The urgency of attending to our children’s mental health cannot be overstated.

Concern about their well-being was already on the rise in the decade prior to the pandemic. Alongside social inequity, the COVID era has seen soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts. Knowing that mental health is influenced by numerous systemic factors, we met with families of all income levels and heard from practitioners throughout Massachusetts. In some communities, mental health is candidly discussed, in others it remains a taboo subject. Through these conversations, we learned that mental health requires both individuals and their families to be educated, supported, and empowered.

HandholdMA.org helps families find services that work for them and gives them easy access to information on a range of mental health topics. It allows parents to learn from and support one another as they navigate the landscape of mental health together. We took special care to make resources feel approachable for those in communities of color, and curated new resources for everyone from preschoolers to teens—because mental health challenges do not discriminate.

In 2020, a coalition of the nation’s leading experts in pediatric health issued an urgent warning that the mental health crisis among children had become a national emergency.

The percentage of emergency department visits for mental health crises rose by 24% for children between the ages of 5 and 11, and 31% for those 12 to 17, compared with 2019.

87,000

site visits to to HandholdMA.org since launch

223,000

people reached in bilingual social media campaign

To help shift vivo’s thinking from a focus on products to a focus on brand-building, IDEO set out to help the company understand how young consumers experience fun—a core tenet of the vivo brand. The new concept store needed to convey joy and fun in a meaningful and memorable way. The project was about more than just designing the space; it was also about piloting into vivo’s future brand systems.

To kick off the project, the IDEO team conducted user research in four different cities in China, then shared the stories of young Chinese consumers with the vivo team. Their interviews revealed that young people value experiences that enrich their lives and create a feeling of positive personal transformation. They seek opportunities to discover new experiences, express themselves in different ways, expand and deepen their social connections, and build knowledge and skills. By leaning on this definition of “enjoyment,” IDEO helped vivo identify the value proposition of the concept store, helping consumers express themselves in new and different ways. The store would allow every visitor to see something unique and find a fresh perspective.

The vivo team took that value proposition into a design brief and later built out the space and interactive experiences. The second floor of the store is dedicated entirely to interactive experiences using photo booths, sound recording, and lighting technology, designed to provide consumers with the kind of enjoyment they seek. vivo launched the concept store in Shenzhen on March 22, 2019, marking an important milestone in vivo’s transformation from a smartphone maker to a consumer brand.

China consumes roughly 30% of the world’s smartphones—which presents a tremendous market opportunity for brands looking to capture young consumers’ loyalty.

Top 1

in China's smartphone market, topping both shipments (sale-in) and retail sales (sale-out), in the first half of 2024

260M active users

within two years of vivo Lab's official opening, with 70% of them young users

The program Tsinghua and IDEO created together consisted of six modules focused on creative leadership: Rediscover Design, Build Design as a Core Competency, Creating the Conditions for Creativity, The Financial Levers for Innovation, Designing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and Leading for Tomorrow. 73 Chinese and foreign experts helped teach the modules, including former Forbidden City Palace Museum director Shan Jixiang, the father of Japanese industrial design, Masayuki Kurokawa, and Jake Knapp, author of the book Sprint.

The program’s first cohort included more than 30 entrepreneurs from 20 different industries across nine cities. Participants completed the courses throughout the year, taking full advantage of holistic, interactive teaching and the opportunity to share their own practical experiences. Their feedback consistently demonstrated how the course had given them fresh approaches to problems their companies faced, whether improving internal communication or helping them see the clients they serve from a new perspective.

Liu Feng, the founder of a fast growing tourism development company, was particularly inspired by the Creating the Conditions for Creativity module’s six pillars of corporate transformation concept. Using these pillars, he not only refined the mission and value of his company, but also launched a series of measures to improve all aspects of its operations, from customer service to annual company gatherings. With a newly empowered team, he significantly increased the agility of the organization.

Ting Zhihong, the chairwoman of China’s leading logistics technology company, managed to double its profit during the course. She said her biggest takeaway from the course was how important it is to empower the team. Her company has now set up several platforms that give employees more room to experiment, create, and take part in frontline decision-making, bringing them closer to the company’s management.

Hu Chao, founder and CEO of China’s largest e-commerce platform for childcare goods, found that while other executive courses simply teach knowledge, Lead a Creative China taught him the importance of placing people at the center of what his company is doing.

The first cohort of the program graduated in December 2018. On April 8th, 2019, the Lead a Creative China program received an honorable mention in the education category as part of Fast Company’s 2019 World Changing Ideas Awards, becoming the only award-winning Chinese project in the category.

After 40 years of rapid change, China has reached a pivotal point in its growth trajectory. Across the globe, traditional drivers of economic growth have slowed down, creating opportunity define the new economy.

‍

The Chinese government has laid out a wide range of ambitious policy plans to ensure that China successfully manages this transition, and that the country continues to grow and lead.

Honorable Mention

education category, Fast Company’s 2019 World Changing Ideas Awards

China’s digital landscape is dominated by highly integrated mobile apps like WeChat and Alipay that seamlessly combine messaging, shopping, bill payment, and finance management. This shift toward digital-first interactions that are hyper-convenient, personalized, and intuitive has significantly shaped consumer expectations for experiences like finding, booking, and staying in a hotel. To stay competitive and meet—or exceed—young guests’ expectations, Huazhu needed to redesign its Membership App 3.0 to prioritize guest needs across all touchpoints of the hotel journey.

Through in-depth research and member feedback, IDEO discovered the true pain point the Huazhu membership app needed to address: seamlessly integrating the hotel brand’s online and offline experiences. The Huazhu Membership App 3.0 adopted “simple, stable, and real” design principles, simplifying user operations, optimizing the interface, fixing lingering experience issues, maximizing page load speed, and reducing crash rates.

The IDEO team discovered users have different functional needs. Sometimes, users want to search for hotel information quickly. Other times, they prefer to explore and browse content slowly. To meet both needs, the app needed to be optimized for efficiency and exploration. So, the IDEO team upgraded the interface of the Huazhu Membership App, adding quick operation modules and information blocks on the main page, as well as a downward scrolling interface that gradually slows the experience, offering channels for detailed exploration.

Customers also had different needs at different points in their travel journey: before, during, and after their stays. IDEO designed the language and user interface to provide personalized service information for each stage, from booking to post-stay. The app’s content adapts to the user’s travel phase, showing the most relevant service experiences at each point. The content displayed on the app also changes based on user habits, helping the app flex to meet their needs. The design aligns with the Huazhu Hotels Group’s mission to provide personalized service to a diverse clientele.

The team also worked to inject Huazhu’s brand characteristics by offering an upgraded experience in booking, stay, dining, and member benefits and adding features like a 30-second, automatic check-in experience. These thoughtful, personalized updates integrate Huazhu Hotels Group’s meticulous service philosophy, providing customers with a welcoming, human-centered hospitality experience. The updated Huazhu Membership App 3.0 is now available in major app stores, shaping a new generation of user experiences for Huazhu Hotels Group.  

Young travelers in China expect the first touchpoint with a hotel brand to be digital.

5% increase

in monthly active users after the launch of the App's 2.0 version in 2021

As we move through the world in 2025, we have a long list of things we’d love to rethink, if only we had the chance. Here’s what’s risen to the top of our list this year.

PRODUCTS:

1. LED headlights make driving at night painful—and dangerous. Am I getting older and cranky? Yes! But that doesn’t change the fact that headlight brightness has doubled in the past 10 years, and the last time I checked, roads have not gotten darker. There are ways to keep ourselves safe on the road without blinding our fellow travelers.
—Will Notini, Chicago

2. Food storage lids and containers always seem to get separated, leaving mismatched pieces that feel impossible to pair. Containers rarely stack efficiently, taking up more space than they should, and any attempt at maintaining an organized and sustainable system seems destined to fail. How might we redesign everyday kitchen organization to turn common pain points into seamless experiences?
—Sindhura Sonnathi, San Francisco

3. Same. In addition to them getting separated and inefficient stacking, food containers never come out of the dishwasher completely dry. I’m constantly having to dry them with a towel and needing to get in those nooks and crannies to get all of the water out. The glass, ceramic, and metal dishes don’t do this. It’s just a nuisance. Let’s fix it!
—Shavon Gervasi, Cambridge

4. Assuming you’ve figured out what app the show you want to watch is in, you now get the joy of having to scroll through TV interfaces with long, flat horizontal “trays” down long flat horizontal pages. Sometimes there’s a bit of variation (Rectangles! Squares! Larger rectangles and squares!) but it’s easy to get lost, and hard to flip back and forth between things you’re interested in. I don’t miss my cable subscription, but I really do miss some of the things cable figured out how to do well.
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

5. There must be a better solution than our current umbrellas. They're so inefficient and cumbersome to carry around. I always put off using one until I absolutely can't avoid it, and by that point, it often ends up breaking due to the wind anyway.
—Rita Nicolau, London

6. Many (most?) new cars have all of their radio functionality accessible only via touchscreen, which is 1) dangerous and 2) extremely inconvenient for your passenger DJ. Well-intentioned safety measures block smartphone syncing while the car is in motion (even when a passenger is doing the syncing instead of the driver), and many touchscreens require the user to navigate away from a map app in order to operate the music app or radio. Forcing all functionality to route through a screen is clunky and makes for a poor roadtrip experience.
—Meridith Halsey, Chicago

7. Compostable straws are better for the Earth than plastic straws! But, they get all mushy and disintegrate half-way through your drink. We can make something better.
—Nina Lampert, London

8. Why do white plastic fences exist? They’re a larger version of the white plastic bag. They are not good for the environment, they do not weather well, and you really can’t repair them like you can a wooden fence.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

9. This might be more of a revival than a redesign, but I’d love to build a version of The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) updated for 2025. First published in 1968, the original WEC was a compendium of product listings, how-to guides, and educational tools for those in the back-to-the-land movement, shaped by thinkers like Buckminster Fuller. We need a new version of that radical spirit. Whatever form it takes, a new WEC could offer practical resources, forward-thinking education, and hands-on toolkits with an eye toward sustainable living and ecological literacy.
—Beth Holzer, San Francisco

10. For so many people, financial decisions like planning, budgeting, etc., are group decisions—made with roommates, loved ones, spouses (former spouses!), parents, kids, and others. And yet due to a combination of regulations, conventions, and perhaps a bit of laziness, almost every financial product, service, or brand is oriented around a one-to-one relationship that people then have to hack or modify to truly use in a collaborative, group-first way. Does it really have to be this way?
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

11. Streaming services don’t financially benefit most artists. How can we create more equitable, scalable systems for artists to make living wages?
—Ceci Gomez, San Francisco

12. When I was little we went to the store to buy a dishwasher and the display models all had glass fronts. I came BURSTING in the door to tell my mom that we were getting a dishwasher with a window. The disappointment I felt when it came with a metal front is an understatement. Why don’t they have clear glass doors?
—Molly Rolig, San Francisco

13. Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) are tax-advantaged accounts that allow employees to set aside pre-tax money to pay for eligible medical expenses. And  my bi-yearly dental cleaning is solidly within the eligibility guidelines. However, after every dental cleaning, my FSA provider tracks me down asking for an itemized receipt to “prove” that the visit was covered—even though there’s nothing at the dentist’s office that I can purchase that is outside of that coverage. This doesn’t happen with any other eligible medical expense I incur; how is it still the case that paying for dental care gets constantly flagged as potential fraud? It’s a friction point that makes me not want to deal with FSAs at all. If FSAs are meant to promote preventative care, they should be designed to promote as seamless an experience as possible for the employee.
—Meridith Halsey, Chicago

14. Shower curtains are hard to clean, the metal rusts, the little hooks fall off, they make noise,  they are annoying to take down and put back up, and they aren’t easy to change out to suit your mood or time of day. Staying clean while keeping the rest of the bathroom dry could use some innovation.
—Dan Perkel, San Francisco

SYSTEMS:

15. Currently, the shareholder model of corporate governance requires the maximization of shareholder wealth, which has contributed to wage disparity, corporate greed, lowered local tax payments, lack of corporate social accountability, and inappropriate corporate influence on government legislation and policy. This could be redesigned so that, one,  shareholder wealth is only a part of the corporate mandate; two, corporate “freedom of speech” is curtailed; three, corporations have less influence over government; and four, corporations contribute more to their local communities and economies.
—Jeremy Sallin, San Francisco

16. In Capitalism, we have a system that is rewarding greed and nonstop growth, while that growth is now killing our planet. Something’s gotta give, y’all.
—Stuart Getty, San Francisco

17. Why are pedestrians, who are the most vulnerable participants in traffic systems, often deprioritized by cities and our infrastructure? Especially here in the U.S. At times when traffic is light (at night, for example), pedestrian crossing signals are red by default, while the signal for main thoroughfare for cars is green. What if all pedestrian crossing had a default state of “cross” instead? Also why do pedestrians need to request the right to pass by pressing a button? I’d want our cities to shift from car-first systems, to people-first and would love traffic lights to lead the way.
—Juho Parviainen, San Francisco

18. Why do I need to install a new medical app on my phone, every time I go see a doctor? Why must every practice have their own portal, their own system, their own login info, and their own interface? Even my doctor sometimes struggles to pull all of the inputs into a single place where they can see everything and give an accurate assessment and advice. How might we streamline the use of patient data into a format that’s truly efficient for physicians and patients alike?
—Shannon Vossler, Chicago

19. As cities face more extreme and frequent heat waves, our built environment is failing to protect residents—especially vulnerable populations like the elderly, outdoor workers, and low-income communities who often lack access to cooling. Temporary cooling centers and emergency response plans are reactive band-aids that don't address systemic issues in heat resilience. Traditional infrastructure (dark pavement, lack of shade, heat-trapping buildings) actively makes the problem worse. The complex interplay between urban design, social equity, and climate science demands innovative thinking beyond just adding more AC units.
—Nazlican Goksu, San Francisco

EXPERIENCES:

20. Meetings are the backbone of how teams align, make decisions, and move work forward—but too often, they’re baaaaad. Unstructured, dominated by a few voices, or overly reliant on agendas that prioritize activities over outcomes. This leads to wasted time, drained energy, and frustrated participants. By applying a designer’s mindset—clarifying objectives, prototyping small changes, and making discussions tangible—meetings can become opportunities for collaboration, alignment, and momentum instead of sources of friction.
—Matt Cooper-Wright, London

21. The behavior we let people get away with under the guise of “the customer is always right” never ceases to shock me. We subject service workers, in-store employees, and more to the worst side of human behavior all because we decided—what?—that paying money at a store lets you say whatever you want to the people who work there? I am a customer of various places, and I am rarely ever right (although you don’t see me screaming about it)! I’d love to see our executive class stick their neck out for their employees, who are their most valuable asset, and set stricter public standards for customers’ treatment of their staff.
—Andy Reischling, Cambridge

22. People used to associate travel with wonder and adventure. Now, people grit their teeth and steel themselves when making their way to and through an airport. Airports should not be malls full of stuff that no one really wants. Instead of having overpriced corner shops, what if we had libraries for books and items? Instead of a mall food court, what if we had places to recharge, refresh, and have a free healthy snack?    
—Dave Kim, San Francisco

23. Why is there so much beeping in hospitals? As a patient it is overwhelming. I am impressed that hospital employees can decipher all the beeps, emergency vs. non emergency.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

24. Commercial flights have been around for about 110 years,  and we still have to be there two hours in advance for a flight that is in the air for the same amount of time. The boarding process where you’re forced to stand in an even smaller space for 40 minutes before they open the plane doors deserves a human-centered takeover.
—Justine Syen, London

25. While people come to the emergency department for a whole range of reasons, they tend to have two things in common: they are nervous (for themselves or a loved one) and they have no idea how long they’ll be there. Instead of uncomfortable chairs, a single TV blaring the news on high volume, and a sad nearly-empty vending machine, there are so many opportunities to design an environment that better accommodates the feelings of stress and uncertainty in the air. A little privacy would be nice, too!
—Jen Halls, Cambridge

26. Can we all admit we made a mistake and just get rid of self-checkout? Where I live, in Watertown, MA, there are several stores that have gotten rid of most of their staff in favor of self-checkout machines and, simultaneously, put crucial items (like toothpaste) behind a locked door. Because the store is so understaffed, you might be waiting—and I timed this—15 minutes for someone to come unlock the toothpaste for you. And the machines themselves! We are all human here. We sometimes make mistakes with machinery that we are unfamiliar with. This just slows everything down and we end up calling for help in the end, anyway.
—Andy Reischling, Cambridge

27. Why does renting a car at an airport still feel like traveling back in time to the early ‘90s? Surely we can do better now. I want a better rental experience and 100 percent electric fleet.
—Juho Parviainen, San Francisco

28. There’s nothing like a good road trip. It’s an opportunity to get to know the U.S.  and the people you’re traveling with in a new way. Improved ground transportation between cities is associated with greater employment opportunities for working professionals and economic growth for smaller towns. As autonomous and electric vehicle technologies improve, I’d love to design an intercity public transportation service run by electric, autonomous vehicles to promote travel between cities, towns, far-flung national parks, and more in a way that is fun and adventurous while also promoting stronger personal bonds and broader economic growth.
—Natasha Alani, Cambridge

29. With skyrocketing costs for labor and delivery as well as growing concerns around maternity mortality rates (particularly for people of color), it’s time to redesign the end-to-end experience for maternity care! I’d love to explore the rise of maternity care deserts especially in the shadow of recent changes in reproductive policy.
—Diana Tobey, Play Lab

30. There are so many reasons to redesign American elementary education, but ultimately kids need more movement and active learning. There are pockets of teachers that do this. But this doesn’t work for everyone and in my experience as a parent, I see and hear about kids who are not thriving in traditional classrooms. Certainly works for some, but not all, so let’s rethink it.
—Christina Abele, Cambridge

31. There’s so much anxiety, opaqueness, searching, follow-ups, making impossible decisions in the process of finding daycare for children. Why do parents get minimal notice (hours to days) on making day care acceptance decisions when providers can force families to commit thousands to secure spots and provide multiple months notice to leave? The equation doesn’t stack up fairly. How might we design transparent, fair, confidence-building methods to seek, select and find care for our children?
—Uvini Lokuge, San Francisco

32. Why does open enrollment have to be so confusing? I feel like I have to do advanced scenario analyses to compare healthcare plans and still honestly have no idea what my total health costs for the year will be. Can there be fewer options? Fewer acronyms? Some sort of feedback loop to tell you at the end of the year if you made the right enrollment decision?
—Jen Halls, Cambridge

33. I cannot praise our teachers and faculty enough for all they do—but the emails are hard to keep up with. The important information is often buried in the body of the emails, and because they’re often titled something like “week one” or “week two” they’re hard to search. Also—plot twist —some  information comes home on a print out and isn’t mirrored in emails, so don’t throw anything away! How can we help redesign school communication so that our beloved teachers can easily share a window into our children's lives that we can keep track of?
—Kristin Boer, Chicago

Need help redesigning a product, system, or experience of your own? Get in touch.

When you spend your life designing products, experiences, and systems, everything you interact with is an invitation to wonder, “what if…”

Many of our listeners wrote to us sharing their own questions about AI and how it can shape the future, and we wanted to answer them. Jenna Fizel and Savannah Kunovsky, Managing Directors of IDEO’s Emerging Technology Lab, sat down to provide answers.

How can we design for the futures we want to build?

Savannah Kunovsky: The most important thing is to take a step back outside of the hustle of how we are currently creating technology and think about what it is that you really are trying to accomplish. Then, it’s crucial to work alongside people who will be influenced or impacted by it, so that what you’re making is truly beneficial to those people.

Jenna Fizel: The current crop of AI tools are truly about being able to ask the right question in the right way, and you have to be very specific about your intention. I wonder if that new habit that we are all going to have to cultivate might change how we think about the future and how we define our present.

Do you think generative AI will enhance our collaboration, or replace it?

JF: A great question. There's a lot of inherent tension in collaboration, particularly in the way knowledge workers connect today, remotely and across time zones. We're already being pressured to work asynchronously, and that can be really challenging. Sometimes, understanding how to move forward without the input of my colleagues can feel scary or impossible. AI tools do provide the possibility of creative companionship. They offer a way to move forward not just more quickly, but more deeply, if they can take on the perspectives and skill sets of your colleagues. Now, of course, that can also go super wrong. The lack of reliability in a lot of these tools could be catastrophic. But I'm interested in finding ways for these tools to keep us connected even in logistically challenging circumstances.

SK: I hear a lot of people saying, “AI will never replace us,” or “AI is definitely going to replace this thing.” But there's actually just a lot of gray area, including partial automation or augmentation and just an evolution of the work that we are doing. All of that gray area is where I think the majority of our work is going to lie. It’s a much more nuanced conversation.

For the most part, the changes to how we work are not going to happen overnight just because a new tool comes out. Often, the change is actually a lot more gradual. In our practice, it's been incredibly important that we stay on top of new tools and understand how we might use them for our workflows and collaboration.

Can you speak about the relationship between AI usage and the perception of human expression as a key source of value creation?

SK: The ultimate question is, what will there be demand for? Will there be demand for quick-hit creative experiences – i.e. fast food creativity? Will there be demand for hand-crafted, human-made creativity? In my opinion, there always has been and always will be a need for both.

We might see that some lower-barrier forms of creativity become more accessible to more people, and advanced use of AI tools become more of a craft, pulling together multiple types of emerging technologies. So far, that’s the way I’ve seen a lot of artists use emerging technologies, by incorporating them as a new creative and provocative element to what they do.

JF: To me, creativity becomes how you can use and push the tools. The very obvious analogy is the adoption of the camera and photography, which set the groundwork for Impressionism and future versions of less or non-representative art.

But there’s also the creativity of the toolmaker. One of the things that really excites me about very large machine learning models is the design and the math behind how they work—a hugely creative endeavor.

So the idea that creativity is no longer valuable because AI can draw a picture or write a sonnet really sells short the concept of what creativity really is. Creativity is what enabled any of the tools that made those things to come into being to begin with. The idea that you would not value that kind of creativity, and therefore potentially miss out on new forms of technology, seems quite short-sighted. That would be like 25 years ago saying, “Our phones are great. We never need to invest in making new cell phones ever again.” And then none of us would have these small computers that we carry around in our pockets every day.

What can leaders or teams do now to steer their organization towards the AI tools and integration that make sense to them?

JF: One of the key steps is figuring out, what does actually make sense? And trying to do that in a way that isn't motivated by existing processes and power structures. And that's really challenging, right? Because these technologies are seen by a lot of people as a threat to the way that they currently do things—and potentially the way that they make money. And that is not to be dismissed.

So, the question is less about getting people to adopt new processes and tools than, how do we get people to actually see the potential upsides of new processes and tools? It's important to spend quite a bit of time on that question, involving as much of your organization from as many different levels of seniority and technical or non-technical expertise as you can.

SK: Some of our client work has focused on setting really good foundations for experimentation and adoption of new tools. When ChatGPT came out, we saw a lot of business leaders say that because there are big legal and ethical unknowns with it, nobody inside of the organization should use it until we figure out what it is.

We approached it differently, applying our human-centered design process to our own organization. We went to a bunch of different colleagues and asked them how they wanted these tools to fit into their work and what their ethical questions were. And then we created our guidelines. We actually have a full scorecard to help explain, legally, which tools you can use in which part of the design process, and with which types of data to keep everything secure.

We also created ethical frameworks, broadly educated the company on how to use them, and gave people the option to not use AI if they don’t feel ethically aligned. All of this is important, because whether or not you as a leader are proactively supporting the use of these tools, your employees are most definitely using them. And so it's better for you to support the evolution of your business than for you to say no, and then find out that it's happening anyway.

How do you keep up with emerging technology? What sources do you lean on, and how do you discover new trends?

JF: There are a few creators at the lay person level that I really love and that I think are full of value no matter your level of technical expertise: AI for Humans, which is a quite entertaining podcast, and The Neuron. If you want to look a little further into the research end of things, I really like this YouTube channel called Two Minute Papers. It’s focused more on visuals and simulation. There's also the AI hub, newsletter roundup of academic publications. I think it's also really important to keep an eye more broadly on what's happening in science and technology. One of my favorite accessible sources is Sean Carroll's podcast, Mindscape. He has scientists and researchers that span physics, biology, sociology, and philosophy. He features a real diversity of voices that bring up really interesting ideas that are currently in research and may impact our daily lives in the near future.

SK: The one thing that I would add is the thing I’ll get pushback for saying: I would also pay attention to sources that are not experts. These technologies have such potential to have large scale-impact. Lay people also have good, important, valid opinions about where technology might take us and how we've seen things like this play out in the past. So keep paying attention to the trusted sources, but also look around to discover the ways non-experts are using them.

Trying to figure out how to adopt AI tools to create the future of your organization? Get in touch. We’d love to help.

Late last year, IDEO U’s Creative Confidence podcast took a deep dive into the role of human-centered leadership in the age of AI.

But a purpose statement alone is not enough to guide your brand, organization, or team when you are making day-to-day decisions. You need a strategy to define your future and the path to get there.

Too often, we see organizations work tirelessly to fine-tune a single, perfect purpose statement, only to discover that when they roll it out, their teams don’t understand the choices necessary to fulfill the newly-minted purpose. Or, they jump straight from a lofty purpose into the nuts and bolts of annual planning and resource allocation without aligning on the key tenets that will direct their future.

Strategy is this essential middle step that gives purpose clarity, direction, and intention. If purpose is your grand, evergreen, motivating inspiration, your strategy is what helps you make daily decisions in service of that purpose. In other words, if purpose is your North Star, strategy is the trail up the mountain that gets you closer and closer to reaching it.

Whether you’re adjusting your strategy in response to a new purpose, or aligning a new strategy with your existing purpose, a design-led approach clarifies choices, increases stakeholder buy-in, and reveals opportunities. Here are three tips to help you get started:

Co-create to surface organizational wisdom 

When you’re engaging stakeholders across the organization to help bring your purpose to life in strategy, it’s critical to adopt a mindset of exploration and empathy. How are teams already living this purpose? What choices are colleagues already making that exemplify this purpose? How might this new purpose align with employees’ own goals and aspirations, and how could it help to fully unlock their collective potential? By engaging in collaborative interviews and co-design early and often, you’re tapping into existing internal wisdom and building connections that aid the adoption of the new strategy.

Recently, we collaborated with the leadership of an education organization to craft an innovation strategy. A new generation of senior leaders were excited about exploring opportunities for growth, while other leaders feared a new strategy would stray from their founder’s purpose. So, we took a three-pronged approach: First, we sat down with individual leaders to hear different perspectives, aspirations, and tensions. Then, we gathered the whole leadership group for a series of structured workshops. Each session started by reading the purpose statement, and using it as a guidepost for brainstorming and evaluating strategic directions. Finally, we enlisted small teams of executives to build, test, and iterate key elements of the strategy. By doing all three, we were able to help build equity that made it possible to implement the new strategy.

Evaluate the choices you made under your old strategy

Before you craft a new strategy, articulate the existing strategy using a framework like Roger Martin’s Playing To Win cascade. Looking at your organization’s past and present, think about when and where your organization has placed bets on a new market, audience, or offer. How have you historically created an advantage with your customers, and against your competitors? Then, with your new purpose in hand, re-examine these choices: What is aligned or misaligned? What is sustainable and what is vulnerable to growing competition?

We used this method when we were working with a specialty products conglomerate, helping them develop a purpose and strategy to embrace the needs of the climate era. This was a big undertaking that took several years of close collaboration across business units and executive leadership. To kick things off, and help everyone understand the status quo, we gave leaders 10 minutes, a blank Playing To Win cascade and a pen, and asked them to write down the major choices the company had made to get them to where they are today. Then we held a group discussion, assessing which parts of their current strategy and portfolio most aligned with their new climate-forward purpose—and which fell short. This exercise quickly exposed what needed to change and revealed new opportunities for the company to embrace its climate commitments, invest in its future growth, and live up to its purpose.

Visualize future possibilities to test your strategic choices 

IDEO COO Jennifer Riel often says, “The best way to face the future is to create it.” Start by trying to tease apart the ramifications of potential choices by creating stories of the future: quasi-fictional scenarios of short-term and long-term success where your organization is truly living its purpose. If you invest your time and effort in different places, what are potential growth trajectories your company might take? What are you seeing in the market or industry that you might need to adapt to overcome? What trends inside (or outside) your organization might continue to grow, and what transformational power might they have on your future?

When we were helping an international pharmaceutical company unify its many divisions under a single, focused purpose, we needed to illustrate the potential outcomes of different choices. So, our team crafted four different stories of the future, each focused on a different strategic bet. What if they decided to double-down on new drug discovery—what might the next five years look like? What if they chose to go all-in on a single area of historic expertise? By looking across the four different potential futures, their senior leadership was able to compare and contrast, discussing what felt most feasible, inspiring, and aligned to their purpose, leading to a single future they were excited to build together.

Purpose and strategy have to work hand-in-hand. One without the other could lead to stagnation or confused paralysis across the organization. Together, they offer inspiration, intention, and a clear path to tangible choices. 

Congratulations! You have a purpose statement—or something kinda-sorta-close, you think.

Most captains today are choosing to rearrange the deck chairs, and draft strongly worded memos about maritime safety. Meanwhile, the iceberg looms.

Let's be clear: Changing course isn't easy. The crew is comfortable with their routines, the shareholders expect their smooth-sailing dividends, and frankly, it's hard to be the captain who ruins dinner. But we know what happens to ships that prioritize temporary comfort over necessary action.

The environmental challenges we face—from biodiversity collapse to climate injustice—aren't distant threats on the horizon anymore. They're here; we are living it. Yet in many boardrooms across the globe, the response remains painfully predictable: another strategy document, another net-zero pledge, another set of targets conveniently set for 2030, 2050, and beyond.

Yes, we have global treaties in place. Yes, we have ESG goals. And yes, humankind has the technological prowess to get us to net zero. But let's face it—what's holding us back isn't a lack of solutions. It's a lack of decisions. Decisions that can only come from bold, brave leaders.

We need leaders daring enough to plot an entirely new course, challenge the fundamental assumptions of modern business, and pioneer ways of creating value that serve both planet and profit. We need leaders who have the courage to turn the ship now, even if they are the first captain to break formation. 

An uncomfortable truth 

Today, most sustainability initiatives fail not because of a lack of technology or resources, but because of leadership paralysis. We're witnessing three critical traps that keep organizations stuck.

The first is the quarterly trap, where even well-intentioned leaders find themselves caught between climate commitments and earnings expectations. Watch any earnings call, and you'll hear the tension: ambitious sustainability goals carefully balanced against short-term financial targets. It's like trying to change course while keeping everyone's champagne glasses from spilling; this balancing act keeps us frozen in place.

Then there's innovation theater, where organizations launch sustainability programs that look transformative, but stop short of making fundamental change. The bottled water industry is a perfect example; it highlights recycled plastic bottles and "eco-friendly" packaging, but doesn't address the fundamental waste of bottling and shipping water globally when most developed nations have clean tap water. It's like tying down those deck chairs while avoiding the bigger conversation.

Finally, there's delegation delusion. Over the past year, I've met dozens of brilliant CSOs with ambitious plans, but sustainability can't be delegated to a department, no matter how capable its leader. Imagine trying to digitally transform a company by creating a "digital department," while everyone else works on paper. Real transformation requires sustainability to be woven into every decision, from the boardroom to the factory floor.

The new leadership imperative

Despite all these traps, change is happening. There are brave leaders out there—few, but growing—who are making incredible impact. At IDEO, we're fortunate to partner, work, and be friends with some of these pioneers, and I've noticed distinct patterns in how they lead. Here's what brave climate leadership looks like:

1. Embracing discomfort

When Allbirds stamped all of its products with their carbon footprint—like a nutrition label for the planet—the company made their environmental impact as visible as their price tag. This radical transparency forced the company to completely rethink its design and manufacturing, leading to the world's first carbon-negative EVA foam in footwear. And Allbirds didn't stop there. The company open-sourced its carbon footprint tools to other companies, making it possible for other companies to share their impact.

2. Reinventing the core business 

Recently, I sat down with a leader from a world-leading consumer technology company who told me, "The future I see looks nothing like our current product line. And I'm ready to build that future, even if it means dismantling what drives our profits today." This willingness to reimagine the company’s foundation extends to how it operates. Smart leaders are putting sustainability targets on equal footing with financial ones in executive compensation—because real change happens when missing a climate goal hurts as much as missing a profit target.

3. Creating better products that happen to be sustainable 

Method's concentrated cleaning products show how sustainability can drive innovation. By removing the water (which consumers have at home, anyway), the company created products that save money through reduced shipping and storage costs, while simultaneously cutting carbon emissions from transportation and using less packaging material. Customers choose their products because they're simply better, and they happen to use less water and plastic. There’s no compromise—only added benefit. 

4. Making bold bets on the future

Let's be honest—it's daunting to reinvent an entire supply chain or revamp your existing infrastructure to become sustainable . But when CVS Health, Target, and Walmart decided to create the "Beyond the Bag" challenge, aimed at eliminating plastic bags, they showed the entire retail industry what's possible. But taking bold bets isn't just about changing your own operations. Over the past years, I've met incredible young female leaders like Dr. Anne Schauer-Gimenez from Mango Materials and Julia Marsh from Sway, who are revolutionizing how we think about materials. Smart leaders aren't waiting for these solutions to be proven at scale—they're actively investing in and scaling them themselves. Because one day soon, the choice won't be whether to change, but whether you still can.

5. Having fun doing It 

Look at Rewiring America's approach to electrification. Instead of another doom-and-gloom climate message or boring, beige-colored Times New Roman ESG reports, they're making home electrification feel electric. Their tools—including an easy-to-use calculator and a personal electrification planner—don't just show carbon savings—they show families how much money they'll save by switching to heat pumps and induction stoves. When I recently connected with their VP of Product Tom Mercer, his energy about electrifying millions of low-income houses was contagious. And it's no accident that the company's head of marketing cofounded Upworthy and served as managing editor of The Onion—this fresh perspective brings wit and humor to what could be a dry technical topic. Sometimes saving the planet is fun.

6. Listen to customers—for real

As a design director at IDEO, I spend countless hours supporting our design teams in research sessions, listening to people talk about their everyday choices. And let me tell you—the narrative that "people don't care about sustainability" is not just wrong, it's dangerous business thinking. The next generation isn't just asking for better options—they're demanding them. They're reading labels, questioning materials, and calling out greenwashing on social media. Deloitte's 2024 research shows 64 percent of Gen Z will pay more for sustainable products, and 25 percent have cut ties with businesses over unsustainable practices. This isn't about a small group of eco-warriors anymore—this is mainstream consumer behavior shifting before our eyes. Miss these signals, and you'll miss the future of your market. Just ask the fashion brands being called out daily on social media, or the consumer goods companies watching their market share shift to sustainable alternatives.

The real work starts now

It's inspiring to hear about startups and innovators blazing new trails. But the real challenge—and opportunity—lies in transforming century-old organizations. We don't need more sustainability strategies. We need leaders from every industry to become the brave new captains of the climate era

The climate crisis offers a stark choice for leaders: Be brave enough to transform your organization now, or watch it become irrelevant in a world that's already changing. At IDEO, we're energized by leaders ready to make this transformation. If you're ready to design solutions that will define the next era of business, we'd love to work with you to bring that vision to life. Let's create meaningful change together.

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Imagine you're the captain of a massive ship. You've spotted dangerous waters ahead, but changing course means disrupting your passengers' champagne dinner.

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.