In Defense of Design Thinking
With the rise in popularity of design thinking, there are a fair number of counter arguments and critiques to the popular problem solving methodology. It’s not actually design. It doesn’t lead to...
View ArticleCultivating Empathy for Colleagues and Collaborators
As user-focused creators, we focus a lot on building empathy for our customers, but what about the other humans—team members, other departments, vendors, external organizations—involved in the design...
View ArticleDesign Thinking’s Three Modes of Thinking: Open, Explore, Close
If you do a Google image search for “Design Thinking,” you’ll be bombarded with colorfully designed flow charts with arrows and icons galore, maybe a few double diamonds or never-ending circles, and—a...
View ArticleOur Go-to Resources for Running Retrospectives
2018 may have come to a close, but out of sight should not mean out of mind. Whether it’s to close out the year, a client project or the past month, retrospectives (retros) or debriefs are pivotal for...
View ArticleMaking Your Work Life Work
Depending on a number of variables, you’ll spend anywhere from a quarter to a third of your life at work. It’s no wonder researchers, educators and journalists have continuously published articles,...
View ArticleEveryday Creativity to Be More Inspired in Life and Work
This piece was written for and originally appeared in QZ.com If you don’t consider yourself creative, it’s because you’re thinking about creativity in the wrong way. Creativity is not an...
View ArticleHow to Work With People You Don’t Like
BY: ASHLEY PINAKIEWICZ Let me paint you a picture: You’re a badass member of your organization—pretty damn good at doing your job, meeting your KPIs, and managing your team. Your team or organization...
View ArticleFostering Empathy in Sales
How building empathy with your clients (and your clients’ clients) can help you build deeper relationships and uncover new opportunities to add value. One of my first jobs out of college was selling...
View ArticleWhen the Training Wheels Come Off
How to Keep the Momentum Going Once the Design Thinking Consultants Have Left BY: ASHLEY PINAKIEWICZ As a creative leader in your organization, you’re all about equipping your team with the tools to...
View Article4 Ways to Listen to Your Stakeholders
“Talk to your stakeholders/audience/customers/constituents/users!” Sound familiar? When it comes to design thinking, the focus is on the human user: to design better experiences, you need to develop...
View ArticleBuilding a Design Thinking Community…For Your Life
What our good friend Gabrielle Santa-Donato learned from scaling Life Design to Universities across the world. By: Gabrielle Santa-Donato My life, like yours, is a wicked problem. Just when I thought I...
View ArticleIn Defense of Design Thinking
With the rise in popularity of design thinking, there are a fair number of counter arguments and critiques to the popular problem solving methodology. It’s not actually design. It doesn’t lead to...
View ArticleCultivating Empathy for Colleagues and Collaborators
As user-focused creators, we focus a lot on building empathy for our customers, but what about the other humans—team members, other departments, vendors, external organizations—involved in the design...
View ArticleOur Go-to Resources for Running Retrospectives
2018 may have come to a close, but out of sight should not mean out of mind. Whether it’s to close out the year, a client project or the past month, retrospectives (retros) or debriefs are pivotal for...
View ArticleMaking Your Work Life Work
Depending on a number of variables, you’ll spend anywhere from a quarter to a third of your life at work. It’s no wonder researchers, educators and journalists have continuously published articles,...
View ArticleTool Share: Empathy Interviews
I’ve always thought marketing was a discipline that lent itself nicely to design thinking and other human-centered methodologies. Whether your goal is to increase brand awareness or drive conversions,...
View ArticleBrainstorms: the Gateway to Creative Culture Change
As of writing this blog post, I’ve led or facilitated over 150 workshops, sprints and strategy sessions in the past 3 years for TDG clients. And whether delivered to senior leadership, department/team...
View ArticleTool Share: Love + Break-Up Letters
In anticipation of our upcoming workshop, Facilitating Design Thinking, a few members of our team will be sharing their favorite tools and how to go about using them. Last week, TDG Marketing Guru,...
View ArticleTool Share: Personas
In anticipation of our upcoming workshop, Facilitating Design Thinking, a few members of our team will be sharing their favorite tools and how to go about using them. So far, TDG team members Jane...
View ArticleThe Design Gym’s Collaborative Design Activities for Remote Teams
BY: Erin Lamberty + Kelsye Gould Throughout the years, we’ve seen design thinking evolve in many ways. Having moved beyond product teams, design thinking is also showing up in marketing teams striving...
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