If you’ve ever tried to sit and meditate you’ll know how noisy your mind can be. Thoughts rise and fall like a whirl of leaves. They distract, dance and fade and never seem to settle. Some are close and discernible…

I’ve read Matthew Crawford‘s book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft” a few times now. It has earned a permanent place on my bedside table. I plan on reading it again several more times. He is a senior fellow at UVA’s Institute…

According to Pew, 85% of us here in this country read news on our phones. Neiman Labs has done research that shows how differently we read news from computer screen to laptop to tablet to phone. Suffice to say that…

Amazon and Alibaba are reconfiguring our world. They are both racing to become the world’s first trillion dollar companies and have spent the past ten years and more accelerating quickly beyond their original intent of just being a place to…

  Archaeology now. Back in 1996 I had a design studio with my friend David Oppenheim. This was our digital press kit – on a floppy disk. We worked together for 2 1/2 years. We did websites for The Rolling…

I’m curious to see, in a world where we’ve begun to understand much about human behavior, if there is a methodology and practice that can be offered to designers to enable them to design for the good – for themselves…

I’ve often been asked to share my meditation resources. I’d recommend not relying on an app to help you first learn how to meditate. I’ve downloaded and tried most of them and have found for a beginner a weekend retreat…

Celebrating my 30th workshop. I’ve done them now for clients and internal teams, with small teams and with groups as large as 70. And yes, they get a bit unwieldy at that size. And here’s what I’ve learned along the…

Tinder’s use of a very familiar mental model – a stack of cards – is break through design work. Like a stack of cards it is a true thumb first expression of designing for mobile – first. The mental model –…

I’m still surprised to see ad agencies struggle after nearly 20 years but it occurred to me a few weeks back that most ad agencies are having a hard time modernizing and adapting to the needs of the new customer because…

Using Maslow to define need states, there is a hypothetical starter set of desirable features or services that, over time, are supported by learning. The mandatories – functional and usable – are built first. The topmost sections of the pyramid would…

Reframing – a tool for rapid innovation Reframing a question involves looking at the question from a different perspective and asking it in a way that changes its meaning or focus. Here are some steps you can follow to reframe…

Thoughts being those random things that jet around our heads. Attachment being the tension/reaction when becoming aware of the thought. Awareness being the “self” or emotional state that is defined by the attachment to that thought. Letting go is becoming…

This time with a financial services client. Always fun to do with clients whose product or service impacts our everyday lives so directly. We spent several months developing very robust personas – based on data and analytics from a wide…

Getting better with using the color stickies. This one was for a story mapping session with our IBM client.