Innovation: Don’t Let Frameworks become Cages
We have a strange fascination with frameworks. I certainly do. A framework is a visual shortcut that offers a bird's-eye view of a complex idea. It helps us find our bearings when we're overwhelmed by…
Category: Human Behaviour
On Clarity
There's a particular frame of time I'm sure you have experienced. You have a big presentation later today, or you're travelling for a week, and suddenly you have a mental clarity that's often missing from…
What Design Thinking gets wrong about Empathy
Here's something that might sound strange coming from someone who's spent years in innovation and design: I'm not always empathetic. And neither are you. There's this perception in the design world that innovators, designers, and…
Attention Residue: Why You Can’t Focus After That ‘Quick’ Meeting
Ever happened to you? You wrap up a 30-minute (or longer) meeting, get back to your desk ready to dive back into work after the meeting that could, in some ways, be considered a break…
The Questions We Don’t Ask: How Problem Framing Determines Solution Quality
I often wonder about how we frame problems (challenges, as I prefer to call them), and more importantly, how that single decision can ripple out for decades, sometimes centuries. Back in the 1950s, the consumer…
Customer is KingDesign ThinkingDTEverydayHuman BehaviourImproveInnovateLife or something like itThe known unknown
When Did We Stop Designing for Humans?
In the past year, customer experience has taken a real nosedive. Big brand products and services making baffling choices. Let's start with recent Panasonic/Google TVs. With any TV including the good old ones, adjust the…
Small Details, Better Reading Experience
Notion Press has helped me with all three of my books, and for that I remain grateful to their team. For my latest, Think like an Innovator, me being me, I took on a new…
The Return to Innocence
A lot of people go from lighthearted when young to bitter and caustic or indifferent as they get older. They might remain adequately friendly and cheerful in public, knowing well not to cross boundaries or…
Gimme Your Best Question!
A few days ago, I shared how one re-framed question unlocked a breakthrough solution for a pediatric hospital project, and opened up a contest for you to share YOUR transformational questions. I've been thinking about…
The Timing Paradox: Why Rating Your Driver Is Harder Than It Seems, and when 5 Stars isn’t quite Honest
After an Uber or Ola ride, the app asks you to rate your driver. Simple enough. But when should that prompt appear? Ask too soon, and users hesitate. Some worry the driver might instantly receive…
A Coupon Code for my Potato Book
My "potato book" was feeling left out with all the posts and coupons for the two design thinking books. So here's a coupon for Main Batata Hoon, a collection of short stories written in a…
Signed Copies of Think Like an Innovator – Gimme Your Best Question!
Good questions get us further, faster. And here's a chance for you to win a signed hardcover of Think Like an Innovator! One of my favourite questions, and I mention this in the book, came…
Thumbs Up for Good Design
I was getting a haircut earlier this week and got curious about the trimmer my barber (or hairdresser or hairstylist; unsure what they are called nowadays) was using on my head. It was an unusually…
The Simple, Superpower Habit for Productivity and Creativity
If you have watched Kung Fu Panda, do you remember the scene where Master Shifu is meditate? Or trying to, and his ear keeps twitching from some imperceptible disturbance he can sense some distance away?…
Merry Christmas!
This story here has been a favourite for many years now, and I have probably sent it to hundreds of you around this time of the year, either as part of my work mailers or…