Globally, the European Commission reports, a truckload of textiles heads to landfills or is incinerated every single second.

The fashion industry accounts for some 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Less than 1 percent of the materials used to make clothing is recycled, according to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

The best way to keep clothes out of a landfill? Don’t make them.

Picture this: Not long ago, it wasn’t unusual for a customer to walk into an H&M store and not be able to find a basic white t-shirt in their size. Why? Like most long-established retail operations, H&M was operating with a push model—placing seasonal bets on what the demand for a given item of clothing might be, locking orders far in advance, and hoping that they were able to sell out. Make a mistake in that kind of model, though, and you can end up with customers unable to find the basics they rely on, or excess inventory you can’t sell. That’s a problem for the business, but for the environment as well—and one that doesn’t fit H&M’s aggressive sustainability goals.

Though H&M had tried to tackle the problem before, the launch of the H&M Group Design Studio, co-created with IDEO, gave the retailer the confidence to go after it again. The team started out by mapping out the complex network of people that make up its supply chain across the globe, meeting with everyone from designers to garment suppliers, logistics managers, and even folks selling the final product in H&M stores. 

They then created an algorithm for more precise ordering, as well as a tool that provides a shared view of information. Instead of placing orders, the new automated flow—dubbed “Cruise Control"—allows staff to work with a demand forecast that gives them more time to focus on customer-centric operations, like providing guidance and inspiration. It also makes it easier for H&M to follow the demands of the market, and place much more accurate bets on what consumers will want, when. Already, H&M has significantly increased sales while cutting excess inventory—a result that improves its bottom line, as well as its environmental impact.

Estimates project that by 2030, global apparel consumption will hit 102 million tons.

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22%

reduction in stock during a pilot program

34%

increase in sales during a pilot program

To foster creative projects that spoke to the needs of local communities and environments, the BSA began to engage its members in collaborative, user-led design. The organization launched its first-ever innovation challenge, putting out a call for all members to pitch their ideas for projects in the built environment.

The BSA expected those pitches to have dollar signs attached. To the organizer’s surprise, only one asked for funding. The rest requested less tangible, but equally meaningful support: advice, connections, specific expertise. Those are resources that the BSA has aplenty, but hadn’t learned how to leverage well.

From that first go at an innovation challenge, the BSA learned how to better support its members. It also learned that to lead with purpose and make strategic choices, one must develop the confidence to say no. Instead of spreading itself thin across many projects, the organization decided to take small steps, focusing on one initiative at a time, so that it can deliver focused impact and stay true to its evolving mission.

With 36% of global energy going to buildings and 8% of global emissions caused by cement alone, the architectural community is inextricably intertwined with both the causes and solutions related to climate change.

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According to a survey conducted by the AIA, the architecture profession in the US is less diverse than the population as a whole. This lack of diversity can contribute to a disconnect between architects and the communities they serve.

31

submissions received from innovators in the Boston region working on equity and sustainability challenges

5

innovation teams invited to pitch ideas

The resources that NYU students needed were organized by administrative department, and buried on disparate websites and calendars. But students don’t think in terms of departments—they just need to know where their classes are.

All of this became patently clear as IDEO shadowed students. Team members visited classrooms, walked with them through their days, and hosted pop-ups in highly trafficked areas to get ideas from passersby. That helped the team develop a common understanding of the overall student journey and grounded employees in the key moments that can either make or break a student’s experience. Visualizing their journey helped departments gain a shared understanding of the fractured communications challenge and develop possible solutions.

To synthesize those insights, we formed cross-functional action learning groups, challenging existing practices at the university and coming up with new ways of working. Participants came from a diverse set of departments, including enrollment management, student affairs, marketing and communications, IT, global inclusion, student services, the provost’s office, digital communications, and more. The cohorts sketched early hypotheses and got feedback from faculty, administrators, and students from all of NYU's undergraduate schools to refine initial concepts.

Collaborating with students gave staff a first-hand look at what students were struggling with and a way to engage students directly in addressing those challenges. Just as importantly, there was an overall culture shift at NYU: Administrators started with questions instead of agendas, came together around a table, and reached beyond their job descriptions to meet the needs of students.

First-year students reported receiving hundreds of paper forms, and email from more than 70 unique senders.

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NYU needed to offer students the right resources at the right time—and collaborate to serve them as a unified administration.

New services

in-production include centralized calendars, dynamic campus mapping, and customized notifications

Design-thinking cohorts

now support the student experience

Diversity alone isn’t enough—in marketing or any other facet of business. Today’s brands must authentically engage with and create the conditions for co-design with existing communities.

That sort of deep, meaningful engagement with customers doesn’t happen over Instagram. It requires a playbook, a prototype, and a healthy amount of trust. So, IDEO worked with Athleta and Gap to tap into the wisdom of a council of women who represent intersectional identities and lived experiences. The council surfaced powerful insights for the brand, like the fact that active women don’t need a brand to empower them—they already feel powerful.

After only a few weeks, Athleta experienced the difference between research and a truly reciprocal relationship. The way their brand engages with communities is adding depth, understanding, and authenticity to Athleta’s content, products, and experiences. And women can feel the difference.

76% of US adults say that the media promotes an unattainable body image for women.

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Fewer than 1 in 10 businesses review for inclusion as part of product design and marketing campaigns.

>2X

user growth in 2022

13,000+

Athleta WellPro well-being providers active on the platform

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Blockchain is a relatively new technology that will soon replace the underlying structure for a lot of the applications and services we use today, including systems for managing our finances, tracking our health, and determining how we connect, transact, and communicate with each other.

So, while it’s tempting to write off blockchains as something to leave to the coders, the potential human impact is too big to ignore. There will be user experiences, communications, and other completely new elements that will need to be carefully designed.

At IDEO CoLab, we explore the potential of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and the Distributed Web by building prototypes in quarterly sprints. A crucial part of our mission is considering human-centered values in the process of building for the future—creating things the world actually needs, not just more technology.

Here are three reasons why designers need to start thinking about blockchain technology today:

1. It’s bigger than just cryptocurrency

Many people are familiar with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. (And for those who aren’t, here’s a quick video that explains the basics.) Blockchain is the technology that forms the underlying structure for these digital currencies, and gives them the unique qualities that make them different from conventional lucre like the US Dollar. That structure includes the ability to exchange funds directly with anybody, anywhere in the world, without the need for an intermediary like PayPal, Visa, or Citibank.

But what most people don’t understand yet is that blockchain technology is about so much more than digital coins. At its essence, a blockchain is a new type of digital ledger which records information in a publicly-verified, traceable way across a decentralized network of devices. What this means is information for, say, an app isn’t just stored on a privately-owned server somewhere—it’s stored across multiple devices that communicate with each other to verify user activity, rather than referencing one central authority, like a Wells Fargo or Google.

Blockchains offer a new way of tracking information, and their applications are broad. Not only are they expected to pervade the financial industry, they’re also being integrated into global shipping, parts tracking, digital identity, healthcare, and other systems. In fact, it’s hard to think of an industry that relies on technology that wouldn’t benefit from using a blockchain.

With a potential to reach millions—even billions!—of people, designers need to start thinking about how they can use their skills to improve the user experience for all of the products and services that will be built on top of this new infrastructure.

2. It will change how humans interact with one another

Blockchain isn’t just a technology, it’s also a state of mind. Well, okay, that might just be the Californian in me talking, but all exaggeration and hype aside, blockchains are going to have a big impact on our culture too.

We’ll come to expect new things from our relationships with other people and parties, based on how blockchains manage our digital interactions. Mirroring the open, accessible code structure, people will expect the companies they do business with are open and accessible as well.

Consumers will demand more information about the goods and services they purchase. Companies will be held to a higher standard of data security.

Trust will become perhaps the most important design element in any system.

Imagine a world where all interactions are more egalitarian, transparent, and traceable—what would that look like? How might we design for this new world view?

(Check out this talk from CoLab’s Gavin McDermott to learn more about the 10 key landmarks of the decentralized web movement.)

3. Technology needs design more than ever

Our world is changing at lightspeed. As new technologies and tools are released daily, it’s easy to get caught up in the rapid pace without stopping to think about the human impact of what we’re creating.

We have a tendency to think of code and algorithms as neutral tools, but they’re not. Technology is neither good nor bad, it's how we apply it that matters. Everything we create has a human imprint on it—our assumptions, hopes, and fears are built into the systems we design (the bias in algorithms has been getting a lot of ink lately).

That’s why, moving forward, we’re going to need a group of people that advocate for the human experience—and human rights—as we develop these technologies. Especially right now, as emerging technologies like blockchain begin to take form, it’s important for designers to have a voice in that process from the very beginning.

How do you envision the designer's role evolving alongside blockchain developers? Let us know on Twitter or Instagram #blockchaindesign

Looking for ways to get started designing for blockchains? Check out this list of quick prototyping tools for emerging technologies from IDEO CoLab.

Blockchain. You’ve heard the word. Perhaps you’ve invested in a digital currency or two. But do you really know what the technology is and why it matters? It all sounds deeply technical—and it is. But it's important to understand this new tool, as it will have a big impact on our lives—radically altering how we live, work, and play.

We were joking about how Aaron's last name is pretty similar to Furby, the interactive Gremlin look-a-like toy from the late 90s. Someone suggested it would be funny if we modified a Furby so that instead of speaking Furbish (I think that's what people call the language Furbys speak?), it would repeat phrases in Aaron's voice. At first, it was just a joke, but then I mentioned I had a couple Furbys at home I'd been meaning to hack…

What’s a Furby?

For the unfamiliar, Furby was a coveted toy when it hit the market in 1998. Seriously. More than 40 million of the hamster-esque creature were sold in its first three years of production. Kids fell in love with it because of its child-like nature and the fact that it required feeding, nurturing, and constant attention. It also only spoke Furbish out of the box, developing an English vocabulary over time as kids talked to it.

Because the Furby was one of the first widely-marketed toy robots, it also appealed to the hacking community. In the early years, there were some news stories about whether the microphone inside Furby was listening in on private conversations, but thankfully, Furby does not use the microphone to record audio. Because of the ruckus over the microphone, there is a wealth of information on the internet about how to properly deconstruct a Furby, and how the Furby's insides function.

How I did it

The first step was to take Furby apart. Unfortunately, due to Furby's realistic personality, the process of deconstructing the Furby felt more like field dressing an animal. I had to delicately skin the toy so that I would be able to resurrect it later.

Once the Furby was dissembled I put together a vice to clamp down its skeleton; it almost looked like I was torturing it until it would talk...and in a way, I kind of was. With the Furby in place, I was able to access its inner circuitry and check out its voice box. After some initial probing, I turned back to the internet again and was able to find a full schematic of Furby’s insides, which meant I no longer had to guess and check what each part was used for and how they were connected. I could also disconnect the voice box.

After some reading, I decided that the best option for triggering voice playback would be to use the motors. Furby always moves and talks at the same time, so any time the motors are working, he should be talking. If I used any of its switches (belly, mouth/tongue, gyroscope, etc.) as an audio trigger, I would miss Furby’s unprovoked audio actions, the ones it does without user input. (Sometimes the Furby will start singing or fall asleep on its own.) Those actions are triggered internally, and I didn't have the time or resources to begin understanding how a Furby's brain works.

To build the the audio playback, I used a circuit board I created a few years ago that's a variation of Adafruit's wav/ogg audio fx board. My audio playback board is very similar, but it also includes the necessary circuitry for charging a connected lithium-ion battery. With this addition (and a voltage booster), I was able to power the Furby from a rechargeable source, rather than four AA batteries.

Now that most of the individual pieces were developed, it was time to play Dr. Frankenstein and connect the parts together to give Franken-Furby life.

I used the newly vacant battery holder space to store the Furby’s new guts...err circuitry. This was an ideal location because there were already holes to run new wiring up to the Furby’s body. I added a wire to break out the motor trigger line for monitoring. I was able to monitor the motor with a basic analog comparator (LM311), and use the output to trigger audio playback. I then amplified the audio output with a class D amp, before connecting to the Furby’s speaker with two more wires.

Last, but not least, I added a few clips of Aaron speaking at various events to the audio playback board. We may or may not have have played around with loading some more inappropriate vocals (i.e. creepy laughing and other Halloween-themed sounds) first for kicks, but things got a little too creepy, so that didn’t last long.

The result

We presented the Franken-Furby to Aaron at his goodbye party, and it was a hit! Unfortunately, because it was a goodbye gift, it's no longer possible to work on that Furby anymore. But I’m game to hack more Furbys. My next goal is to create a new version, perhaps integrating all the circuitry onto a single circuit board, and hopefully dig a little deeper into understanding how Furbys operate.

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Our Chicago office has a tradition of giving silly but relevant goodbye gifts to departing colleagues. The goal is to make their exit a little more light-hearted for everyone, as well as give our erstwhile colleagues a sort of inside joke to take with them. When a friend and colleague of mine, Aaron Ferber, was leaving to pursue another passion in St. Louis, we started ginning up ideas for his send-off.

Thankfully, we have smarter tech tools than ever to help us spin through these cycles at a sprint. In a recent Quora Session hosted by IDEO U, we reached out to the entire IDEO community to ask what design research technology and other trends they're excited about. Here’s what we heard:

1. Going rogue

Influenced by Jan Chipchase and The Field Study Handbook, the “pop-up studio” model for doing design research in challenging, less-explored environments is finding success. Chipchase describes a pop-up studio as “a live/work space optimized for teams working toward a shared goal ... highly suited to international research, design, and innovation projects that require speedy immersion.” He talks more about the pop-up studio model in this Co.Design piece (and excerpt from The Field Study Handbook), “How To Do Great Design Research Anywhere On Earth.”

2. Smart sensors

Though some smart sensors are still in the early stages, looking at how sensors (from FitBits to smart moodmetric rings) can help inform our understanding of users' experiences. Projects like MIT's Dermal Abyss look into a future of smart, sensing tattoos.

3. Changes in data + privacy

With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP) taking effect in May 2018, design researchers in the EU and beyond will have to address changes to data privacy in a human-centered way, both in how we design our research, and in terms of how we explain it to participants. Understanding what that looks like in practice is important, so we published a little yellow book of Design Research Ethics.

4. Testing concepts in virtual + mixed reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are uniquely experiential and portable, allowing you to visualize complex ideas and measure user engagement in new ways. You can fully immerse users in an experience, get their reaction, and help them co-design (or redesign) an environment or experience on the spot using mixed reality prototypes. And now ARkits allow you to fully transplant a VR experiment with optical calibration—which allows you to retain the spatial boundaries and physics of a VR-created space anywhere on your phone. It’s pretty incredible.

5. Working alongside data science + machine learning

Most of us at IDEO predict that data science will complement and enhance a deeper understanding of qualitative research. By expanding our reach into data science, we’ll be able to understand how our designs are being used during live prototyping and piloting. Rather than relying exclusively on self-reported behaviors and stories, we’ll be able to collect actual interaction data.

But perhaps more interestingly, we’ll also be well-positioned to understand, both qualitatively and quantitatively, how a new artifact is causing a ripple in the ecosystem in which it was placed. As we strive to create disproportionate impact in the world, we’ll now have insight into what’s successful, and what’s impeding success. By introducing new areas of expertise into design research—legal design, policy design, infrastructure design, organizational design, behavioral economics, urban planning, macroeconomics, and more—we can begin to shift some of the fundamental underpinnings that can cause negative and adverse outcomes at individual, group, organizational, and societal levels.

6. Neuroscience x design research

One of our design researchers who studied cognitive neuroscience notes that there is a major connection between the brain and design—and a lot that we still don't know about that connection. This Quartz article discusses how neuroscience can help us create more effective human-centered cities. “Technology has now reached the stage where we can translate decades of neuroscience and psychological research from the lab into the city,” says neuroscientist Dr. Hugo Spiers of University College London. Now when we test prototypes, we can measure behavior, cognition, emotional reactions, physiological markers, and brain activity. Here are a couple more articles on the subject, from Forbes and The Leading Strand.

7. Digital forensics x design research

As technology becomes more ingrained in our daily lives, understanding how we live our digital lives—and the digital trail we leave as we go—will help unlock insights into new behavior.

8. Ethics in the age of artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) changes interaction and design in a way that's dynamic and incredibly complex. Because of its scale, adoption speed, and widespread human impact, it's important that someone raise a hand and ask the question, "Even though we can create this, should we?" Not all AI models are transparent and design researchers will increasingly become the voice in the room questioning its development. This isn't any different than what we do now, but it's more important in the age of AI.

This content originally appeared in a Quora Session hosted by IDEO on November 1, 2017. Special thanks to Ovetta Sampson, Dan Perkel, Michael Chapman, Samantha Miller, Rebecca Wint, Alana Murao, Mike Peng, Geoff Schwarten, Erin Bogar, Saige Perry, and Katie Clark for their contributions!

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Understanding the human challenge we're designing for is as much about inspiration as it is about information. Design research now happens in quick loops—gathering insights, building rapid prototypes, and getting feedback—rather than in a long and rigorous discovery phase.

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We have become accustomed to relating to these interfaces, and increasingly they are able to relate to us—taking in the world around them, talking to their users, and even inferring our emotions from how our faces change shape. I call this layer an Affective User Interface (AUI), a term borrowed from the field of Affective Computing.

Affective Computing is a field of computer science that develops technology that we might consider intelligent and emotionally aware. These new interfaces present a slew of opportunities and challenges, because as Dr. Cynthia Breazeal of the MIT Media Lab points out in her book Designing Sociable Robots, when a technology “behaves in a socially competent manner” our evolutionary hardwiring causes us to interact with it as if it were human.

And once we enter into that relationship, the personas we design for these bots affect our behavior, too. I’ve heard many people say that unassertive bots often bring out the worst in kids. When there are no social checks on rudeness—bots don’t tattle, after all—children tend to be more blunt, and can even become abusive.

That lack of assertiveness also affects adults. Reporter Leah Fessler researched how female-gendered bots respond to sexual harassment. It turns out that the assistants’ permissive personas can reinforce some disturbing stereotypes about women, and allow the user free reign to degrade them at will.

If bots can have a gender, I started to wonder whether they might also have a cultural or even racial identity. Considering the fact that these products allow us to choose between various accents, it would seem that designers have created nationalities for our bots.

I'm certainly not the first person to surface these issues. This New York Times piece by AI Now's Kate Crawford about "Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem" comes to mind. And there are many people here at IDEO who are thinking through what it means to be inclusive human-centered designers as we work on Augmented Intelligence projects.

To explore this further, I decided to conduct an experiment to surface the personality of these bots by interviewing them.

The key was to ask soft questions: Where are you from? How old are you? Do you have any kids? What do you look like? Even, Tell me a story.

These interactions were not actionable queries, and thus triggered purely conversational responses that revealed the “personality” that the bots’ creators had designed.

I recorded a video interview with each voice assistant and handed these over to a number of illustrators commissioned via the social gig site Fiverr. While a few of the artists had previous exposure to the bots, I was able to source English-speaking international artists in markets where Alexa and/or Siri were not available. Countries of origin included Indonesia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, the Philippines, and the U.S. For many of them, my videos were their first meaningful exposure.

Here are the images that came back:

Drawings representing Alexa and Siri based on video interviews I'd done by illustrators who had little to no previous exposure to the assistants.

Gender came through clearly, but I would also argue that none of the illustrations depict a person of color. Whether they were intentionally designed that way is not the issue. If users perceive the bots this way, what kind of cultural pressures are they carrying into the home?

It’s something I think about a lot as a first-generation American who has worked in and around tech throughout my career. On my father’s side, I’m the second U.S.-born family member, and on my mom’s side, I’m the first. I grew up in a diverse community, and the tapestry of cultures I experienced was simply normal, everyday life.

I was aware of code-switching pretty early on; many of my friends and family had their normal voice and their “professional” voice, and they chose which to use in different environments.

Looking back, I first learned about it when my mom gave a wedding speech.

My brother was shocked; he didn’t recognize the voice that he heard. I had to explain to him this was my mother’s work voice. Code switching isn’t inherently bad—we all do it to some degree—but if we’re to design Affective User Interfaces that are truly human-centered, then we must consider that for some, the switch requires more effort.

Inclusivity is not just an issue at the bleeding edge of tech. We’re seeing a growing body of evidence that those who speak outside of mainstream vernaculars have a harder time being properly recognized by affective systems.

This represents an accessibility challenge, but one that is resultant from a cultural rather than physical challenge. In a tech industry that is known to be monocultural, we must take steps to ensure our affective systems are not just designed to be useful to their creators, but inclusive of the full spectrum of people their products will serve.

Because ultimately what’s at stake is trust. Studies have shown that when brands lose trust, they lose customers.

As designers, it’s our job to expand the usability of our affective devices to ensure they serve the rich tapestry of people, cultures, and vernaculars they will encounter.

Beyond being good design, it’s good for business, because in our affective future the products that win will be the ones that users trust.

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Behind every interface, there's a designer. More like a team of them. And those designers have a lot to consider: What should Siri sound like? What kinds of things will people ask Alexa to do? How will users expect the Kuri robot to respond when they crack a joke?

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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The conversation also gets into how Sida makes design decisions: the language Cue uses to describe itself, the tradeoffs behind building inside iMessage instead of a new app, and a real story about a business idea that didn’t pan out.

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This is the second in a two-part series profiling founders from IDEO's Startups-in-Residence program. The first conversation is with Johannes Seemann, founder of Sooner, on designing GenAI for the emotional side of money.

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that does not neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann and Becca Carroll discuss why money is emotional before it is mathematical, and what a human-centered approach to building a generative AI financial product looks like in practice.

Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, about what distinguishes genuinely curious leadership from performative curiosity, how power dynamics shape curiosity, and why practicing curiosity can restore energy rather than drain it.

Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box and Range, about why total freedom often produces average work, how leaders can design useful limits on purpose, and what organizations such as General Magic and Pixar reveal about the relationship between boundaries and creativity.