American businesses are on notice: To be competitive in today’s market, you must diversify your workforce.

One way to widen the talent pool is to pay closer attention to people who have acquired their skills through alternative routes. Millions of Americans learn on the job, in community colleges, at boot camps, or through life experience. According to Opportunity@Work, more than 70 million Americans are overlooked because of degree requirements. Despite their abilities, these “STARs” (those who are skilled through alternative routes) find themselves stuck in jobs for which they’re overqualified and underpaid.

Opportunity@Work, an innovative social enterprise, reached out to IDEO to help collaborate with companies, talent developers, and STARs seeking career growth. To make this overlooked talent pool more visible, we created a campaign and video to rally companies. We also designed a data dashboard to help regional employer networks identify qualified talent and potential partnerships with skill-building programs. And to provide STARs with direct support, we scaffolded the job-seeking experience, focusing on key moments like the interview process.

It’s time for businesses searching for talent to open their eyes, look to the STARs, and see what they’re missing.

83% of HR professionals said they had difficulty finding suitable candidates in the past 12 months.

62% of Black people, 55% of Hispanic people, and 50% of non-Hispanic white people have become skilled through alternative routes, such as community college, workforce training, boot camps, certification programs, military service, or job experience.

Over the past 40 years, inflation-adjusted wages have increased 8% for college graduates with a bachelor’s degree while decreasing by 15% for people with only a high school degree.

Thousands

of state jobs in Maryland no longer require a four-year college degree

skills-based

The White House is adjusting educational requirements for I.T. professionals in favor of a skills-based approach

For many organizations, frontline workers like grocery store clerks, nurses, hospitality workers, and transit employees are an essential part of doing business.

So much so that they continued to show up at the office throughout the COVID-19 pandemic even as everyone else went remote. As the point of contact with customers and key systems, these workers often know exactly when, where, and why things don’t work, and they come up with powerful hacks and workarounds to make things better. Yet these insights and innovations rarely make it to the corporate office. And that’s a problem: large organizations often hire design and innovation consulting firms while not taking advantage of a latent source of deep, in-house expertise. It’s equally discouraging to workers who would gladly share their ideas if they were only asked. No surprise, then, that frontline workers are quitting their jobs in droves.

What could companies learn by listening?

IDEO partnered with the Ford Foundation to create the Worker Voice Design Lab, where leaders from a port authority, an airline, and a health care provider worked alongside frontline workers. That led to the planting of a seed of innovation in each organization, with interventions designed with and by workers implemented operationally at the core of the business. In one case, a group of workers zeroed in on specific problems with such clarity that they were quickly able to develop a digital prototype for testing. No one was less surprised than the workers themselves, who simply said: Well, nobody ever asked us before. Sometimes the most innovative idea a leader can have is to listen, learn, and act on their employee’s smart ideas.

A large portion of the job churn since March 2020 has been concentrated in frontline services such as accommodation, food services, and retail.

Lack of career growth is the number one reason people leave their jobs according to more than 18,000 frontline workers across 150 companies.

2 pilot initiatives

being led by frontline workers in 2022

The climate era demands new offers and new ways of working.

Would you like to be able to plug your jigsaw into your truck? How about taking a fully reclined snooze after a long day of fishing? Questions like these led to quick prototypes that ended up in Ford’s new, electrified F-150 truck, which has more outlets than the average apartment and can power your entire home. This was no small update. The way Ford reimagined the truck experience from powertrain to power nap is emblematic of how much customer-centricity is now embedded in Ford’s culture.

For well over a decade, we’ve partnered with Ford in the U.S., the EU, and China to help the organization bring to life a shared vision of the future of mobility. Together we scaled new capabilities throughout the company by running proof-of-concept “beacon” projects and, to embed this new customer-centric mindset, built a human-centered-design hub called D-Ford. This organization within the organization has become a magnet for talent and is spread across six global locations: London, Shanghai, Melbourne, São Paulo, Palo Alto, and Detroit. Ford’s commitment to serving the needs of people and the planet is what propelled the rethink of the F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for over 40 years. It was a high-stakes move, and one that represents a major turning point for the automaker: For the first time, its primary profit source would be electric. The new Lightning is still built Ford tough, but also built for the future.‍

Passenger vehicles produced 41% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in 2020.

One in every 20 passenger vehicles sold in the United States is a Ford F-150.

Before going electric, the Ford F-150 emitted about 100 tons of CO₂ over a 200,000-mile lifespan.

200,000

pre-orders of the electric F-150 truck, named one of Time's Best Inventions of 2021

Most Innovative Design Company of 2022

according to Fast Company

America’s leading retailers share a common goal—doing less harm to the planet.

The systemic challenges standing in the way require a bold new approach, and no single company can solve them alone. So Closed Loop Partners convened a group consisting of founding partners CVS Health, Target, and Walmart, along with 12 other leading retailers. As the innovation partner, IDEO helped launch a global search for breakthrough sustainable ideas that yielded more than 450 submissions from startups and entrepreneurs to reinvent the single-use plastic retail bag, with nine finalists entering a six-month accelerator.

New alternatives ranged from biodegradable solutions to systems that kept reusable bags in rotation. IDEO teams not only facilitated collaboration between startups and sustainability leads from partner retailers, but also provided a boost of additional expertise from industrial, data, and business designers. In a matter of months, teams were able to launch prototypes in select CVS Health, Target, and Walmart stores in California and New Jersey.

Everyone involved in the consortium knew that replacing single-use plastic retail bags is a problem that won’t be solved quickly or easily. But the Beyond the Bag challenge helped them learn that designing for the policy and infrastructure of tomorrow requires tangible steps, taken together, today.

A hundred billion plastic bags are used in the US every year, and less than 10% of them are recycled.

Every year, plastic retail bags are among the top ten items found on beaches and waterways worldwide.

9

stores tested solutions across Northern California

Millions of dollars

raised by two startups

2

startups acknowledged by Fast Company's World Changing Ideas Awards

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For the better part of my career, I had been conditioned to believe that employees are either adding value to an organization by working in immediate service of its bottom line, or they are not, and should subsequently be disciplined. I was terrified I was in the latter camp. Over time, though, I began to take more deliberate notice of how my IDEO colleagues spent their “white space” time between projects.

My friend, Dave hacked an Android tablet into the housing of a 1980s GRiD laptop to celebrate the life of IDEO cofounder Bill Moggridge. Three IDEO Chicago colleagues made an LED-powered, floating cloud installation that communicates current weather conditions by changing color. And a pair of engineers created an automated, Arduino-powered, steampunk-themed shandy machine to keep colleagues hydrated during summer parties on the Chicago studio's roof deck.

With my Pavlovian conditioning coming undone, I dove head first into the fray. During a few hours of project downtime, a teammate and I outfitted an old Mac Classic with an iPad for its screen. Was I reprimanded for using company equipment for a side project during work hours? Quite the opposite. I was told to post an image of our creation to the IDEO Instagram account.

Since then, I have experimented with pumpkin carving via laser cutter; flown toy cars from rooftop ramps into frothy mugs of beer; teamed up with a friend to explore and film fluid dynamics studies using a syringe and typewriter ink; 'printed' Nyan Cat out of yarn via a hacked, decades-old electronic knitting machine; and twice stencil-graffitied IDEO’s San Francisco headquarters—once with moss and once with superhydrophobic solution.

So, why do we create these things? Because even before we’re designers, we’re makers. And taking a few moments away from our day-to-day work for unorthodox and inspiring creations often fulfills our need to make. When we bring this energy back to our teammates, we work better together, and we do better work.

Creating stuff makes us happy. And doing it together makes us better designers. This is why we make.

There is little more terrifying than having non-billable time at work. The first few weeks of my employment at IDEO were a nervous time for me. I was intermittently assisting a few project teams, but it would be an excruciating few weeks before I was staffed full time to a client project.

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1. Closca Fuga Foldable Helmet, 2. Alphabet Compendium, 3. Crosley Messenger Turntable, 4. Uuni 2s Portable Pizza Oven, 5. Universe2go, 6. Roting 600 Drafting Pencil, 7. Olloclip 4-IN-1 Lens, 8. HAY Tower Block Notepad, 9. Night Notebook, 10. Keep Cup, 11. Appointed Workbook, 12. Alite West Bluff Pack, 13. Sharpie Stainless Steel Permanent Marker

Closca Fuga Foldable Helmet

Helmets are a total necessity, but carrying them around is a pain. The Closca foldable bike helmet solves that problem, collapsing down to half of its size (about 2.4 inches tall), making it possible to hide away in a backpack or purse. The 2015 Red Dot award winner is also certified to global safety standards, so all you have to worry about is picking the right color.

$140

closca.co

Alphabet Compendium: An Illustrated A-Z of Things

Isometric mural illustrator Nigel Sussman has poured the same style he's used to decorate the walls of tech companies like Google and eBay into his first book, Alphabet Compendium. His hyper-detailed drawings cover everything from the aardvarks to the zucchinis.

$29.95

http://alphabetcompendium.com/

Crosley Messenger Turntable

The Crosley Messenger Turntable lets you spin records anytime, anywhere, thanks to its messenger-bag style design. With built-in speakers and a headphone jack, you can share the music, or go it solo.

$90

crosleyradio.com/

Uuni 2s Portable Pizza Oven

Have a pizza lover in your life? This wood-burning oven goes from ambient temp to 932˚F in just ten minutes. Stainless steel construction means it can handle life in the great outdoors, and Uuni's wood pellets are sustainably sourced, so you don't have to feel guilty. They'll even plant a tree for every bag of pellets sold.

$299

uuni.net/

Universe2go: My Personal Planetarium

This star viewer and app combo give you a closer look at the real night sky, not the dome of a planetarium. Take a guided tour of the stars above you—it will illustrate constellations, help you discover planets, and even point out moving objects like comets and satellites.

$99

universe2go.com

Roting 600 Drafting Pencil

This is one serious pencil. The iconic, metal design has a comforting heft to it, and its hexagonal base makes it easier to hold in your hand. Better yet, it won't roll off your table. Choose between .5 or .7 lead.

$37

rotring.com/us

4-IN-1 Lens

Help your loved ones kick up their iPhone photography game with four quick-change lenses (fisheye, wide-angle, macro 10x and 15x) that fit right on top of the iPhone. Panoramas and extreme close ups are made easy with the 4-IN-1 Lens, which is small enough to fit in a pocket. It's a selfie-lovers' dream.

$80

olloclip.com

With the Macro 15x lens on the right. Without on the left.

HAY Tower Block Notepad

A beautiful, ombré tower of notes just waiting to be sketched on. Available in fade coral and fade orange. Drool.

$25.00

store.moma.org/

Night Notebook

Spare, beautiful, and conveniently on sale, this blank Poketo notebook is perfect for capturing your thoughts. And thanks to Smyth Sewn binding, it lies totally flat, making doodling in your notebook easier than ever.

$6

poketo.com

Morning, Day, Evening, and Night Notebooks

Keep Cup

These eco-friendly cups out of Australia are made using waste product from the manufacture of wine corks. Their designs include everything from basic colors to characters from the Star Wars universe. Now you just have to decide between the resistance and the evil empire.

$24

us.keepcup.com

Appointed Workbook

A spare, utilitarian design with a durable cover, this notebook can handle the abuse of every day. Choose between classic navy or white.

$24

appntd.com/

Alite West Bluff Pack

A backpack rugged enough for the outdoors, but designed with commuters in mind, the West Bluff pack has an interior laptop sleeve and a padded back built for comfort. It's perfect for the urban explorer in your life.

$48.99

alitedesigns.com

Stainless Steel Permanent Marker

Add some cred to your brainstorms with this stainless steel Sharpie.

$9.50

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Struggling to find ideas for the designers on your list? Browse our most coveted tools and trinkets, from notebooks to fine nibs to the perfect traveler's mug for your fixie pannier sidebag. Just beware: it's pretty tempting to pick up something for yourself.

The meditation techniques below are designed to help you harness creativity by encouraging you to take time to pause and bring a more intentional approach to your work. They’ll help you cultivate a designer’s mind, characterized by:

• An open and curious mindset that can look at challenges from many angles.
• A rigorous and organized methodology for thinking holistically about a problem.
• Clear visual and verbal communication skills to work through and articulate potential solutions.
• A positive and optimistic outlook that can transform problems into solutions.

Here are 3 exercises to try out that should kick start your creativity:

1: Flowing River

If you’re feeling stuck with a problem you’ve been working on, taking a walk around the block or grabbing a breath of fresh air are both useful exercises, because they allow you to leave a problem behind and come back to it with fresh eyes. In that same vein, this first exercise is a highly visual and engaging way to clear some of the noise in your head.

Close your eyes and picture yourself sitting on a large, smooth rock in the middle of a river. It's up to you how big or powerful the river is, just make sure you feel comfortable on the rock you're on, and turn to face directly upstream. Sit there for a moment and start to breathe steadily, adjusting yourself to make sure you’re comfortable. Now look up the river, and whenever a thought enters your head allow it to float down towards you. Recognize what it is, give it a nod if you need to, and let it continue to float past you down the river. As other thoughts, worries, or memories come up, continue to picture them floating by until all you see is a clear-flowing river ahead. Take a deep breath and open your eyes.

2: Cloud of Gold

Sometimes when you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, the natural tendency is to work harder and longer, and sacrifice things like taking walks, having an enjoyable lunch with a friend, or taking the time to let your mind wander. This exercise is designed to instill a feeling of optimism and positivity throughout your mind and body.

Close your eyes and imagine that a soft, delicate, golden mist is surrounding your head and shoulders. It might be swirling very slowly or just hanging there in space. It’s the most beautiful thing you can think of, and when you take a breath it fills your lungs with a wonderful sensation. Now start to focus on your breathing, taking steady and slow deep breaths. Start by focusing at the very top of your head, and as you inhale, visualize the mist filling that region. When you exhale, picture anything negative or unhealthy leaving that part of your body and being replaced by the gold mist. This might look like some kind of pollution leaving your system, maybe a dark mist that you want to expel and forget about. Once you’re comfortable breathing in the good and breathing out the bad, slowly start to move down from the top of your head, taking a breath or two for each area you recognize. You might want to spend more time on certain areas, like your eyes if they’re tired, your neck if you’re feeling sore, maybe somewhere inside your head if something’s been troubling you. Continue towards your toes until you’ve filled your entire body with the gold mist and can feel it moving through all your veins. Open your eyes and stand up.

3: Clay Mind

Find a ball of clay, or something else you can sculpt with your hands. You want it to be about two inches in diameter.

Think about one thing you are working on at this moment. Now that your mind is clear and healthy, this is a chance to practice deep focus and put some love towards something you might be struggling with. Our brains are intimately connected with our hands, and this exercise takes advantage of the fact that we aren’t often reinforcing that connection.

With your eyes closed, hold the clay in your lap with both hands in front of you. Imagine that the ball of clay represents that challenge or problem you want to focus on. Take a minute to warm up the clay with your hands, not thinking too hard, just move the clay around and allow it to grow into different forms. What are different shapes it can take? Once it has turned into a smooth rounded shape, imagine that it represents everything connected with your chosen challenge, a tiny universe you can mold and explore freely. Continue to roll the shape around in your hands. Now stick your fingers into the center of that world and slowly turn it inside out. What do you see? Allow the inverse world to be worked back into a round shape once again. Next roll it between your palms into a long worm and think about what that represents. Could it be a timeline? An alternate reality? A way of looking at different elements of that world in a more linear way? Now divide your clay in two parts, assigning meaning to each part. Continue to subdivide into small pieces until you’ve exhausted the amount of elements you can assign a meaning or role to. What do you see? Is there anything you haven’t recognized before? Lastly, gather the pieces together and form them into a smooth shape again, and begin to slowly increase the pressure on it until your hands are holding it so tight they can’t move any more. Take a deep breath to allow that world inside you, and as you exhale let it go.

Illustrations by Adam Hilborn.

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We live in a world that values extroversion, production, and a lean approach to business and product development. Companies that embrace those ideals may be effective at pushing an idea out into the world, but might they lose something valuable to the creative process along the way? Like reflection, mindfulness, and a clear head?

Short answer: Yes.

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In design and innovation projects, we are always trying to understand constraints, eliminate uncertainty, and ground ourselves in the problem. But in any creative exercise, there is always a moment when the individual or the team needs to take a leap. And when that leap happens, you want it to be as dramatic, confident, and exploratory as possible. Put another way: There is a moment in any creative process when you actually want to maximize uncertainty. The Surrealist methods were aimed at achieving this, by embracing randomness and accessing the unconscious.

Here are five of of our favorite Surrealist methods:

1. Word Spinner

Make a list of 16 words that you find interesting, and number them. Cut out a circular piece of paper, write the numbers 1-16 on the circumference, and stick a pencil through the paper to create a spinner, like you'd use in a board game. Use the spinner to generate three numbers. Now write a poem or short piece of prose that uses the three words that correspond to the numbers.

2. Automatic Writing

This writing habit has been broadly adopted; it was featured, for example in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. The method originated with the Surrealists, who believed that forcing yourself to write whatever comes into your head without self-editing will lead to surprising creative breakthroughs. The easiest way to practice this is to set a timer, and then write without pausing for that period. Though uncomfortable at first, this practice can quickly become a valuable source of ideas.

3. Surrealist Collage

Artist Max Ernst invented this technique of cutting out imagery from multiple sources and reassembling it to create something surprising and new. He chose images of similar styles (for example, all black and white etchings) so that they all worked together in the final image. With so many images available to us in the form of magazines and junk mail, we all have the chance to become surreal collagers.

4. Frottage

This is a variation on the "found image" technique of collating. Instead of cutting images out of source material, take a blank piece of paper and a crayon or charcoal and look for interestingly textured surfaces from which to take rubbings. Layer several rubbings on top of each other to create an entirely new image.

5. The Exquisite Corpse

The most famous of the Surrealist games, the Exquisite Corpse is an example of a chain game—a game in which a piece of creative work is passed from one player to another. This one began life as a writing exercise, with players taking turns writing nouns and verbs. (The game gets its name from the sentence that came from the first time it was played, "The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.")

Over time, the game morphed into its better-known sketching form, in which players fold a piece of paper so that one person can sketch a head, the next a body, and the last one the legs.

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There is more to surrealism than Salvador Dali's mustache or people wearing lobsters on their heads. The movement, started one hundred years ago, was founded on the idea that creativity could be accessed by lessening the controls of the conscious brain, and giving free rein to the unconscious. Today's neuroscience supports their thinking: There is evidence that imagination and day-dreaming takes place when we are not focusing our conscious attention.

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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.