Money works differently in communities traditionally excluded from formal banking, which makes designing products that really serve their needs a very different kind of challenge. People who live in the last mile often prefer cash because it’s physical. They can see it, touch it, and access it at any time.

While digital money offers many benefits, such as securely sending money over long distances and accessing new forms of credit, many don’t trust it because the places where they can access digital currency have often been too far away.

In 2017, over 500 million adults lived more than three miles from a financial access point in eight emerging markets studied by the Gates Foundation. This may not sound like much of a barrier, but for those living in the last mile, it means having to close their shops, lose a day of earnings, arrange family care, and pay for travel, which can be time-consuming and difficult, especially during rainy seasons. For low-income people, the inaccessibility of financial services has been a deal-breaker for adopting digital money. On the flip side, banks, telecoms, and other companies struggled to reach these customers because their products were not inclusively designed for them, and their distribution models failed to scale in rural areas.

Amid these myriad challenges, IDEO and the Gates Foundation saw an opportunity to introduce innovative ways to provide access to digital financial services even in the most remote areas of the world. And to make bold new bets: Could we design new digital experiences centered around the financial needs of people in the last mile? What would happen if we mobilized hundreds of actors to develop new ways to address financial access at the last mile? What if we took the most exciting financial innovations that worked in East Africa and piloted them in South Asia—and vice versa?

Working with more than 70 partners, including local startups, corporations, including Google, Unilever, Telenor, Standard Chartered, and BNI, as well as IDEO.org’s Women & Money program, LMM adopted a collaborative, ecosystem approach to drive and scale new digital financial products and systems.

A few of the life-changing innovations launched by LMM and its partners include:

• Finja’s intuitive small-business app that helps micro-merchants in Pakistan access flexible, interest-avoiding Islamic credit  to order products from fast-moving consumer goods companies like Unilever. Finja now serves 45,000 merchants and reaches 10.2 million customers.
  ‍
• Accessing government benefits can be a challenge, especially when it’s through a mobile phone, so IDEO helped Indian startup Haqdarshak develop a robust digital experience for its 52,000 community agents to facilitate access for low-income people. The agent network—70 percent of whom are women—now serves more than 7.6 million families and has unlocked $2.2 billion in social benefits for those who need it most.
  ‍
• Making micro-credit nearly instantaneous was a solution that startup Kuunda offered to financial agents in Tanzania. IDEO helped adapt the product to deliver working capital for merchants in Pakistan. Today, Kuunda continues to grow across markets in Africa, totaling 6.1 million active users and distributing $1.1 billion in loans globally.   

While the LMM program officially concluded in 2024, lessons, tools, and case studies from the program are accessible on IDEO’s Financial Futures website. Those looking to catalyze equity and inclusion in digital financial services for the last mile can consult LMM’s Financial Confidence Playbook, the open-source Digital Confidence Toolkit (created in collaboration with Google), or the Gender Evaluation Framework, among other helpful resources.

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Over 1.3 billion people worldwide in poor and rural areas are excluded from formal financial services, including savings accounts, credit lines, and insurance, making it harder for them to move out of poverty.

34M

underserved users reached by 100+ new financial products, pilots, and prototypes

70+ LMM partners

including Google, Unilever, Grab, Standard Chartered, Cargill, Airtel, Celo Foundation, and BNI

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Multinational CPGs excel at creating popular, mass-market products for large countries. When they enter smaller countries like Peru, they often parachute their brands onto store shelves and skip consumer product testing altogether, largely relying on brand recognition to drive sales. This oversight presented Alicorp and IDEO with an opportunity: flip the script and invite young Peruvian women to work together with them to create a new hair care brand from scratch. Over the course of a four-year transformational journey, IDEO worked closely with Alicorp, adopting a “learn by doing” approach to foster a culture of innovation, launch a new brand, and drive growth for the company through consumer-centric design.

The collaboration began with an inspirational trip 10,000 miles away to Seoul, South Korea, the epicenter of global beauty trends. To expand their thinking, the Alicorp/IDEO team received K-Pop glow-ups and explored other cutting-edge beauty experiences. They were inspired by the Korean market’s unwavering focus on meeting the particular hair care and skin needs of Korean women.

Back in Peru, the team conducted multiple rounds of in-depth interviews with young women, teenagers, beauty influencers, and experts across the country. They learned about their beauty goals, personal care routines, and “mixto” hair texture. They heard about women’s struggles with regional weather—the Andean region’s extreme dryness versus Lima’s humidity and the city’s hard water. The research revealed that Peruvian women wanted natural products that worked hard, wouldn’t harm their hair, and celebrated what made them unique. They wanted a brand that spoke to them honestly and authentically. That represented and empowered them. That didn’t overpromise, underdeliver, or hold up European and American beauty ideals that didn't resonate with Latin American women like the multinationals did.

Armed with these insights, the Alicorp/IDEO team developed tangible brand prototypes for women to respond to during successive rounds of user research, including in a beauty pop-up store in Lima. The team shared various bottle types, ingredient mixtures, and brand positioning options. Should the new brand’s personality be an outspoken feminist or a gal pal? Au naturel or sophisticated? The iterative feedback cycles informed everything from brand strategy and ingredient recommendations to product line-up, brand and product naming, launch strategy, and digital activations.

The final design, Amarás (“you will love”), is a personal care line that centers the needs and aspirations of Peruvian women. Hitting shelves in 2022, its shampoos and conditioners feature local, bio-diverse ingredients, including mangoes, macadamia nuts, and goldenberries, that help address the specific hair texture needs of women in LATAM and the climate realities of the Andean region. The brand’s launch campaign included TV and print ads featuring Peruvian models from every region as well as commissioned murals celebrating local beauty by artists across Peru. Most notably, the unapologetically authentic Peruvian hair care brand became a TikTok sensation, garnering over seven million organic views and more than 300 viral videos from enthusiastic new fans.

Three months after its launch, Amarás seized a 7.5 percent share of the personal care aisle—a remarkable goal it had set for year three.Since then, Alicorp has continued to expand its creative capabilities, designing personal care products tailored to the cultural and beauty needs of Latin American consumers.

Alicorp launched numerous successful brand extensions across its food and home care categories, but was unable to crack the $340M USD hair care product market in its home country of Peru.

7.5%

Amarás’ share of the Peruvian hair care market 3 months after launch—a goal Alicorp had set for year 3

7M+ organic views and 300+ organic fan videos

created on TikTok during Amarás’  launch campaign

Thirty years ago, China-based Jack Technology started as a home sewing machine manufacturer. A decade ago, the innovative global leader began investing in robotics and exploring AI, a decision that positioned it well to address today’s urgent need for smarter manufacturing solutions.

Believing that a new, strategically positioned sub-brand could draw in larger, more premium global manufacturing customers, Jack Technology and IDEO set out to understand their needs. IDEO began by visiting more than a dozen garment factories across China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, conducting in-depth interviews with factory managers, industrial engineers, pattern-making leaders, and frontline workers. It soon became clear: the apparel manufacturing industry is at a critical juncture. The way apparel manufacturers navigate the promises of intelligent technology—while addressing deep-rooted structural issues like labor shortages and working conditions—will shape the industry's development for years to come.

For premium clothing brands, garment factory compliance and worker well-being are priorities when selecting production partners, so many owners proudly showcased their improvement efforts. They discussed investing in quieter machines and air conditioning, enhancing lighting, adding greenery, and implementing no-overtime policies. Amid rows of identical sewing stations, the IDEO team noticed small human gestures, such as a small vase of flowers. As one operator said, “I just want to uplift myself during work.”

The research helped IDEO identify a core opportunity for differentiation. Create human-centered products and services that further enhance working conditions in large apparel factories, strengthen their ability to attract and retain talent, and drive the industry toward a more sustainable future. Through multiple rounds of co-creation with the Jack Technology team and key apparel-sector stakeholders, a clear brand direction for Aitu began to take shape: “Smart Machines, Uplifting People.”

Guided by this human-centered ethos, IDEO helped build a comprehensive brand system for Aitu. The idea of “uplifting people” and showcasing garment workers’ professionalism and skill is expressed throughout all brand communications, the industrial design of its smart sewing machines, and the interaction and industrial design of a humanoid sewing robot.

In the eyes of factory workers, this is the new work experience Aitu brings to life. Compared with traditional bulky industrial machinery, the clean lines and soft edges of Aitu’s new AI-powered sewing machines feel more like the professional office tools found in bright, organized workplaces. Concave surfaces and soft materials diffuse glare from overhead lighting, reducing eye strain, while clear interaction logic and icon-based visuals accommodate operators with varying levels of skill and education. AI technology, seamlessly embedded in the machine’s core functions, automatically adjusts parameters for different fabrics and tasks, allowing operators to achieve high-precision results with less effort. A soft halo-like light glows whenever the AI-assisted function is active, fostering users’ trust in both the technology and the AI-powered sewing machine as a whole. When hundreds or thousands of Aitu machines are arranged together in a factory, the overall effect is a modern, professional, and high-end work environment.

Working closely with Aitu’s robotics team, IDEO’s final design challenge was to bring a human-machine collaboration to life through a full-scale AI robot, AI10. The robot has an elegant, biomimetic silhouette. Its fabric-like outer finish features design elements commonly found in garment making, such as cutting and stitching lines, giving the robot the approachable look and the feel of a skilled tailor companion who can assist with simple, repetitive tasks. When AI10 is in operation, a circular light ring gently pulses at the sides of the robot’s ears as well as on the paired sewing machine’s display screen, clearly signaling the robot’s activity to its human co-workers.

In September 2025, Jack Technology debuted its new Aitu brand, along with its first AI sewing machine and a humanoid robot prototype, at a launch event at Shanghai Tower and at the China International Sewing Machine & Accessories Show. IFA Berlin, Europe’s largest trade show for consumer electronics, honored Aitu with a Gold Award for AI Product Innovation for seamlessly integrating AI technology and industrial design. Jack Technology’s humanoid robot is expected to go into full-scale production in 2026.

Before AI, the apparel manufacturing industry had experienced little fundamental change since the invention of the lockstitch sewing machine nearly two centuries ago.

2025 Gold Award for AI Product Innovation

from IFA, the world’s largest home and consumer tech event

Alicorp has direct operations in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, manages export operations in more than 30 countries, and oversees over 150 brands. While its AlaCena sauces are ubiquitous in South America, the brand’s North American market primarily consisted of purchases made via Amazon by Peruvians living abroad. To help the CPG giant expand meaningfully and sustainably onto US grocery shelves—and achieve its ambitious $50 million retail sales goal in five years—Alicorp and IDEO collaborated on multiple projects over a two-year period. The partnership began in early 2020 with consumer research and product strategy, ultimately leading to the development of initial product branding, positioning for launch, and an in-market pilot in late 2021.

‍‍Through a combination of large-scale digital surveys and in-depth, in-person and remote research interviews, IDEO discovered that AlaCena’s Tari and Uchucuta’s hot sauce recipes resonated the most with US consumers. Made from native Aji Amarillo and Rocoto chili peppers ground using a traditional Andean “batán” technique, consumers appreciated their complex flavors and enjoyed how they enhanced, not overpowered, everyday foods like burgers and fries. The sauces’ authentic Peruvian culinary roots were also a key differentiator. In addition to consumers, IDEO consulted with industry experts—including executives from large-scale grocery chains and chief merchants of leading big-box stores—to explore retail and marketing trends and identify potential innovation partners for Alicorp in the US.

Based on the research, IDEO recommended a few changes to ensure a successful launch: Lead with the Tari brand, which was the most memorable and easiest to pronounce, and position it as an “everything sauce.” Change the packaging from a large plastic pouch to a smaller squeeze bottle to better align with consumers’ expectations and stand out on the inside of refrigerator doors. Adjust the product formulation to appeal to mainstream consumers looking for cleaner labels. And visually celebrate Tari’s Peruvian roots through bright colors, traditional textiles, and a llama, an animal closely associated with the Andes Mountains. In addition to these recommendations, IDEO provided a comprehensive go-to-market retail strategy that included potential US regions for launch, retail brokers, distributors, manufacturers, and R&D and pilot retail lab partners, as well as job descriptions for a new North American-based sales team.

While Alicorp worked on reformulation and packaging strategies, IDEO refined Tari’s initial branding strategy. Steeped in Peruvian aesthetics, the brand’s new look and feel featured a vibrant color palette, geometric patterns, and—of course—a friendly llama icon, which could also be found on all in-store point-of-sale items IDEO designed for Tari's pilot launch in late 2021.

The successful 12-week in-market pilot in Tom Thumb grocery stores gave Alicorp the confidence to have its in-house design team make the brand even bolder and more eye catching, and to launch two flavors, Amarillo Pepper and Rocoto Pepper, on Amazon and in over 50 retail stores in late 2024.

Since then, the popular sauces consistently rank among the top 50 percent of the fastest-selling products on US shelves, with 80 percent of sales revenue representing new business. In 2025, Tari expanded its offerings with three additional flavors: Zesty Verde, Tropical Kick, and Smoky Heat. Today, Tari is in transit to 3,000 major grocery stores, including Wegmans, Meijer, Central Market, and The Fresh Market, as well as available for purchase on Amazon.

Alicorp had a vision to expand its beloved and delicious hot sauces to the US market, but needed help fine-tuning the brand and product for an American audience.

3,000

major US grocers, including Wegmans and Meijer, have signed on to sell Tari hot sauces

80%

of Tari’s sales revenue represents new business, a significant expansion of the overall category

Ranked in the top 50%

of the fastest-selling products on US grocery shelves

For listeners, the panoply of podcasts seems to grow daily; and for creators, there’s an exponentially growing audience, which means even the most obscure subject matter is bound to find eager ears.

In 2016, we posted 15 inspiring podcast recommendations from IDEO designers, and exactly two years later, we’ve built a whole new list. This time, we put the call out to all of IDEO, inviting recommendations for all types of programming—whatever our teammates are currently listening to and loving. Hopefully many on this list will be new to you, and will help freshen and diversify your own audio queues.

1. Ear Hustle

Ear Hustle takes an honest look into the lives of people within the confines of the American prison system, and it invokes both laughs and tears. Nigel Poor, a Bay Area-based artist, teams up with Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, both current prisoners at San Quentin, which is California’s oldest prison and houses the greatest number of death row inmates in the nation. The three hosts produce stories at the facility’s media lab, where they explore topics as light as how “cellies”—or roommates—are assigned, and as dark as the gut-wrenching effects of the three strikes law. Regardless of the topic, each episode is eye-opening and humanizing, allowing listeners to understand the realities of living behind bars. —Sue-Jean Sung

2. How I Built This

How I Built This takes listeners on a “behind the scenes” tour of how driven entrepreneurs turned innovative ideas into world-changing companies. The stories are full of passion, challenges, successes, and failure...how couldn't you get hooked on this podcast!? Most compelling is the overwhelming humanity that comes through in each founder’s story. Without question a feel-good podcast that will get your creative juices flowing! —Andrew Evans

3. Switched on Pop

I love Switched on Pop because I love music, and pop music tends to get a bad rap or get brushed off as sugary, over-simplified sound, which is just not the case. This podcast is run by a musicologist and a pop songwriter. They deconstruct songs sonically and lyrically to help give some insight into what the song is doing, and how it achieves its goals. The musicology perspective is fascinating to me and helps me deconstruct other songs that I hear. —Meg Rice

4. How to Be Amazing

How to Be Amazing is an in-depth interview show hosted by comedian, author and actor Michael Ian Black. I love this podcast because Michael Ian Black as a host is simultaneously witty, vulnerable and empathetic. Thus, the conversations move fluidly between banter and deep revelations. The guests are creative types: artists, authors, chefs, musicians. Black's focus is on how each guest manages to find creativity and persevere in his or her field. Every episode ends with an “Amazing 5” recommendation segment, in which the guests recommend a book, music, food, TV, and miscellaneous item. My favorite episodes: David Sedaris, Elizabeth Gilbert, Maira Kalman, and Judd Apatow. —Mollie West Duffy

5. Love + Radio

I love Love + Radio! It has amazing non-fiction, long-form stories. Each one is unique and totally unexpected. Every time I listen to this podcast, I find myself transported to another world. It's truly magical. One episode in particular that stands out is a series of interviews with a man who is dating a life-sized doll, but [spoiler alert!] you don't realize his girlfriend is a doll until the very end. It’s incredible! You really learn how to feel empathy for people whose lives are worlds away from your own. There's also a three-part series about a woman in Colombia who realizes that the family she's just married into are drug lords. The series follows her story as she moves to the US and later is forced into hiding in the Witness Security Program, after providing information to the US government. Another story I loved was from a woman who had an out-of-body experience while undergoing surgery. —Ali Cottong

6. Containers

I got really into the Containers podcast. I never thought I would geek out so hard on this seemingly mundane part of the global supply chain. As a designer at IDEO, I work with a lot companies on their journeys to become “future fit.” One way companies are becoming future fit is by making the bold shift from a increasingly strained linear economy (take, make, waste) to a more prosperous, circular one (one that is regenerative and keeps materials and resources in flow at their highest use for as long as possible, creating new value along the way).

One huge part of redesigning a future economy is understanding how our economy today is designed. This podcast tells the story of containers, something so seemingly banal and ubiquitous. It colorfully illuminates how they came to be and the role they’ve had in transforming not only our economy but so many facets of our modern society in such a short amount of time.

As we design and prototype new tools, platforms, products, services and ventures in the circular economy, Containers inspired me to see the transformative power that a single, simple, and elegant innovation can have when it allows people to do something they couldn’t do before, at a tremendous scale. —Rhys Thom

7. Death of 1000 Cuts

I’m listening to Season 1 of Death of 1000 Cuts. It’s actually an 8-week writing course given by a poet, Tim Clare. The 15-minute podcast gives advice and a structured 10-minute writing exercise every day for 8 weeks. It helps with stagnant writer’s block, writing confidence, writing fatigue and helps exercise the writing muscles for people to feel empowered to write and to dedicate the time to creativity. I love it because while I’m an (IDEO) lawyer by day, it means I get to do the creative flex thing by night. —Rebecca Wint

8. My Favorite Murder

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast—not a combination you'd expect, but the hosts, Karen and Georgia, make it go down like chocolate and peanut butter. It’s not at all about glorifying the crimes, but rather, looking into the darkest parts of the human experience and finding a way to laugh. MFM (as fans call it) has also inspired a feminist movement with a massive fan base. There's even an IDEO Slack channel devoted to the podcast. —Jennifer Maer

9. NPR's Hidden Brain

Hidden Brain features amazing storytelling on why we do and think the ways that we do (backed with experts in the field!). Why are people in multi-cultural relationships more creative? Why did a competitive luxury brand gift Snookie a rival Gucci handbag? Why does wearing bright red sneakers make other people feel you're more influential? Why should marriages be more like Pinot than Cabernet? All these questions answered (and more) through the Hidden Brain. —Mike Peng

10. Mothers of Invention

Mothers of Invention is about climate change, how it's a feminist problem, and has a feminist solution. It's hosted by Maeve Higgins, an awesome comedian and storyteller; and Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland (!). It's the first thing I've listened to on climate change that has made me feel something like hope. —Ashley Holtgraver

11. Cocaine and Rhinestones

Cocaine & Rhinestones is an in-depth look at some of the wildest stories of 20th century country music. I suppose I love it because I love old country music and was raised in an environment where Hank Williams was God. But these stories go much deeper than fading memories of hearing steel guitar over a busted truck radio. It's so well researched I might compare it to a Ken Burns documentary. Yes, it's dark, and that's why you'll love it. Murder...check. Alcoholism and adultery...check. People behaving in intolerable ways...check. But all of the negativity and carnage are balanced by unflinching tributes to a truly unique American musical creation. It's incredibly respectful of those who wrote and performed the music. Irony is uncool now anyway. This feels real. —Zach Hobbs

12. The Longest Shortest Time

The Longest Shortest Time is a parenting show. I like to think about someday becoming a parent, but even as someone without children, the way they talk developmental theory makes the whole concept of parenting feel more diverse and accessible. I don't have kids yet, so I listen in to see what my future could look like, and to learn more about youth today. —Stuart Getty

13. Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

I love Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness because, well, Queer Eye is my new obsession, and he just absolutely delights me. He's so smart and yet somewhat hides it to remain more "curious," and he really explores every topic under the sun, from Saudi Arabia to abstinence in addiction therapy. —Madeline Armstrong

14. Change Agent from The New York Times

I've been surprised by how much the stories told on Change Agent stick with me, and how powerful analogous inspiration can be in helping us change our behavior. —Em Havens

15. Racist Sandwich

Racist Sandwich is a podcast about food, race, gender, and class. It's a refreshing, honest, and deeply human look at what happens at that intersection. I really like the podcast because they tell different stories from points of view that are rarely highlighted by traditional media channels. I am a latecomer to the show, but I found their episodes "Tasting Something other than Shame" and "Detroiters are Fighters" to be particularly inspiring. —Sandeep Pahuja

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Now that we consume most of our information through screens, audio programming is a breath of fresh air. Podcasts enable us to get up and out, liberating us from the tether of phones and computers.

That’s a shame, because research shows that feeling joy at work not only increases our wellbeing, but also our performance across the spectrum. Joy increases our working memory and cognitive flexibility, which in turn leads to better problem-solving. Take doctors, for example: Those who have been primed to feel joyful make a correct diagnosis earlier than those in a neutral mindset. Joyful businesspeople consider a wider range of scenarios and make more accurate decisions. Joyful negotiators are more likely to achieve win-win agreements. And it turns out it’s infectious: Joyful leaders spread positivity to their teams, increasing rates of effort and cooperation; and when salespeople exhibit joy, customers respond by spending more time in a store, giving higher satisfaction ratings, and expressing a greater likelihood to return.

Have I convinced you yet? Ok, then. Here are six ways you can transform your work environment to increase joy, and bring out your most productive, collaborative, and creative self.

1. Add a pop of color and light

Research with nearly a thousand office workers across four continents shows that people in more colorful workspaces are more joyful and alert than those in drab spaces. They’re also more confident and friendly. Bright colors reflect more light, which acts like a stimulant, a shot of caffeine for the eyes. If you can’t paint your whole office, try adding an item with a strong pop of color to your desk, like a vibrant piece of art or a yellow mug, to brighten up your space—and your spirits!

For even more joyful energy at work, go toward the light. There’s a reason most people prefer a desk near a sunny window. Light helps regulate our Circadian rhythms, leading to higher energy levels and mood. Research shows that workers who get more light exposure in their offices are more physically active during the day and sleep better at night. Among nurses working on acute care wards, more sunlight exposure correlates to an increase in spontaneous laughter. If you are slow to get going in the morning, see if you can find a spot near a window. Or fight the afternoon slump by taking your meetings outside.

2. Buy a plant

When you’re working in a high pressure situation, make sure to introduce some greenery to your workspace. Exposure to nature helps restore our attention and can mitigate the effects of stress on our bodies and minds—making it less likely that we’ll snap at our teammates. Psychologists believe that looking at nature refreshes our ability to concentrate because it is passive, but also stimulating. In many offices, nature views are a perk reserved for management. But the good news is that studies show even a few plants can improve attention, reduce blood pressure, and even prompt more generous behavior toward others.

3. Keep it cute

One of my most memorable days at IDEO was when one of my coworkers surprised us by arranging for fifteen puppies to visit our office. As people moved from one meeting to another, they couldn’t resist spending a few minutes sitting on the floor cooing and cuddling. It might sound like a distraction, but researchers in Japan have found that looking at pictures of cute things, such as baby animals, may actually help increase concentration. One theory is that cuteness elicits a nurturing impulse that requires focus and care, priming the mind to zoom in and tune out distractions. So, go ahead, share the latest otter video on Slack, peep the We Rate Dogs Twitter feed on your lunch break, and keep those photos of your adorable nieces and nephews on your wall. These joyful bursts of cuteness might just help you when you’re doing work that requires careful thought and attention to detail.

4. Get some air

When you need to zoom out and get perspective on a work challenge, seek out the joy of elevation. Our emotions often seem to lie along a vertical axis: we’re in high spirits or light-hearted when happy, we feel low or heavy-hearted when sad. By moving ourselves physically upward in space—ascending to a roof deck or even just climbing a set of stairs, we not only find a joyful lightness, but also a shift to more big-picture thinking. Psychologists have tested this by intercepting people who have just walked up or down a flight of stairs and asking them to think about people’s behavior. When participants are told that someone is painting a room, those who have just walked down a flight of stairs are more likely to think about the specific actions involved (“applying brush strokes,”) while those who have just walked up the stairs are more likely to think about the broader purpose behind the actions (“making the room look fresh”). Ever have a flash of insight on an airplane? When we need to make big decisions or solve intractable problems, elevation can help us literally “see the forest for the trees” and avoid getting caught in the weeds.

5. Keep the ball rolling

To cultivate a creative mindset, keep a ball or frisbee at your desk. Research shows the kinds of fluid, curving motions we make when we play can help unlock a more flexible thought pattern, which in turn heightens creativity. In one study, participants who made curving motions with their arms came up with more ideas for uses of a newspaper than those who made angular motions. And the ideas they came up with were more original. This might explain why you often find ping pong tables at startups, and suggests that taking time to play might be the perfect warmup for creative work.

6. Turn up the tunes

When you want to help your team find its groove, give them an actual groove. That can produce a phenomenon that scientists call synchrony—when we sing or move in the same rhythm with others. When people experience synchrony, either by tapping out a beat or a rocking in chairs at the same tempo, they display greater generosity and perform better on a cooperative task. Some researchers have speculated that this may have originated when humans first began to coordinate their efforts to achieve complex goals. By noticing the rhythms created through repetitive manual tasks, people could better synchronize their efforts, and perhaps this led to an unconscious sense of unity. If it’s not too distracting, one way to harness this effect may be to play music with a strong beat in your workspace. People will naturally begin to tap or nod along with the music, creating a synchronicity that helps you find your flow.

To learn more about Ingrid’s research on how to design for joy, check out her new book Joyful.

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As a designer who studies joy for a living, one of the questions I am asked most frequently is: How can I find more joy at work? We spend at least a third of our waking hours at the office, and some of us much more than that. Yet most workspaces, with their beige carpets and rows of cubicles, aren’t exactly designed to delight.

Creative Confidence has inspired thousands of people to adopt a creative mindset and apply it to the diverse real-world challenges they face. In this series, we’ll share some exercises from the book that can help you approach your challenges from a new perspective.

Creativity Challenge # 2: Increase your creative output

Anyone who studies dreams will tell you that if you want to remember your dreams, you need a dream journal right beside the bed. The moment you wake up—whether it’s the middle of the night or in the morning—you should capture those dreams before they fade away. The same holds true with your waking “dreams,” your partially or fully formed ideas, your glimpses of possible futures. If you want to maximize your creative output, don’t rely on short-term memory.

Even if you never get to experience Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame, you’re likely to have your own moments of brilliance once in a while. When that happens, make an effort to capture those ideas right away, because your short-team memory only holds a thought for fifteen to thirty seconds. One simple way to have more ideas in your arsenal is to start keeping track of them as they occur.

Tool: 15 Seconds of Brilliance
Participants: This is a solo activity
Time: 10 minutes per day
Supplies: Paper and pen, or a digital means of keeping notes

Instructions

When you have an idea or observe something intriguing, take note of it. The actual means of capturing the idea doesn’t matter as much as having it with you at all times. Choose a method or a technology that fits with your lifestyle and your personality:

• Digital tools are great, but paper still works exceptionally well. I always have a pen and a simple folded piece of paper in my back pocket. I also keeps a small pad of paper on my bedside table, with a lighted pen that I can use to jot down an idea while reading or in the middle of the night without fear of waking up my wife.
• My brother David has a whiteboard marker in his shower, so he can write a passing idea before it disappears.
• IDEO partner Brendan Boyle has experimented with various forms of “idea wallets” designed specifically to record his thoughts.
• Mobile voice assistants will let you dictate a quick mental note.
• Your laptop or tablet has all kinds of notepad applications. But we think you’ll get more functionality out of purpose-built programs like Evernote, specifically designed to store such ideas.

So increase your odds in the war against lost ideas. You’ll be amazed at how many good ideas you end up with when you make an effort to jot down those sudden moments of insight. Our brains are constantly making connections and associations with other people, things, and ideas we come in contact with. Don’t let those serendipitous insights go to waste.

This post is the second in a series of exercises taken from Chapter 7 of Creative Confidence. Purchase the book for more on how to use creativity to solve problems. Read part one here.

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Everyone is creative. This belief runs through everything we do at IDEO, and in 2013, it led my brother David and me to write a book that would help others—even those who don’t think of themselves as “creative types”—to unleash their creative potential.

How do you prevent a handoff from becoming a drop-off? I recently wrote an article for Harvard Business Review that explores this very question. The following is an excerpt of that article.

How should you create a smoother handoff between teams? In short, you can avoid a drop-off by tailoring each handoff to the teams involved. In many companies, innovation teams tend to fall into three buckets: Explorers, Scalers, and Optimizers (with credit to Bud Caddell and Simon Wardley).

There are four basic models for the handoff, and dozens of hybrids. The right one for each part of your innovation portfolio will depend on how integrated your projects need to be with your core business.

1. The Owner’s Manual

After months—sometimes years—of work, an innovation team extensively documents their work in hundreds of pages of slides, spreadsheets, and other files, and then hands all of that over to a new team to execute. When was the last time you read an Owner’s Manual? Exactly. The new team then risks moving on without absorbing the learning of their predecessors.

2. The Architect

The best way to avoid a drop-off is to eliminate the handoff. In this model, the future owner of the work embeds in the Explorer and Scaler teams. That person then acts as a connector, knowing all of the avenues already explored and all of the learning gained.

3. The Ambassadors

Similar to the previous model, in this model, members of the Explorer, Scaler, and Optimizer teams remain embedded in each phase of the project to ensure that no learning is lost and that each phase of work is designed to feed smoothly into the next. In addition, this model improves the future work of innovation teams by helping them build an awareness of what downstream teams need most.

4. The Hive

The difference here is that team members don't roll off the project—it remains a blended team from idea to implementation. This model improves the future work of innovation teams by helping them build an awareness of what downstream teams need most.

Want to dive deeper on innovation handoffs? Read my article in Harvard Business Review.

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If innovation projects are going to succeed, they’ll need to survive a handoff from an innovation team to an execution team. And every time you create a handoff, you risk dropping the baton.

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.