So much of what we are able to do with design is dependent on the context in which we ask our questions. It may be that a definition of an innovator is someone who is able to ask a question that noone else has thought to ask. It seems to me that today the context in which we get to ask our questions...

There is an Eskimo proverb that says the storm is the time to fish. We are in the middle of a pretty big storm at the moment and organizations are asking questions about how committed they should be to innovation. I am moderating a session at Davos on this topic and would love any thoughts you might...

IDEO'er Jeff Chapin is heading off on sabbatical to work with IDE (International Development Enterprises) on a low cost latrine. Jeff will be away for the next three months working in Cambodia and will be blogging about the experience. This might be a good chance to follow along as a designer gets i...

Gary Hustwit has just released the trailer for his new film Objectified, all about industrial design. Based on a similar format to the successful Helvetica, he interviewed a number of designers working around the world including yours truly. Objectified will launch in the spring but you can see the ...

I am listening to Paul Saffo talk on the KQED program Forum. He is talking about what we might see coming up in the next few years. He discusses what he calls the 'Creator Economy' based around the simultaneous creation and consumption of value. He thinks of this as the evolution of what was once th...

A team of designers at IDEO have been working on ideas around Design On Time. Larry Cheng created a 'free time' dispenser that hands out free time in ten minute increments in the form of printed tickets. What you do with that time is entirely up to you. Nice idea, but Ted Howes and Adam Vollmer deci...

I popped into BusinessWeek a few days ago so that they could interview me for their "Five Questions" series. I spent most of my time talking about design thinking. Watch the full interview here....

A Geneva based organization called New Economic Orientation for the 21st Century (NOE21) has created a quite compelling visualization of global warming. I like it both because of the Sims like design approach but also because it doesn't stop at visualizing the high level problem. It allows you to di...

A team at IDEO led by Tatyana Mamout and Jessica Hastings has been working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently to develop a toolkit to help NGO's apply human centered design methodologies to the work they do with small holder farmers. IDE, one of the NGO's supported by Gates, colla...

Paul Hughes uploaded his notebook pages to Flickr a while ago but if you haven't seen them, they are worth checking out....