The world has massive problems with “cool” solutions that create even bigger disasters. From the 1950s, we solved convenience with plastic, and now we’re literally breathing it. We solved the fossil fuel headache with Electric Vehicles, only to hand the next generation nightmare fields the toxic battery disposal. This is what happens when you have…
Book recommendation below. 😉 I stumbled upon what initially seemed like an interestingly different fitness service on Instagram. A few clicks in though, it turned out to be the same old behavioural science playbook at play: inane questions in the pretext of customizing it for me. You know the routine: An elaborate personalization quiz. Or…
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 information. But frameworks can become cages. We obsess over the process until we find ourselves saying, “I understand, but the…
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 daily routines. When you know you’ll be away, pending tasks become crystal clear. You remember to have someone feed the…
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 design thinkers are empaths, and that trait is always switched on. People get surprised, sometimes even offended, when you don’t…
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 from work; but something feels off. Words on the screen look familiar, but you’re reading the same paragraph three times…
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 products industry probably asked themselves: “How do we make products and packaging cheaper and more convenient?” Enter plastics. Lightweight, durable,…
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 volume and it takes about 2 seconds for the volume bar to disappear. Before that if you clicked on any…
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 challenge: I released the Kindle eBook and paperbacks on Amazon global sites myself. Subsequently, Notion Press helped me make it…
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 publicly display animosity or show which side they are on. But inside, many of them tend to remain suspicious, angry,…
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 questions sitting unasked in your minds. The ones that shifted a project’s direction. The ones that helped a struggling…
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 notification, drawing attention to them and the location they’ve just been dropped at. Ask too late, and memory of…
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 conversational style, about the amusing and often counterintuitive ways our views, assumptions and behaviours shape both our personal lives and…
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 when I hit a roadblock when working for a client, a leading Asian hospital looking to affordably improve paediatric patient…
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 quiet one. Turned out to be a Wahl. He couldn’t stop praising it. That opened up a longer conversation. He…