Growing by Design
Validation
Have you ever questioned yourself and wondered..."Is it just me? Am I making this up?" It doesn't happen all that often; but sometimes in this world of design thinking, or human centered design as it is often referred, I find myself scratching my head and...
Dreaming is only the beginning
Design Thinking is for dreaming, imagining possibilities to address wicked problems. Why do some dreams come to fruition, while others do not? Well is it what happens after you dream that makes the difference. So, before I lead a design thinking effort...
lessons from fundraising
I just completed a very different project for me...fundraising for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). I was naive about how to approach it so I did what I knew to do...treated it like a marketing campaign. To my surprise, I won the Cincinnati Woman of the...
suggestion box vs. co-creation
I overheard a conversation the other day and the people were talking about how their company is eager to co-create so they have asked their stakeholders for suggestions. I immediately cringed. A suggestion box, or inviting people to share their feedback, is an...
Iteration vs. Rework
I remember my first "one page memo" at P&G as a newly minted MBA. It was redlined and revised 16 times (I counted) making non substantive changes so that it could be properly positioned. It was an excrutiating process that sucked the life out of me. It was...
Happiness by Design
One of the gifts of working in a way that is human centered is that it is fulfilling, as you tune into the needs, motivations and realities of someone's life. People leveraging design thinking find they "fall in love" with the person for whom they are solving. This...
Insights are T.H.A.T.
In my last blog I talked about the Magic of Empathy. There is a great gift empathy provides as part of that magic: it reveals deep insights that previously were obscured. With design thinking, and empathy in particular, these insights become clear. Sometimes they...
The Magic of Empathy
Recently I felt that magic moment when deep empathy emerges as I was wrapping up an engagement with a client. You may have felt this moment...when all of the sudden something comes into focus for the first time that makes everything clearer. You can hear a pin drop...
Fascinating Rhythm
There is a rhythm to design thinking. Design thinking is not just about creative thinking. It balances creative thinking with analytical thinking. Daniel Kahneman calls it in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow System 1 & System 2 Thinking. Design...
To everything there is a season
Tis the season! I have been silent lately, not having blogged since November 14th. I think that is fitting. In the US, at least, it is crazy time with people celebrating Thanksgiving in November as a lead in to a myriad of holidays that fall in November/December....
