A humanistic, creative, and reflective approach to work and life

2023

Creativity in therapy

2022

How to inspire creativity/innovation in your team

Myst: thoughts on a revolution

2021

Design Thinking over 15 years

2019

Linear vs bubble working styles

2018

Enduring works

Doing diversity is hard!

Three ways to do innovation

Sacred Riana's greater whole

From data to insights and strategy

Over-reliance on data impedes innovation

Hospitals to start drug company

Flowing from ideas to up-and-running

2017

Sketch-draw digital art process

Can your business bank help (with innovation)?

2016

Three dimensions for understanding a problem

Anxiety blocks creativity

Recruitment approach limits fresh thinking?

On-trend is myopic

How to become more innovative

2015

Grounded vision

What drives a closed mind?

Use the whole wall

Selling game alphas is the ultimate lean

Diamond cutting: concentrate distil curate

Visualising De Waag

Tools and operating frameworks

Cross-ed FTW

Beliefs, assumption and acceptance

Let me tell you how it should be

Combining design thinking and applied psychology

Driving over vs walking around potholes

Design + applied psychology: A hybrid problem solving process

From big external to small internal

Global awareness, personal power

Reframing for new perspectives

Answers from unexpected places

Start an ideas diary

Build your creative confidence

2014

Escaping the status quo

Safety and positive affect in problem solving

Australia's start-up brain drain?

Happy medium age!

Industry habits and expectations

Solving the wrong problem

Driving innovation vs driving chaos

Vaclav Smil nuggets

Resource: What is Strategic Design

Maybe you need a project designer?

What's your problem?

2013

Whole-self, not wholesale

Going to the extreme

Inspiration fatigue

Past vs future focused

Innovation is...

Blind beliefs

Work is serial monogamy

Coping with disruptions

Be curious, be happy!

Co-design vs design by committee

What is vs what if

Killing inspiration

John Cleese on being creative

Cultural tolerance and creativity

Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance Index

Video: Workplace Bullying

Consumption and creation

The people component in complex problems

New resource: A problem solving checklist

Snow White and The Dark Knight

A matter of will

2012

Design thinking without design

A limited definition limits the leverage

Doing the opposite

Dehydrating complex situations

Copyright and innovation

Two Diamonds: Look deeper for better fit

Integrate play-time into your everyday

Social drives evolution from within

Innovate “within” and “across”

On the continuum of Do and Think

Businesses don’t care. Individuals do.

Radical adjacent transformations

Rebooting Finland’s education system

Strategy formulation framework

Strategy vs Plan vs Process

What is Strategic Design?

True rebels

Male mental illness costs business $237m a year

Workplace abuse

Fake smiles at work

Leveraging the introverted in brainstorming

Don’t forget convenience

Has "innovation" lost all meaning?

Texting makes you stupid

Too busy "productivising" to be inspired

Trading crutches for scaffolding

“Of the time…”

On self esteem and being open-minded

2011

Steve Jobs reality distortion

Downsizing trends and opportunities

Dieter Rams 10 Commandments of Good Design

Have we lost the ability to wonder?

Seeing patterns

Growth

The practice of zooming in and out

Learn to see the world differently

T-shaped people and Building Information Modelling

Same old

Making that extra leap

Another InnoFuture event tomorrow

Innovation is social

Resolving exceptions and social media

Hire designers to design or think?

Basic people skills still apply

Leveraging I and T shaped characteristics through the innovation process

Effective brainstorming [e-learning]

Disruption

Should we expect more from entrepreneurship?

Liberal vs conservative brains

Don't forget the quiet opportunities

From QMS to CES

More on moving from things to thinking

Superstition kills curiosity

Six Steps To Getting Results With Innovation

The impetus to change in times of comfort

From things to thinking

The Dark Matter that is consumer-led innovation

Innovation is not a business model

Low standards of experience

Experts, generalists and deep generalists

Innovation and operations model

Easy access to diversity

Selling innovation when businesses can’t and don’t want to be innovative

Most businesses can’t and don’t want to be more innovative

Resistance to knowledge, thinking and change

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Not not knowing and the next opportunities in the innovation space

2010

Probono work as innovation test-beds

Reflections on travelling: acknowledging differences while seeking similarities

The age of crises

Profits lie in the in-between

Interface-building as a source of new business ideas

Rethinking innovation – Part 12: The opportunities

Rethinking innovation – Part 11: Cultural change

Rethinking innovation – Part 10: Collaboration and authority

Rethinking innovation – Part 9: Cost-cutting focus

Rethinking innovation – Part 8: Analysis paralysis

Rethinking innovation – Part 7: Long-term thinking and imagination

Rethinking innovation – Part 6: Creativity as a new way of seeing

Rethinking innovation – Part 5: Time pressures

Rethinking innovation – Part 4: Ambiguity

Rethinking innovation – Part 3: Mistakes

Rethinking innovation – Part 2: Fear

Rethinking innovation – Part 1: Reality check

Clueless and care-less – why corporations fail at humanity, and thus will never be innovative

Commission-based remuneration kills creativity

China the Ikea of businesses

China the Ikea of businesses - service differentiation

Intelligence in the new interconnected, intrumented world

Empowering creativity

The barriers to an innovative life

Design Thinking

I & T-shaped people in innovation

Learning to play again

Obstacles to generating ideas

A Problem-solving checklist

Clarity in Design Thinking and Agile

Good taste and insecurity

Inducing society-wide changes in thinking and attitude

Rules

Ikea food

If it ain’t broke don’t break it (just make it better)

Knowing enough to break the rules

Is Hello Kitty the nemesis of creativity?

Just because we can, sometimes means we should!

Innovation is…

Environmental impact on how we think about the world

Being all things to all people

Why Group Norms Kill Creativity

Ideas: to share or not to share?

Design is innately innovative

Cycles

Two ways to ask why

2009

Infinite hybridisation

Double-edged sword

Language mastery and innovation

How to do a million good deeds

Folding plug

Excellence sweet spot

Reframing

Good and different

Transforming pain and suffering

Wealth is a barrier to innovation

Iceland – the land of generalists, real competition and admirable failures

The value of inappropriate ideas

Playfulness

Integrative thinking

Think wrong and start innovating

Play with a projector

Design thinking

Reactive vs proactive thinking

The new experts

Trickle-up innovation

Why we don’t subscribe to Rupert Murdoch

The ideas that hold us back

Innovation dearth in the financial sector?

Netbooks – more from less

The folly of the advertising account pitch process

Twittering and short-term thinking

Are you a Thought Processor or an Idea Generator?

Heineken’s innovation – no change!

Is Asian culture curbing creativity?

Silence is golden is innovation

Prinnovation

The folly of the tendering process

Perspective, perspective, perspective

The challenge of selling brainspace

Self-censorship and the fear of creativity

Cultivating innovation Alessi style

Jackie Chan’s restaurant

Fighting innovation inertia

Problem creation and solving

Imagine a world

The opportunities in being counter-intuitive

Interesting tools and tips from the Ten Faces of Innovation

Another type of giving

Re-imagine

Is your business a fundi or freethinker?

Cultural barriers to innovation

Blue on white is unlucky?

2008

Taking time out to see the big picture

Love keeps businesses excelling

Circular spectrums

The Innovation Interrupt

Valuing ideas vs “real work”

Tumble Weed Houses

Thinking sideways

Greater economy of scale = less innovation

Monoculture risk

Bigger hammer

In Odd We Trust

Curiosity

Simplicity is...

Silly post leads to potential idea

From knowledge worker to conceptual worker

Unexpected application

Fear dampens creativity and excellence

TV shows and emerging musicians

Extending an existing service

Ikea hacks

Singapore: The Missing T in Creativity

Language and innovation

Artists in residence; in corporations

A twittering experiment

Paul Bennett: Design is in the details

On sidewalks and thinking

Wonder, not decide

Singapore Airlines - differentiation through service

Tim Berners-Lees – making a difference

Most businesses are not ready for innovation

Innovation training and recruitment

Solutions are all around us

Ode to imagination

Play

Fostering innovation Google’s way

2007

A crate is not a crate

Reconnecting with creativity

The in-between

On the side of the majority

The security of being in a box

Baby or career? Talk to Karen Miles

Egg poacher - simple and useful

Design thinking

Permission to be passionate

Colour matching coffee cup

Lost in the rush

Dog food, exploding laptops and chlorine dioxide

Words of wisdom … from a commercial

Knowledge workers in the factories

Making magic - The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Education, creativity, talent, and the future

Practical vs innovative; doing vs thinking

How to be creative

Build your own remote surveillance drone

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Identifying vs solving problems

Can you really buy innovation?

Ideas come from…

When everyone else is looking the same way…

Don’t wait. Get small. Think big.

Doctor Who on middle management

Do you fear the cutting edge?

Multiple intelligences

What price happiness?

How to learn anything

Sometimes, the answer lies in turning it sideways

Showing visitors around your city

Are you engaging with your creative self?

Running effective ideas-generation sessions

The temptation of immediate decisions and being told what to do

2006

Self-directed education, slums, and simple enablers

There is always another niche

The computer as an idea generation tool

A Technique for Producing Ideas

On Thinkpads and bento boxes

Puss puss puss

Designing work to enable flow

Really really really good thought-provoking stuff

Flow

Eating to feed hunger

One-idea-itis and belief in a idea

Sharing is good

Good Business

The Peter Principle

What Is Your Life’s Work?

Innovation is not…

Cubicle Commando

Steward OR strategist

Contemplating an egg

Charities – the ultimate innovators’ training ground

Foaming toothpaste

There is nothing new

Exercise your creativity at the supermarket

Out of the ordinary - right now

Corner computer shops ripe for reboot

The Big Moo

Innovation is...

Invention vs Innovation vs Improvement

Reimagining car rental companies

Another take on photography

Act first, seek forgiveness later

Play is…

2005

Deviants in the boardroom

Train of thoughts (attention CityRail)

No ads ‘cos we care!

Common innovation myths

Learn respect or DIE!

Pull your head out

Changing rooms

Innovation is subversive

Insights from Year 11s

Think big

Fostering creativity

And the answer is: creativity!