From 2008-2018, designthinking.ideo.com was the home of IDEO's design thinking blog, written by our former CEO and current Executive Chair of IDEO, Tim Brown. This is an archive of his thoughts. You can read Tim's more current work on his LinkedIn page. You can also visit IDEO's Blog, The Octopus, here.

Change By Design, Revised and Updated

March 5, 2019

It's incredible to think it has been almost 10 years since the initial publication of Change By Design, the book that launched this very blog. In the decade since first sharing the ideas that fill those pages, the world has changed dramatically, but the power of design as a tool for solving proble...

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How to Lead a Design-Driven Organization

November 21, 2017

The myth of leadership is that it has to be top-down. The CEO has all the answers and leads by handing down mandates. But any chief who thinks he or she has all the answers is limiting the scope of the operation. Why? The leader as autocrat is an outdated mindset that belonged to the era of operati...

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What are the Top 5 Behaviors of Design-Driven Organizations and Why Do They Matter?

November 16, 2017

Some of today’s most successful companies—Airbnb, Nike—have CEOs who are also designers. And leading organizations across industries, like Apple, 3M, and Pepsi, have highly influential Chief Design Officers at the helm. Making design a priority isn’t just about meeting the glossy expectations of tod...

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Why is Design a CEO Matter?

November 2, 2017

There was a time when efficiency was enough. When the role of the CEO was to optimize business as if it were a machine—making sure the supply chains and manufacturing systems and marketing channels were produced maximal output at minimal cost. Those days are over. And though I don’t suffer any roman...

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Design Thinking and the Law

July 18, 2017

It has been exciting to see design thinking gaining ground in a growing range of industries over the last few years, but even I have been surprised by the enthusiasm with which some in the legal field have embraced the concept. The law is not exactly known for creative problem solving. But it turns...

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Design and the Circular Economy

January 21, 2017

What if we had a new way to design products, services, and businesses that were good for people, the planet, and business? That's one of the questions we were seeking to answer when IDEO teamed up with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to launch the Circular Design Guide. Why a design thinking guide f...

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Unlock your Organization’s Creative Potential

May 16, 2016

The world of business has never been more volatile or unpredictable. Sources of competition and disruption can appear anywhere—not just disruption in products, services, and technology, but also in channels to market, policy, talent, brands, and supply chains. In order to survive in today’s complex...

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A Challenge to Leaders: A Day of Empathy

March 1, 2016

This week, school principals across the globe are lacing up their sneakers and toting their brown bags to school as part of Shadow a Student Challenge, a program to help school principals better understand their students’ experiences. As of Monday, more than 1,200 school leaders have taken the chal...

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The Next Big Thing in Design

February 9, 2016

You may have heard that IDEO has joined the kyu collective (a unit of Tokyo-based Hakuhodo DY Holdings). kyu was formed by a group of diverse companies including SYPartners, Sid Lee, Digital Kitchen, C2, and Red Peak Group. It’s an exciting moment for us, and we wanted to explain why. Since IDEO sta...

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How to Inspire Creativity and Lifelong Learning for Everyone

June 9, 2015

I was chatting with my colleague Suzanne recently and she told me about a friend of hers. Adam is a creative soul. He’s well-read, plays music, cooks elaborate meals, and is highly engaged in arts and culture. He’s an engineer by training, and has worked in senior roles in multiple companies, but h...

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