Archive for the ‘design thinking’ Category

Brazil’s Siren Call

Friday, May 18th, 2012

“The international community is increasingly waking up to this situation. We are a land of infinite possibilities! We have natural resources in abundance, renewable energy, talented people and a capacity for work.”    -Eike Batista, Brazilian billionaire

A popular joke about Brazil of the 70’s and 80s went: “It’s the country of the future, and it always will be.”  Today, Brazilians retell the joke as a reminder of those painful days when inflation reached 80 percent monthly and their country was on the brink of disaster.

No longer a perennial sleeping giant, the future has arrived for a growing number of Brazilians. Thanks to soaring commodity prices and good governance, the world’s sixth largest economy is on a path toward prosperity.

Investors and entrepreneurs now see Brazil as the most promising emerging market. The country ranks highest, after China the USA, as the country where 1,258 global chief executives feel is most important for their growth.

But is the exuberance for Brazil well-founded? Do the facts support the upbeat forecasts?

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Posted in Brazil, design thinking, Latin America, West Africa | No Comments »

Designer. Sui Generis

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

His true legacy is that he made the digital analogue. He turned ‘stuff’ into enduring delight. And what one business would have seen as irrelevant, expensive design detail, he made glorious, emotional connectivity. ~Richard Seymour, designer

His Legacy

In countless tributes to Steve Jobs, Apple devotees are understandably praising him for redefining several consumer electronics categories — the computer, the mouse, the MP3 player, the smartphone and the tablet.

Apple’s sleek devices resonate with users through all the noise and clutter of their lives, whether they’re in Johannesburg, Shanghai or São Paulo.

But Jobs’ impact extends beyond Apple’s wildly successful product line. Jobs not only raised the bar on consumer electronics, he transformed the discipline of design. Due to the universal appeal of his work, he revolutionized the way designers everywhere approach their work.

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Posted in customer experience management, Design, design thinking, Innovation, leadership | No Comments »

Planning for What’s Next

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

Scenarios are the most powerful vehicles I know for challenging our “mental models” about the world and lifting the blinders that limit our creativity and resourcefulness. ~Peter Schwartz

Using a longer lens

It’s been twenty years since the publication of Peter Schwartz’s insightful primer about scenario planning, The Art of the Long View. In the book, Schwartz makes a convincing case for using scenario planning in approaching strategic challenges of various kinds.

Schwartz, who led scenario planning efforts at Shell, Motorola, and Pacific Gas and Electric, concluded that the technique could be applied to handling the emergent complex threats that companies were confronting in the 90′s.

Since then, the world has grown radically more complex, more uncertain. Globalization and the Internet have woven together our institutions so that a crisis in one corner of the world can spread virally with far-reaching consequences.

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Posted in Books, Business Model, Business Practices, Collaboration, design thinking, Innovation, leadership, Learning, MetaPlanning, Story Telling, What's Next? (WILD CARD) | 6 Comments »