For more than 40 years, Sage has helped businesses of all sizes navigate complex business environments. While many of its larger customers have the means and the structure to support climate initiatives, many of its smaller customers do not.

Sage wanted to help its SMB customers get ahead of future climate regulations and meet consumer expectations. And building carbon-footprint evaluation and mitigation tools would also dovetail nicely with Sage’s own climate aspirations: cutting its own emissions in half by 2030. Together, Sage and IDEO investigated how the company could leverage the data in its platform to calculate its customers’ emissions, both direct and indirect, and how that information could spur action as they aim to hit net zero.

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To get started, the design team went deep with customers running all kinds of businesses—from a taxi company to a champagne bar to a falconry center. Business owners shared that their focus often has to be on the day-to-day, a series of small decisions that, when added together, lead to business success. For many, tackling a problem as complex as climate change felt overwhelming. IDEO and Sage synthesized those insights and began working across verticals and products, bringing together experts from marketing, technology, sustainability, and operations to build out new concepts. With the help of two carbon accountants, the team worked to figure out how existing data could inform customers about both their direct and indirect emissions, which can be harder to track. Given how tight SMBs’ margins are, they focused on how that knowledge could fuel emissions-cutting changes that also save money, giving businesses extra incentive to take action. Together, the team created a roadmap of customer outcomes and experience guidelines to help shape future products.

Sage has taken that work forward, launching Sage Earth, a platform that aims to help businesses measure, manage, and mitigate emissions—even across supply chains. With carbon accounting now built directly into all Sage Accounting and Sage for Accountants products in the UK, Sage has made climate action practical and accessible for millions of SMBs. By automating emissions measurement and reporting, Sage Earth removes barriers of cost and complexity, empowering business owners and their accountants to stay competitive in supply chains where up to 95 percent of emissions occur. 

From co-developing the UK Voluntary SME Carbon Reporting Standard to launching a Carbon Accounting API, which gives banks, fintechs, and other platforms access to Sage’s Carbon Engine, Sage is embedding sustainability into the systems people already trust—helping hundreds of thousands (and rapidly increasing) small businesses turn climate ambition into everyday action.

Small- and medium-sized businesses—companies with fewer than 500 employees—make up about 90% of the world’s businesses, according to U.N.-backed SME Climate Hub.

Two thirds of small businesses don’t know how they’re going to reach net zero, and lack the resources to do so, according to a recent survey by SME Climate Hub. Still, the majority reported they want to act on climate, recognizing it can help them become a more resilient business.

Large companies may be the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses, but an estimated 80% of those emissions come from supply chains—often made up of smaller enterprises.

Scaling rapidly

in the three years since the launch of Sage Earth, which is now being used by hundreds of thousands of businesses

World's 1st

open-source hybrid emissions factors dataset, Carbon Commons, led by Sage, helps SMBs calculate carbon footprints using existing data

Menopause is much more than a biological transition—it is a profound shift that often arrives just when people experiencing it start to feel invisible. Because it has long been shrouded in darkness as an unmentionable female affliction, those going through menopause often feel unprepared and alone.

Recognizing that its customer demographic makes QVC uniquely positioned to surface conversations and provide support to those dealing with menopause, the video commerce retailer partnered with IDEO to figure out how it could not only meet customer needs, but also flip the conversation on midlife. To learn more, a team of female design researchers held in-depth interviews with folks experiencing it firsthand. The people they spoke to had limited information about what was going on with their bodies, and in some cases, it took years before they understood that symptoms they were experiencing were related to menopause. Respondents also reported that midlife brought a change in social status and the feeling of being boxed in by stereotypes.

QVC and IDEO worked together to design an integrated suite of offerings that could give customers a safe space to discover and share more about menopause. That included an on-air programming series called “Menopause Your Way,” where QVC could support those going through menopause in the privacy of their own homes, a digital landing page with useful solutions, and social media campaigns to help women share and learn more about each others’ experiences. Because people experience menopause and choose to manage it in many different ways, the team wanted to create an integrated ecosystem of content that women could access according to their unique journeys. The new offering helped QVC  reach its core audience with solutions and relevant products, and created a space where menopause is out in the open and part of an ongoing conversation. And in the process, QVC evolved to become a more customer-centric company, putting its audience and their needs at the heart of its offerings.

9/10 of British menopausal women say society and brands overlook them.

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1 in 2 women in the UK admitted they didn’t know what was happening to them during perimenopause.

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Nearly 40% of menopausal women are being prescribed antidepressants to help manage their symptoms, despite 4 out of 5 describing the treatment as “inappropriate.”

Season 2

a series focused on menopause is now in its second season

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Healthcare is a complex web of institutions, interaction, relationships, and services. In England, the National Health Service consists of thousands of separate organizations spread across the country. This fragmented structure means that rolling out digital tools and using them to their full potential can be difficult.

NHSX approached IDEO and Public Digital, IDEO’s sister company, for help designing user-centered resources that would empower Children and Young People’s Mental Health (CYPMH) practitioners to use digital tools more effectively, shifting service design from a reactive to a proactive process, and allowing each regional organization to create the best digital services for their children and young people.

The team took a human-centered approach, tapping into the perspectives, challenges and needs of NHS practitioners and leaders across the system over months of research. They then designed a set of accessible, straightforward online resources, courses, and templates that would enable a practitioner to start their own local service transformations. These included everything from practical advice on improving users’ experiences of CYPMH, to teaching methods for service design, to content focused on achieving digital transformation at scale.

The resources were easy to implement and replicate, allowing mental health practitioners across the country to seamlessly integrate physical and digital, create firebreaks in the system, and better bridge the gap between seeking care and receiving it. They were designed to evolve over time, and the work is replicable across the NHS, with the potential to touch millions of lives.

By empowering practitioners to utilize these digital tools to ease the burden of care, NHSX plans to create a positive ripple effect across the entire NHS, its partner organizations, and the country at large.

In a study undertaken in July 2020, the first summer of the COVID pandemic, the NHS found that clinically significant mental health conditions amongst children had risen by 50% compared to three years earlier.

More options, more access

digital resources are helping children and young people access more options for their mental health care

It’s not easy to shift the paradigm for an entire industry. But when a company comes along that promises to reinvent air travel, it opens up a blue sky of opportunities. That’s the flight path for Boom Supersonic, which is thinking big about how passengers arrive at their destination not only faster, but also with a greater sense of wellbeing.

To really comprehend the experience of flying in the unique contoured profile of this ultrafast jet, and to help Boom make key decisions about the design of the plane, the IDEO team believed that you had to go beyond algorithms and schematics—you needed to actually board it.

Using a “build-first” approach, the team quickly constructed a full-scale mockup of the fuselage from plywood and foam core. That became a prototyping platform to test multiple seating configurations, galley and lavatory size and placement, luggage storage solutions, and other concepts that would differentiate and add value to the passenger experience. For the first time, the Boom team was able to set foot in its own aircraft and truly understand the experience from the perspective of its clientele. The exercise allowed the Boom team to confidently make decisions by comparing multiple cabin configurations and options in full-scale.

Throughout the project, Boom and IDEO invited future travelers aboard to interact with the prototype and offer feedback. That input culminated in a more refined model, with augmented windows, moonroof, in-flight entertainment screens, and sound design—all further augmented by a Virtual Reality component to allow our future travelers to fully immerse in this new experience.

Together, Boom and IDEO brought a sneak peak to the Farnborough International Airshow, a biannual exhibition for the aerospace, aviation, and defense industries. The event was an opportunity to give the industry and potential customers a preview of Boom’s innovative new jet. In collaboration with the client, an exhibition architect, and a digital production agency, the team created an immersive environment designed to make the Overture experience feel tangible, eliciting the wonder of this revolutionary plane.

Boom’s presence at Farnborough not only underscored the Overture’s progress but provided an inspiring glimpse into the future of air travel. During the air show the company announced the production Overture design, a market-expanding alliance with Northrop Grumman, and agreements with tier one suppliers Collins Aerospace, Safran, and Eaton. Not long after, Boom received its largest order to date, this one from American Airlines. 

The prospect of getting to London in time for dinner just got a little closer.

Boom plans for Overture to get from New York to Frankfurt in just over four hours instead of the eight hours spent on a commercial jet today.

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The Overture supersonic jet has a cruising speed of Mach 1.7, about twice as fast as today’s commercial planes. Overture is built to fly on 100% sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

20 Overture deposits

made by American Airlines, joining current customers United Airlines and Japan Airlines

Did you just cringe? Perhaps your nostrils flared in suspicion. I’m at the far end of the extroverted spectrum and even I have on that grimace.

I’m here to talk to you about creative warm-ups, and to once and for all distinguish them from their brash, single-toned—that tone being forced, high-energy social interaction—cousin: the dreaded icebreaker.

But first, a brief interlude for sports. If you have played or watched any sport on the planet, you know that athletes do not run straight onto the field, into the pool, or out on the court. (If they did that, their game would be garbage and they'd likely pull a hammy.)

Athletes always warm up, and I’d argue that if you were to take one thing from the world of sports to use in your everyday work, it’s this: warm-ups are the thing that can radically change your game.

But if they’re not uncomfortable team cheers or cringe-worthy partner games, what are they?

Warm-ups are a critical part of the collaborative design process. They're a strategic way to set individuals, the team, and the work up for success. And if you do them consistently, you'll build your team’s awareness muscles. You'll become more self-reflective, tuned-in, empathetic, and intentional about the work you are setting out to do.

Here are 4 reasons I believe every collaborative work session needs one.

1. They build psychological safety

Warm-ups can create space to show our humanity. Instead of diving straight into the work, take three minutes to go around the room and check-in with the question: “On a scale of 1-5, how is everyone doing today?” In doing this, we acknowledge that we are not business-people-robots, but are instead complex humans with emotions. Moments of vulnerability help build a foundation of trust, especially when modeled by those with seniority.

Though it may seem trivial, asking people to start off a session by sketching, then sharing a place they loved to play as a child invites everyone to put their voice into the room in a way untethered to expertise or authority. A first contribution is often the hardest, particularly for people farther down the power hierarchy. If you actually want everyone there to collaborate, create a safe invitation for them to participate.

Small moments where you make space for people to bring their real and unique selves to work add up. They build a sense of safety that will allow your team to take risks, challenge the status quo, and propose new ideas.

2. They help you get into the specific mindset the work needs

Ever had someone walk into your meeting in a crappy mood and subsequently prevent your entire team from getting down to business? Everyone is coming from someplace different, whether that’s a stressful one-on-one, a heads-down working session, or a two-hour European lunch.

Take the time to design a transition into the new mindset your work requires. It could be as simple as giving people two minutes to write the to-do list that’s clogging up their brainspace, then putting those Post-its outside the room. Mode switching is hard!

Don't forget to consider not just where people are coming from, but where you want them to go to. The mental place your team needs to be in for a synthesis session (perhaps pattern-finding or decision-making) is totally different than for an ideation jam (maybe pattern-breaking or generating). Think critically about what specific mindsets the work you are embarking on needs.

If you need folks to compromise and build together, have everyone draw an ambiguous squiggle on a Post-it, then pass their drawing to the right; turn that new squiggle into something, then pass each squiggle once more; and have the final person give the squiggle a provocative title and share it with the group.

Getting the right muscles firing up front will grease the gears, and you’ll find your team will be able to go farther faster.

3. They help you practice critical skills

Warm-ups are also a means for you to tangibly grow the core skills you need for your work. When you start a meeting with a three-minute brainstorm on the slimiest, bumpiest, or most laughter-inducing things you can think of, you’re creating a place for people to practice diverging in a low-risk way. If you try having everyone stand at the same spot at the window, each pointing out something they have never noticed before, you’re having them flex the skill of looking at something familiar with fresh eyes.

Working on these skills in a context not tethered directly to business outcomes builds creative confidence. It makes space for folks to grow through trying, flailing, or failing without pressure. When the time comes for them to apply these skills to the work at hand, they will have already built the muscle memory.

4. There's power in starting from a shared experience

The start of a meeting is mission-critical. As an experience designer, I know that it’s impossible (and not actually worth it) to design every moment to perfection. Rather, I focus on the few that really matter, like the beginning.

A warm-up is a way for your team to all start on the same page. If you set off on the wrong foot—or don’t set off at all, leaving everyone wandering whatever alternate plane they were on before your meeting started—you’re not going to get far.

This is especially true for a team where there is currently tension. Designing a human moment that everyone can share will help people start the work at hand with a common understanding. Having each person describe one thing that brought them joy this week can shift the dynamic and set the team up to think collaboratively rather than combatively.

Warm-ups are a breath—a moment to pause in days spent running continuously from list to thing to email. They help us create the necessary space to check-in with ourselves and each other, leave the unnecessary outside the door, and invite in the things we actually want.

Can warm-ups really do all these things? Yes, they can. But they're not a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to be intentional in how you use them.

Let's go back to sports. What can we learn? You have to warm up slowly—jog before you sprint. You have to warm up specific muscle groups—shot putters and synchronized swimmers don’t warm up the same way. And lastly, you warm up together as a team.

When you make it a ritual that every meeting starts with a warm-up, your team will come to expect one, start to feel like they need one, and eventually take shared ownership in leading them. All because they have built the habit of asking what they, as individuals and a collective, need in order to shine.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts on warm-ups for all your needs (like when anxieties are high, the 3pm slump hits, your team needs a laugh, or you are diving into convergence).

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Imagine yourself at a conference, team-building event, or bar mitzvah. The person at the front of the room claps their hands gleefully and announces they’re going to lead an icebreaker.

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IDEO’s global client and partner network gives us a unique view into how organizations are responding to rapid change. Recently, we decided to ask our clients what problems are keeping them up at night, and what promising solutions keep them leading with optimism.

We reached out to 55 global business leaders spanning 25 cities and 18+ industries. What we heard is that while uncertainty isn’t new, there have never been so many compounding causes for concern. A decade ago, it was easy to see what triggered the recession. Now, volatility surrounds us—in politics, markets, regulations, the environment, and society at large.

Leaders cited increasingly complex consumer expectations and interactions. They pointed out tension between fueling growth and tightening belts, and pressure to sustain their core businesses while spinning up new growth horizons. And they noted growing difficulty attracting and retaining the right talent.

Leaders agree that growth is still the primary business objective, but increasingly understand that the methods and mindsets to achieve growth have changed. In particular, it’s becoming more important and impactful to consider people—customers, employees, shareholders, and stakeholders—when making business decisions. A human-centered approach to strategy and innovation makes it possible to turn obstacles into opportunities.

How do leaders become more human-centered? By looking both inward and outward to identify the needs and conditions that drive innovation. Inwardly, it’s about evolving leadership qualities to encompass a combination of creativity, strategy, technology, and soft skills. Outwardly, it means testing tangible solutions with customers to inform execution and scale.

These shifts can unlock trapped value, fuel growth, and build trust and loyalty.

Our research identified six key tensions leaders face now. While tension can create stress, it can also—when approached thoughtfully—enable sustained balance between opposing priorities. In our client network, we see numerous examples of inspirational leaders and organizations learning to strike that balance, and in turn finding a new way forward that leads to profitable business growth.

1. Improving efficiencies while exploring new growth opportunities

In 2014, The Times and The Sunday Times worked with IDEO to define and design a new digital publishing strategy. The decision to move to four editions a day—and stop competing with round-the-clock breaking news—freed up tremendous resources to focus on big stories, and balance efficiencies with growth. Since moving to online editions in 2016, subscriptions are up 15% (April 2018) in a market where most content is free.

2. Balancing the needs of shareholders and stakeholders

Intercorp is a Peruvian conglomerate whose strategy focuses on providing Peru’s growing middle class with high quality and accessible healthcare services, competitive education, and financial service offers. In 2010, IDEO started working with Intercorp to design and launch Innova, a low-cost, for-profit education model built on the needs of families and aiming to make Peru an education leader in Latin America. Innova has become a successful business that investors are confident to back and scale. Innova has opened 63 schools in Peru, which will serve 52,000 students by 2020. They also recently opened the first Innova school in Mexico, welcoming 1100 students, and plan to open three more schools in 2020.

3. Rethinking data collection to unlock actionable insight

Ascensia Diabetes Care, a global healthcare company, has been a leader in diabetes treatment for over 70 years. In 2017, Ascensia set its sights on moving the company beyond producing blood glucose metering devices, to become a comprehensive health support provider for people living with diabetes. IDEO’s team worked with Ascensia to leverage real-time data from people with diabetes to identify behavior patterns, then share that information on demand with certified diabetes educators (CDEs). The team used the insights from the data to prototype various ways of connecting those health educators to people with diabetes, ultimately enabling a different kind of patient-provider interaction through live remote support and a suite of digital tools.

4. Approaching talent acquisition as a strategic venture

In order to future-proof its business, Mitsui & Co., one of Japan’s largest investment and trading firms, believes that they need to build greater internal capabilities to start and launch new businesses of their own, instead of relying purely on their trading investments. To that end, they have partnered with IDEO to create Moon Creative Lab, an innovation hub aiming not only to launch new ventures but also to develop entrepreneurial talent and capabilities as a strategic asset for Mitsui’s future. IDEO is working with Mitsui to attract, hire, and onboard new talent with skills and backgrounds radically different from that of the parent organization.

5. Investing in culture to build purpose and values

Leaders at Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, Zalando, recognized that staying competitive would not just require new offers, but new ways of working internally. IDEO partnered with Zalando to rally teams around a renewed corporate purpose, to deliver a best-in-class fashion experience, generating a greater sense of engagement and pride in the company culture. Zalando has since become a European success story that has sustained a high level of growth. The number of active customers grew by more than 15% year over year as of August 2019.

6. Refocusing leadership from individual experts to collaborative teams

Ford has spent nearly 15 years steering its global enterprise toward design-led innovation. By integrating teams to include diverse expertise and setting up dedicated innovation labs, the company has reduced both time and money spent on new product development while becoming a leading player in future mobility solutions.

Outside of the corporate context, there is a need for learning and development programs that can teach these new leadership approaches. IDEO and Tsinghua University, an esteemed Chinese academic institution, have created a year-long program to guide and support executives who aspire to transform China’s economy. The goal is to cultivate a generation of collaborative, creative, and purpose-driven leaders, enabling the country’s transformation from “Made in China” to “Created in China.”

Special thanks to a global team of IDEO collaborators including Charles Hayes (Shanghai), Michael Hendrix (Cambridge), and Madison Mount (San Francisco).

Illustration by Tynan Collins

With so many global challenges converging at once, businesses face unprecedented tension between present demands and future goals. Smart business leaders are formulating responses that will fortify their resilience and sustain growth. But many are also losing sleep over the monumental task of navigating through ambiguity in order to successfully adapt and thrive.

Inspired by the recent overhauls of government sites like gov.uk and boston.gov, Georgia tapped IDEO to explore how it could give more than 80 state agencies flexibility in the look and feel of their websites, while also preserving a uniform branding experience that residents could recognize and trust.

To get acquainted with the state, we took a road trip, wandering around the historic streets of Savannah, getting to know the resilient spirit of Macon, and soaking up the innovative energy of Atlanta. We learned a lot about what Georgians would like from their government, and took a strong look at how the look, feel, and content of a digital experience might impact delivery of services. But we also learned a lot about the difficulties of accessing—and providing—government services. Soon, we realized that this project could be more than just an identity exercise.

The state of Georgia’s population has grown 25 percent over the past decade while the size of its government has decreased by 25 percent. These diverging trends have put a strain on government staff, adding even more pressure to the promises of efficiency that come with civic tech. The transition to digital delivery is not easy, and governments around the world are working to define digital best practices. Because the work is still in progress, service delivery is a serious challenge. Our project wasn’t just about identity, but about how changes in CSS, information, and color schemes could fix the concerns residents had about trust and access to information and services.

During our journey through Georgia, residents told us they felt that government was removed from their lives, monolithic, opaque, and solemn. While it plays a necessary and—in some cases—critical role in their lives, their relationship to it was transactional. Armed with that feedback, our goal was to leverage Georgia.gov to make that relationship feel more collaborative from both a functional and emotional perspective. Thanks to conversations with many people from the great state of Georgia, we synthesized the shortcomings of government websites, explored the needs of the people, and came up with a list of three rules for anyone looking to create a better digital link between a government and its people.

1. Empower users to make an impact

When there are limits to what government can do, give constituents a clear role in how they can work with government to solve problems together. In our research, we chatted with civic technology expert Cliff Lampe, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information Studies. In one project, Professor Lampe and his students developed a technology that allowed residents to flag the presence of rats in their neighborhoods. Though the technology empowered residents to report health and safety issues, the staff in Ferndale, Michigan didn’t actually have the capacity to keep up with them. They started replying to requests for support with information about what residents could do to help mitigate the rat population, like getting rid of clutter in the backyard or keeping pet food inside. Instead of ignoring work it couldn’t get to, the government brought the people into a collaborative relationship, so that they could fight the rodent population together.

2. Leverage UI to let residents know that government is on their side

People on both sides of the conversation called interacting with the government “a necessary pain.” Government staff recognize that if you’re coming to a website to pay taxes, you’re probably not in the greatest mood. Residents often mentioned that the look and feel of the websites didn’t give them the sense that they were welcome to reach out and call agency staff for help.

Our testing of early prototypes revealed that shifts in language and color schemes could change how both government staff and residents felt about their experiences. When we changed the color scheme from a traditional red, white, and blue to more approachable and ownable peaches and greens, residents used words like “warm” and “welcoming” to describe the look and feel. Adding language that invites people to call if they needed help also lead to a much better reception.

One resident told us that these changes gave her the feeling that the government services actually wanted to help her, rather than giving a feeling of what in the past felt like reluctant support.

3. Give constituents insider knowledge

When we visited Atlanta, we spoke to Tara, a program manager at a nonprofit that connects low-income individuals to state financial and educational resources. As an intermediary, Tara knows that state workers are stretched thin, so she advises her clients to do what they can to help move the process along. To this end, she has developed a series of strategies that make the process a little bit easier for everyone involved. Tara, like other superuser intermediaries we spoke to, relies on these strategies to empower herself in her work, helping to move the process along more efficiently.

Sharing tips on how to best navigate the application process brings residents into a collaborative relationship with agency staff, helping them understand obstacles and needs. Some of the tips that Tara shares with her clients include scheduling periodic check-in times to get updates on applications, keeping a file on previous conversations, and having key information on hand before making a call. Following her example, we provided step-by-step application instructions as well as advice from agency staff. Articulating these strategies on the agency website allows constituents to have smoother and more efficient conversations with agency staff without doing a deep dive overhaul of the service model.

Supporting collaboration between government and constituents doesn’t have to mean an overhaul of services. You can make things better with seemingly surface-level changes, like changes to tone, color schemes, and the way information is shared. Though they may appear to be band-aid fixes compared to solving larger systemic challenges, they really can change the way people see and experience their relationship with the government.

Special thanks to the residents of Georgia who shared their experiences with us, and to the IDEO design team of Tom Kershaw, Lindsey Turner, and Emma Baker that shared in this journey. See the state of Georgia's new website at pilot.georgia.gov.

Illustrations by Matteo Berton

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There’s a reason government sites don’t have a reputation for great user experiences. They rarely have the budget or staffing even for digital updates, much less innovation. But the state of Georgia wanted to change that.

New York is a city that invites (or demands) personal reinvention and grit, a home where you choose your own adventure and meet your true self.

While everyone comes to New York for different reasons, chances are each person is drawn to the seemingly endless opportunities, rich culture, and potential for discovery. The city is a blank slate for bucket lists that keep on growing. But New York is also notoriously difficult for many to navigate and discover. In the midst of everything going on, it’s hard to stop and see the magic that brought us here in the first place.

In the true spirit of design provocation, a handful of us at IDEO New York asked ourselves: How might we help New Yorkers get lost in the city, and by doing so, allow them to discover something new and surprising along the way?

In between projects, we gave ourselves a job—design some speculative concepts to bring these two complex, potentially oppositional ideas to life.

Lost

The first design concept, Lost, explores how we can lose ourselves in the city by going off the grid. As we asked people how they disconnect in the Big Apple, we heard about different rituals to reclaim time and attention: from turning on Do Not Disturb mode to giving an iPhone to the local bodega for safekeeping.

Intrigued by the implications these tactics had on a person’s digital footprint, we took this idea even further. Instead of simply flipping a switch or hanging our phones off to a confidant at the corner store, we explored sealing off our entire digital footprint with a 3D-printed aluminum Faraday cage. By blocking all wireless emissions, a Faraday cage is one of the only surefire ways to ensure your phone is safe from transmittance.

We added a touch of personalization to the design—the grids of the 3D printed file mirror the New York City map. By going off the grid before setting out to explore New York, you reclaim your anonymity, commit yourself to living in the moment, and immerse yourself in the serendipity of the city.

Found

You can find virtually any tidbit of information with a few taps: movie times, breaking news, the exact Pantone shade of a celebrity’s jacket. Our second design concept, Found, explores how we might reintroduce discovery and spontaneity into our daily lives.

As a nod to the legacy of open-world gaming maps, the app—affectionately named Streetheart—begins with the map of New York City shrouded in darkness. As the user moves, the app reveals the paths of the city that you explore, block by block, avenue by avenue.

By illustrating how much of New York City is (always) left to uncover, Streetheart encourages you to leave your comfort zone and embrace the curiosity and spontaneity that made the city magic in the first place. The percentage discovered feature reminds you of the scale of New York City and humbles even the most high-handed New Yorkers.

We pushed things a little further and coded a web prototype to test our concept out in the Big Apple. In just an hour and fifteen minutes, we discovered beautiful brownstones in Boerum Hill, a bustling downtown Brooklyn, an unusual park hidden near the Manhattan Bridge, and so much more. Yet a quick peek at the app revealed we only discovered 0.6225% of New York City.

In a city fueled by efficiency and hustle, we’re fascinated by choices that help us slow down, even if it means intentionally designing not for convenience, but inconvenience. We hope that Lost and Found allow you to lose yourself in New York City—and by doing so, rediscover the city and each other.

Taking the subway in the wrong direction for many stops; getting blindsided by the unimaginable smells emerging from the MTA; living among 8.6 million people but feeling completely anonymous, even isolated. These are some of the experiences IDEO’s New York community described when asked what living in the Big Apple is like.

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.