the human experience.
When Lambert Onuma's health analytics platform went from stalled product to competing with Google and Apple at the federal ministerial level in five weeks - it was because we found the pivot nobody else could see, built the narrative structures that aligned governments, NGOs, and private sector actors, and moved at a speed most consultants won't attempt.
The domain changes. The approach doesn't.
The Inside Out methodThe proof is in the outcomes
Step-by-Step - Completion
Where most mental health programs see single-digit engagement. Peer-reviewed, published, provincially adopted.
Step-by-Step - Anxiety
Anxiety scores at completion. Sustained at three-month follow-up. BMJ Open, 2015.
Step-by-Step - Depression
Depression scores at completion. First-author, peer-reviewed publication.
Provincial Ecosystem
Partners built from a napkin concept. 12+ concurrent research projects. 100-page provincial strategy.
Working with us, you're likely to arrive at a deeper, more resonant, more authentic, more powerful version than you would have without us. More likely to connect. More likely to matter.
Something is off and everyone knows it, but no one can name it. The meetings keep happening. The deck keeps getting revised. Money is burning. Time is burning. One conversation with the right person can cut through weeks of waste. The fog lifts when you start from the inside out.
Sprints or short retainers
You've been holding something for years. A script. A series. A book. A vision that won't leave you alone. You know what it is. You just can't get it out and into the world. End to end, we go all the way - from what you have to what it needs to be, to how it gets out.
End to end engagement
You've made it. You know it's not there yet. You can feel the gap between what it is and what it needs to be. You've gotten notes. The notes haven't closed it. I enter the work from inside what it's trying to be and make the structural moves that finish it.
Hourly or scoped to the project
On working with David:"It's a unique skillset to be able to see opportunities and pivots others don't, to articulate the vision, to then set the strategy, and finally to have the expertise and experience to execute the day-to-day necessities for success."
Lambert Onuma
CEO, Revalo Health Analytics
"David is a magical connector of dots. A remarkable listener, David has the ability to tease ideas out of people that they simply can't pull out of themselves without some assistance."
Paul Shore
Climate Action Inspiration through Storytelling, Science and Adventure
"David is one of the most tenacious and thorough business development people I have ever worked with. He is strategic in his communication, knows what to write and what to say to open doors and start action. This is rare skill."
Lorraine McGregor
Founder-led company growth advisor · 300+ companies
"Knowing David over a decade, I am impressed how he has again and again preformed with excellence in challenging conditions and brought insight and value to his teams. His tenacity, wit and meta view combined ambition always go a long way with constructive outcome and results."
Vanessa Wiebel MCC
External Leadership Coach & Work-Life Harmony
"David really digs deep to get the facts right and then uses those positive or hard conversations to build genuine and deep relationships with people inside and outside the organization."
Denis Dymov
Experienced People Leader
"David has the incredible skill of taking a very small and minimally formed idea and to develop that into a functional vision and plan - and then to make it happen."
Dr. Gurdeep Parhar
Clinical Professor, Co-Founder Adult Autism Centre and Adult ADHD Centre · UBC
A twelve-week program for people with severe depression. A napkin concept grown into a three-hundred-partner provincial research ecosystem. A national pandemic initiative built in five weeks. Two graphic novels and a pilot adaptation.
Healthcare - Novel Care Model
Conceived, designed, implemented, and evaluated end-to-end. Paired psychiatry with a fitness trainer in a community gym setting. Designed from inside the lived experience of severe depression. 93% completion. Published peer-reviewed.
Provincial Strategy - Research Ecosystem
From a vision and a small team to 300+ partners, 12+ concurrent research projects, and a 100-page provincial strategy. Built from inside what each partner was actually carrying.
National Digital Health - Crisis Strategy
Stalled health analytics platform reframed as a national COVID-19 contact-tracing initiative. Federal ministers, Health Canada, the Deputy PMO engaged. Positioned against Google and Apple. Five weeks.
Individual - Creative Development
A creator with a story they needed to bring into the world. Worked alongside them on voice, structure, world, and form across two volumes and a pilot adaptation for television.
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