Blog

In a candid webinar hosted by the Design & Innovation Group, our own IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard spoke with her friend Robin Beers, Head of Customer Research and Experience Design at Wells Fargo, about the importance of representation of women in the design industry. They share insights and tips for how women can support each other and navigate challenges in the workplace.

Design thinking has a human-centered core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they're creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. When you sit down to create a solution for a business need, the first question should always be what's the human need behind it?

Successful change efforts don’t happen at one speed. Change requires momentum and moderation at different points in the journey. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Bob joins us to offer insights from his book Scaling Up Excellence: Getting More Without Settling for Less about how leaders can successfully drive organizational change by knowing when and how to pump the brakes and when to put the pedal to the metal.

Regardless of role, work can suck sometimes. Laszlo Bock, CEO and Co-Founder of Humu, a company that aims to make work better by encouraging people towards better habits and unlocking their potential, is focused on changing that. He’s dedicated the last decade of his career to bridging the gap between what we wish work was and what it actually is. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, he shares insights and tips on how we can make work better by sending small behavioral nudges to cultivate more empathy, equity, and resilience in the office.

Now, as the founder and CEO of Milk Stork, the world’s first breast milk shipping solution, Kate is on a mission to prove that breastfeeding and work can coexist. In this episode, she shares her story of how one nightmare travel experience turned into a successful business and the lessons she’s learned about purpose, leadership, and motherhood along the way.

As a venture capitalist with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of investment, innovation, and economic development, Alex Lazarow knows that entrepreneurship is more nuanced than the Silicon Valley model. From Delhi to Detroit, great innovators are building sustainable and resilient businesses—and they’re doing so with a totally different playbook. Yet, when it came to the story of innovation, their experiences were largely missing. He wanted to change that.

How long COVID-19 will keep many of us in a virtual work environment is unknown, but what’s more interesting to consider is what work life will be like on the other side after months of collaborating over the internet. Will this period convince more organizations and teams that virtual work is not only possible, but sustainable?

What does it feel like for your customers to interact with your business? Building a customer journey map is the best way to answer that question and build empathy with their experience. Your map can also act as a rallying point for your team or organization, creating a shared vision of the experience you’re all working together to create.

What is design thinking? Why does it work? How do I get started with it? Our community had so many great questions on the power and potential of design thinking that we hosted an Ask Me Anything session on the topic with IDEO partners and IDEO U leaders Suzanne Gibbs Howard and Coe Leta Stafford.

In service of inspiration, we wanted to share some of the things we think about when designing human-centered online learning experiences. At IDEO U, teaching online has always been our reality—we’ve never coexisted in a physical space with our global community. We hope that some of the things we’ve learned along the way can help you teach whatever it is you need to teach in a virtual setting, and find creative joy in a new set of constraints.

If you’re struggling to feel settled at the makeshift workspace you’ve set up in your kitchen, or you’re taking work calls from your closet in an attempt to minimize interruptions from your kids, you’re not alone. The “rapid remote” shift many of us have undergone in the last few weeks due to COVID-19 brings its own set of challenges, far beyond the normal ones remote workers deal with daily.

Now that many of us are operating at a distance, how do we continue to have impact from afar? You can’t rely on organic intersections to exchange ideas and influence. You must create a deliberate and intentional plan. Use these three strategies to overcome Distance Bias by creating your own Personal Virtual Influence Plan.