This is what way, way out-of-the-box brainstorming looks like. I spent half an hour walking up and down a busy, sun-splashed Toronto street lined with quaint shops and restaurants looking for ideas. Ideas to solve the City of Toronto’s problems in dealing with a big influx of refugees. I had a pad of sticky notes and a pen and, per …
The Status Quo Isn’t Working. Now What? Three Initiatives To Pursue
Yes, you’re making money. Yes, you’re in markets around the world. Yes, you’ve got good people working with you. And yet, your business model is collapsing. If you don’t make a course change, your business won’t survive. No Obvious Playbook What’s changed? The items you’re selling are no longer in nearly as much demand. The colors have gone out of …
Seeking Buried Treasure In A Sea of Sticky Notes
Honduras Threads team hunts for a market for its luxury textiles More than 500 small, yellow sticky notes. That’s where the clues to the treasure were buried during the five-day, design thinking challenge in June. One by one the sticky notes went up on the wall the team created, each one containing an observation or an insight. One by one, …
The Jetsons Are Coming, Will You Be Ready?
“Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous.” — Dr. Jim Dator, Futures Study Professor, University of Hawaii Oh, those Jetsons! George and homemaker wife Jane, their two kids Judy and Elroy and their robot maid Rosie. It’s 2030 and they’re on their way to your city. Rosie with her blinking eyes was a bit cranky so …
Strategic Solution: It’s All About The Experience
What did it feel like when you went to the grocery store last? Could you easily find what you wanted? Did an employee step up to ask if you needed help? If you asked for help, did they take you to the item, or just point you to an aisle? What was your experience filling up the car with gas? …
Another Plain Old Subdivision Or Unique Community — Which Will It Be For The City Of Mesquite’s I-20 Corridor?
Walking the farmland along I-20 in Mesquite, I stopped to pick up a rock. About the size of my fist. About the size of one of the biggest uncut diamonds ever discovered. If this rock were a diamond, I wondered, how might it be cut to achieve its maximum worth? Would it be two diamonds or two dozen? Or by …