January 21, 2014
Clients often ask me how we built IDEO's creative culture. For 20 years, I did a lot of hand-waving and gave vague answers. Then, about a year ago, we decided we really should put our values in writing. The result was a slim hardcover called The Little Book of IDEO. In it, we distilled what makes o...
January 7, 2014
Some think tenacity is the secret to following through on New Year’s resolutions. I think it's more about asking the right questions and having the confidence to act on them. I talked with my friend Don Norman recently about the value of asking interesting questions—a central tenant of design think...
November 19, 2013
By Tim Brown and Jane Fulton Suri There’s an entire industry built around how to be a better leader and build strong, dynamic teams. But for the last few years, my colleague and dear friend Jane Fulton Suri and I have been looking to the earth and seas and sky for inspiration. A Partner, Chief Cre...
November 13, 2013
“I’m not a creative person.” I hear that all the time from clients when they first start working with IDEO. It’s an offhand comment, meant as an excuse for not being able to come up with innovative ideas on their own, but behind it lies a fear of failure—of being judged by others. While it’s temptin...
September 30, 2013
When we’re doing job interviews, the phrase “good cultural fit” gets bandied about a lot—and for good reason. IDEO’s stock in trade is creativity, collaboration, and human-centered innovation. We don’t have discrete departments, rigid job titles, or corner offices. In fact, most corporate trappings...
September 11, 2013
Moments after this photo was taken, the members of this meeting stood up and sang to me. Ever had a business meeting end with people spontaneously bursting into song? Before last week, neither had I. I’ve been in meetings all around the world—Glasgow, Moscow, New York, Tokyo—and they’ve all conclu...
September 3, 2013
Churning out homemade pasta for a shared meal in our Chicago studio One of the first things visitors notice when they visit IDEO is the food. It’s everywhere. Some might look at our breakfast spread piled high with bagels, cereal, granola bars, and coffee and think: typical Silicon Valley gimmick p...
August 14, 2013
LAND HO!: A still from "Embrace Ambiguity," a video by the old salts of IDEO's New York office. The team wrote the script, hand-built the sets, then filmed and edited the clip themselves. Fog is always present at IDEO, and not just at our San Francisco office. It's a metaphor we use for those iffy ...
July 22, 2013
Bringing contractors into the fold at an IDEO food event In April, I wrote a piece called “Designing a Freelance Life.” The post received nearly 200 comments. Reading over them, it’s clear that freelancing is a mixed bag. Even the language we use to describe those who work on a temporary basis—“te...
July 12, 2013
Photo by Ali Guichard / IDEO Many people think of business travel as a chore. I see it as an opportunity. Not to generate new work, necessarily (though that’s nice, too), but to exercise my curiosity, think about problems in new ways, and get inspired. Sometimes that inspiration hits as soon as I ...