Named after Ernest O. Lawrence, UC Berkeley’s first Nobel Laureate, The Lawrence Hall of Science’s wide-ranging products, services, and tools developed organically over half a century. To begin to make sense of the breadth and depth of its offerings, IDEO asked leadership and staff to surface the myriad activities, audiences, and relationships with external partners, enabling the group to visualize—and make sense of—the totality of The Lawrence brand.

During in-depth research with parents and kids, educators, and experts, IDEO discovered that each of these audiences had distinct mindsets. Parents and kids engaged with The Lawrence to explore, have fun, and dive deeper into a specific topic. Educators utilized it for professional learning opportunities and to discover new, exciting classroom tools. While experts, including UC Berkeley faculty, STEM educators across the US, and funders, viewed the center as a resource for best-in-class STEM education research. The mindsets highlighted The Lawrence’s unique capabilities, but the complexity also created some opportunity areas, including ways to use storytelling to create emotional resonance around The Lawrence’s core values and how to design a unified narrative to connect the dots across audiences and offers.

Building on its strengths as an institution and the identified opportunity areas, IDEO created a modern, vibrant, and flexible brand that strategically and visually unites all of The Lawrence’s offerings, working across digital and physical media. Grounded by a grid system, the updated brand identity is simultaneously rigorous and fun, featuring a bright color palette and signature retro-cool super-nova mark. Different offerings are bundled together based on different audience needs, preventing confusion and easing navigation. Even the name of the science museum, The Lawrence Hall of Science, was updated to a more contemporary and approachable, The Lawrence, inspired by The Met.

The Lawrence unveiled its new brand with much fanfare in late 2018 as part of its year-long 50th anniversary celebrations. Visitors can see the updated identity across all public-facing elements, including The Lawrence’s website, curriculum and educator materials, letterhead, collateral, and exhibition and wayfinding signage. The redesigned brand has been credited with bolstering the popularity of the science center among families and schools and causing ticket sales to return to—and exceed—pre-pandemic levels. Internally, the rebranding effort has helped generate excitement and energy across departments, helping solidify a collective future strategy and vision for its next 50 years.

The Lawrence Hall of Science’s diverse offerings had grown extensively over the decades, creating a confusing and disjointed experience for its various audiences. On the eve of its 50th anniversary, Lawrence leadership sought a brand refresh to better connect with its target audiences and differentiate itself in the STEM education ecosystem.

Over $6M in new funding

raised to transform and modernize The Lawrence, thanks to IDEO's rebranding effort

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When Greene King approached IDEO in early 2022, it was (and still is) one of the UK’s leading hospitality brands, with over 2,600 pubs, restaurants, and hotels. At that time, consumers in the UK and other parts of the world were beginning to rediscover the joys of travel after years of pandemic lockdowns. Greene King’s newly formed Venture Hotels Team wanted to understand how guest expectations had shifted during Covid-19 and how a new customer-centric hotel brand and signature service experience might meet—or exceed—their expectations.

To get inspired, the IDEO team interviewed a range of travelers of different ages and backgrounds, met with hospitality and luxury experts, and conducted immersion visits, including visiting high-end hotels. The research revealed modern travelers want unique hotel experiences that cater to their curiosity, support local communities, and are environmentally sustainable. Luxury, which once meant “exclusive,” was now about enabling one-of-a-kind cultural experiences. Today’s travelers value inclusivity, accessibility, and well-being; they want to feel welcome, do things at their own pace and have thoughtfully curated options to choose from. They also expect hospitality practices to be ethical and sustainable, contributing to the welfare of local communities and the planet.  

Building off this research, IDEO crafted a new entry proposition for Greene King’s new Everly Hotels Collection called “The Discover Collection,” which leverages the best parts of a classic British pub and inn—bespoke historic locations full of character, culture, and stories—while offering guests a modern experience from pre-arrival to departure, all grounded in supporting the communities they are in.

Signature moments include a warm welcome during check-in, as well as staff recommendations and local maps highlighting neighborhood gems. During their stay, guests enjoy expansive seasonal food menus, as well as a beverage menu that includes a wide variety of locally brewed, distilled, and crafted drinks by local suppliers. Rooms feature a smuggler's treasure chest with a surprise treat. Art and books from local talent are on display throughout the hotel, and local experts lead activities and events. Guests tangibly experience Greene King’s commitment to sustainability through its use of local materials, produce, talent, and partnerships, all designed to support the surrounding community. Upon departure, guests receive a personalized postcard.

In addition to the hotel experience moments, IDEO delivered branding recommendations for The Everly Hotels Collection, including visual identity and tone of voice that provide a cohesive look and feel for the collection of hotels while simultaneously showcasing each property's unique character. This was all packaged as an experience playbook, with design principles and briefs to help guide implementation decision-making across Greene King’s marketing, digital, interior design, and food and beverage teams.

A few months after the project ended, Greene King launched The Everly Hotels Collection. Its pilot hotel, The White Horses in Rottingdean, East Sussex, opened within the year. The new brand and guest experience strengthened bonds with Greene King’s loyal customers and first-time guests, ensuring the brand's relevance and appeal in a competitive market. More hotels are planned in the future in other scenic UK locations.  

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Greene King wanted guests to have a consistent brand experience while maintaining the storied charm that makes each property unique.

2 years

from concept to the launch of Greene King’s boutique Everly Hotels Collection

1 pilot hotel

The White Horses opened in Rottingdean in 2024

The hard drive space is full of companies competing over technology and performance. But iodyne wanted to add another layer, focusing on user needs and product aesthetics to better position the company to meet the values of a broader audience and create compelling new entrants into this crowded market.

Together, IDEO and iodyne jumped into in-depth discovery research to learn more about the needs of their end users. The team sat down with photographers, videographers, and digital imaging technicians, asking questions about their file management systems, how they used hard drives in the field, and how they stored them for transport and at home. They also headed to the source, visiting studios and home office set-ups to understand the full range of potential use cases.

A few big discoveries leaped out. No one had a single storage solution to rely on. Users constantly transferred data from different hard drives designed for different purposes (in the field versus at home), accumulating hundreds of old hard drives over time. Traditional hard drives also don’t allow multiple users to work off them simultaneously or come with software systems that help keep projects and tasks organized, protected, and sharable. Meanwhile, the ever-shrinking size and weight of laptops—and people’s willingness to take them everywhere—set a new benchmark for portability, one that iodyne could lean into.

With these and other insights in hand, the team brought unrivaled performance and aesthetics together to create a far superior user experience. IDEO and iodyne developed Pro Data’s engineering architecture, collaborating on thermal performance analysis, material choice, inspection of sample parts, and even packaging design. By combining integrated venting, multiple laptop-quality fans, smart power management, and 20 thermal sensors, the team was able to minimize cooling fan loads and reduce noise and power consumption. A single, centralized, and consolidated storage space makes sharing data among teammates easy, too—up to four computers can connect to the Pro Data at the same time and access the same files. The redesigned Pro Data creates new value for consumers in a highly mobile, secure package that can go from desktop to backpack and back again.

The iodyne Pro Data hard drive launched in 2021 to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Storage Review wrote “Nothing else comes close to this level of performance in a package this size,” while Jemery Boros of StarGate Studios said “I don’t think I could have done the shoot without Pro Data. It was easy to use, fast, and kept all of our data safe on the other side of the world.” The drives have since been used in the making of major motion pictures from F1 to A Complete Unknown.

Spurred by Pro Data’s success, iodyne decided to create a second product with IDEO, a Pro Mini that could provide the same cutting-edge performance and sleek design but scaled down to fit the needs of customers who required less storage capacity in an even more portable package. Pairing Pro phone-quality industrial design with a unique internal solid-state cooling architecture that imposed key constraints on airflow was critical.

IDEO worked with iodyne to create the Pro Mini’s internal layout and collaborated with an emerging engineering company to incorporate novel solid-state cooling technology, positioning the vents to maximize airflow and optimizing how users physically interact with the device. The team also addressed users’ durability concerns, advising iodyne on part selection as samples came in from vendors. The new Pro Mini is set to ship in the second half of 2025.

Hard drives are essential tools of the trade for people with large troves of media to store and transfer, like photographers and videographers. But beyond rolls of masking tape and label makers, there isn’t an easy way to see what’s on each drive without literally going through them one by one.  

Traditional hard drives generate a lot of heat and need fans to cool them, making them bulky, loud, and slowing transfer speeds.  

Many external hard drives are treated like commodities. They’re designed for mass production rather than for durability and aesthetics.

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2 cutting-edge hard drives

to market in 3 years

LACDMH is the nation’s largest public mental health department, serving over 10 million people. The agency provides critical support for the most vulnerable, including staffing a toll-free, 24/7 Help Line. Since late 2024, more than 70 Field Intervention Teams—comprised of mental health clinicians (social workers, psychologists, licensed psychiatric technicians, and registered nurses) and community health workers (trained peers or community members with lived experience)—have been dispatched around the county to help de-escalate mental health crises quickly, compassionately, and without force.

Because those experiencing a crisis are often too disoriented, confused, or otherwise unable to seek help for themselves, IDEO’s communication strategy targeted reaching “trusted messengers”—parents, spouses, siblings, and friends of people who have a mood or personality disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The campaign aimed to define mental health crises, help people understand what to expect when they call, build trust in FITs, and divert mental health crisis calls away from 911.

To understand what drives these specially trained mental health professionals to do this type of work—and what sparks trusted messengers to call for help—IDEO met and interviewed former clients and loved ones who had reached out to the county for support during a mental health crisis. The team also interviewed multiple FIT staff to learn more about how they approach clients and families.

The research inspired the communication strategy’s central idea: position FIT members as real-life superheroes and first responders. By associating FITs with that term, the campaign changes the narrative and communicates their compassion and expertise to those in crisis. Custom illustrated portraits feature actual FIT staff in strong, action-figure-style poses, while a bright, eye-catching color palette and clear, direct language convey confidence and inspire trust.

The team explored their initial design directions in a series of focus groups with LA residents, trusted messengers, and county and mental health workers to better understand the impact of the potential messaging and visuals. The research uncovered the importance of clarity, even in an inherently emotional situation. The  IDEO team discovered that transparency—and real personal stories—would be the key to building public trust in ACR.

Between March and June of 2025, the robust awareness campaign will run across LA County in a number of languages on city buses, in Metro stations, on social media, streaming TV,  radio, and more. An updated landing page on LACDMH’s website includes in-depth information and educational videos about mental health crises, as well as heartfelt testimonials from staff and former clients who have been helped by the service.

LA County Department of Mental Health created an innovative new program to provide urgent, compassionate care to Angelenos experiencing a mental health crisis but needed help driving awareness of its service across the region.

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Calling 911 is an entrenched behavior in an emergency. However, dispatching police officers who are not trained in mental health can make a bad situation worse. In 2022, 39 percent of people shot by LA police officers were in the midst of a mental health crisis.

172 million impressions

delivered via digital and physical ads across LA

50% increase

in calls to the ACR helpline, year-over-year, attributed to IDEO’s awareness messaging

24%

of Angelenos now name LACDMH as the first to call in a mental health crisis, leapfrogging 911 or the police, which slipped 14.3 points

1. Pass the Baton: where stories are currency

At secondhand store Pass the Baton, recycled goods are nestled in carefully curated rows. But what's really for purchase are stories—one for every item. Pick something up and turn the price tag around. You’ll find a photo of the previous owner, along with a short anecdote about the experience of owning the item. Even in just a few sentences, these stories give me an instant connection to the product on-hand, making it more valuable than if it were displayed as a new item in an on-trend collection.

My experience at Pass the Baton reminded me that the currency of stories can be more valuable than the currency of yen. Reading the stories, I was surrounded by not just the things for sale, but the people who once owned them: their relationships, their hopes, their memories. It was a powerful experience and a good reminder to look beyond face value in evaluating the worth of things.

2. Ichiran Ramen: where senses are heightened

Where do you find the best ramen in Tokyo? For me, there’s one standout in the best-designed ramen-experience category: Ichiran. Out of the thousands of noodle shops in Japan, this one has choreographed the perfect environment to fully savor the flavors, tastes, and textures of ramen.

Ichiran is not a social affair: Each booth is designed for one person, and it’s filled with everything needed to savor the experience solo, including an individual water dispenser, chopsticks, and cups. Diners are served when a pair of hands emerge with the perfect bowl of ramen. The curtain closes, and then it’s just you, the bowl, and full-on sensory pleasure.

Ichiran is about the ramen and the ramen only. And what a bowl of ramen it is.

3. Ranking Ranqueen: Where the crowd decides

Here's the concept: Assemble the most popular or top-selling products in each category—peach-flavored candy, facial wipes, gift envelopes—and put them all in one store. Ranking makes it easy to breeze by the brightly lit, clearly ranked items, pick up the most highly recommended toothpaste or most popular J-pop album, and be on your way. The easy-to-understand system helps make sense of the myriad categories of Japanese consumer goods.

I began to realize that in Japan, people don’t just want to suspect they’re making a good purchasing decision, they need to know. Ranking Ranqueen taps into this innate cultural behavior by validating the shopper's choice as one that everyone else is making, too.

4. D47: Where provenance is put on display

For first-time travelers to Japan, it's all about Tokyo and Kyoto—most don’t realize that the country is woven together with a collection of prefectures, each with its own signature tools, crafts, and food. As a restaurant, museum, and design travel store, the D47 concept puts the spotlight on lesser-known cities.

At the restaurant, patrons are asked to choose where their food comes from, instead of selecting items they’d like to eat. The museum offers rotating exhibits. One of my favorites asked each prefecture to put together the "perfect gift box"—allowing visitors to experience the best from each region.

5. Kurage ga kumoni naru hi: Where loyalty is earned

Every year, our IDEO Tokyo studio goes on an off-site to immerse ourselves in a new part of Japan and set our goals for the upcoming year. Kanazawa was one destination, and dinner at Kurage ga kumoni naru hi was our last meal.

The menu comprised of just five items, all handwritten on a sheet. Confused by the lack of choice, we ended up ordering multiples of everything and were incredibly satisfied with the beautiful food. Just before the bill came, our server presented a tray of 10 blank wooden tokens, which she proceeded to pass out to each of us, one by one, saying, “The next time you come here, bring this token, and you will unlock a new set of dishes on the menu.” It was as if we’d uncovered a secret new level in a video game. We were definitely coming back to unlock it.

Kanazawa is hours from Tokyo, but we can't wait to see what the next part of this culinary adventure holds in store.

This article first appeared in digital magazine Ignition: ignition.co

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In 2011, I moved here to help start the IDEO Tokyo studio and immediately started collecting a list of places that push us to think of the everyday in new ways. As designers, we thrive on inspiration, and this country is overflowing with it, from carefully curated hospitality to sculpted food to the incredible assortment of subcultures. As with everything in Japan, each experience compels a look beneath the surface to truly grasp its meaning and intention.

We took a trip to the factory to see how far they’d come. The building looks more Willy Wonka than gritty Chicago. It features colorful banners on the front, greenhouses on the roof, and sun-tracking solar panels in the parking lot. A wind turbine spins in the back and the property even keeps its own colony of bees. Yet, as we explored inside, I found the most compelling part of their story was how human they decided to be along the way.

These folks are seriously clean.

Method is a B Corporation, which means they are a mission-driven company that follows certain environmental and social standards. Our tour guide Shannon, an old soap industry vet, helped us understand what this means at Method. We learned that each employee receives two paid volunteer days per year to help an organization of their choice. All ingredients used are sustainably sourced and packaged, mostly in recycled containers, and the energy surplus from their wind turbine and solar cells goes back into the grid. They even chose to forego factory fences and built a sidewalk through their property so their neighbors can more easily access nearby shops.

Method takes bottle service to the next level.

One of Method’s biggest inefficiencies was bottling, as the company they work with had bottles traveling nearly 1,000 miles before being filled and packaged. They built this new factory with enough space to bring the bottling company in-house, taking 1,000 miles down to 1,000 feet. Add to that a fleet of bio-diesel semi trucks used for delivery and you have a pretty efficient system.

Soap and salad, anyone?

Method rents their 75,000 square foot rooftop to Gotham Greens, a New York-based urban agriculture company, making it one of the largest rooftop greenhouses in the world. The fully automated setup has seeds entering one end and fresh, ready-to-buy produce exiting the other. (Hot tip for Chicago veggie lovers: Check out Gotham Greens' Windy City Crunch lettuce. It’s so fresh it hits shelves in just two days, compared to the average two weeks!)

As our tour wrapped up, Shannon told us a story about the biggest criticism lobbed at Method. In the world of eco-friendly soap making, Method is frowned upon for using color dyes and fragrances in their soaps, prompting some to claim Method isn’t even a “green” soap company. However, Shannon helped us understand this decision. It turns out, it takes more energy to dye the plastic in each soap bottle than it does to dye the soap. So, given that consumers want to pick brightly colored things from shelves, dyeing the soap is a better solution.

The story illustrates the fact that being eco-friendly is never simple. Instead, it involves many decisions, involving all facets of an organization. Having seen inside the factory, we emerged believing that Method was truly committed to making the planet—and our homes—a little bit cleaner.

Photos courtesy of Method, Sophie Feng, and Magen McAfee.

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Method Soap began in a grungy San Francisco flat, where roommates Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry started mixing eco-friendly soap recipes in beer pitchers. Now, 15 years later, they've opened the industry’s first LEED Platinum certified factory in Chicago’s Historic Pullman District.

Laughter erupted. Who in their right mind names their blog after an invertebrate?

A few days later: Headlines pour in about a spunky boneless creature, affectionately named Inky, who’d popped the lid of his tank in the National Aquarium of New Zealand and escaped down a drain hole to the Pacific Ocean. The soccer-ball-sized cephalopod was instantly exalted by the Internets for his smarts, curiosity, and, it must be said, insistence on being free. One commenter crowned him the “world's greatest hero.” Inky now has 280 followers on Twitter.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that octopuses are the designers of the deep sea. They collect coconut shells as mobile homes, assemble the perfect number of rocks to narrow the opening to their dens, and use their water jets to clean their lairs, like 8-legged Marie Kondos.

Indeed, they’ve been observed doing all the things we prize here at IDEO: "Octopuses engage in play, the deliberate, repeated, outwardly useless activity through which smarter animals explore their world and refine their skills...." They’re supremely multidisciplinary, big-brained and emotional, and they may even be possessed of a soul.

A mollusc that designs its environs, can change color and shape, and sprays ink like an old-fashioned pen? What more suitable mascot for IDEO’s blog, we thought. And so we let Inky take over our masthead forevermore.

The Octopus is intended to be a drive-thru for quick hits of inspiration. Our designers will share their thoughts on craft—how that shows up in their Moleskines and Instagrams and blogs and fonts and posters. They’ll offer how-tos and hot tips and other occupational obsessions.

Last week's obsession was Inky, so we had Greg, a designer in our Tokyo office, draw him, and Derek, a developer in our Chicago office, set him afloat (watch this space—Inky will be reimagined by guest artists).

“He is such a curious boy,” Rob Yarrell, the manager of New Zealand's national aquarium told the Guardian. “He would want to know what’s happening on the outside. That’s just his personality.” We want to know what’s happening on the outside, too. And we hope you’ll follow along as we squiggle out of our tank, pour our baggy bodies into a narrow opening, and seek out a better-designed world.

Header image courtesy of National Aquarium of New Zealand

Our blog needed a name. Like millions who’ve started blogs before us, we sat around a table and tossed around ideas, most with “design” tacked on, like a fake mustache. Exasperated after many false starts, someone blurted, “Let’s just call it The Octopus.”

If you’re not careful, that is. If you have tendencies toward indulgence. If you’re running on four hours' sleep thanks to an incredibly wakeful baby who recently exited your womb and moved into your house. If you like food.

It’s not that the food is unhealthy, it’s that it’s so plentiful. A nicely stocked office fridge and pantry is one thing; day after day of roasted brussels sprouts, kale and beet quinoa, and lemon chicken thighs left over from catered meetings is another. Not to mention the green tea Kit Kats brought back from research trips to Japan, the home-baked butter biscuits whipped up by well-meaning office mates, the bottomless bins of chocolate-covered almonds and cheddar bunnies taunting you behind those cabinet doors. All right, maybe the food’s not the healthiest.

I needed a plan, a tool of some kind to wield wooden-cross-style in the face of so much vampiric deliciousness.

For most people the food at my workplace is a dream come true, but for me it quickly becomes a nightmare of unchecked indulgence. When I came back from maternity leave, I knew I needed help. I needed a plan, a tool of some kind to wield wooden-cross-style in the face of so much vampiric deliciousness. I found that tool in my iPhone camera and a Tumblr feed.

I Didn’t Eat This is a blog of all the food at IDEO I’ve managed not to eat.

Photographing treats gave me a different way to consume them. I still got to have my moment with that cookie. While framing it up on my phone, I could savor its delectableness and availability—its sultry, loose, wanton availability, just sitting there on that napkin all alone—but then, instead of popping it in my mouth, I'd just hit a button and move on. I’d leave satisfied, yet the cookie would remain. One of my coworkers remarked that when I snapped a pic, I was capturing the cookie’s soul.

Sharing the blog became important, too. Word got around the office that I was using I Didn’t Eat This as tool for behavior change. The accountability helped. With every post, someone would joke that they had, in fact, eaten it—all the spiced carrot cake with orange-scented frosting that somebody brought from home—and I told them that was great. The blog wasn’t about shame or guilt. It celebrated food. And it celebrated my growing ability to say no to it.

One of my coworkers remarked that when I snapped a pic, I was capturing the cookie’s soul.

And, amazingly, it started to work. I replaced one behavior with another and the pounds began to drop. True, my new habit kept the cupcakes out of my piehole, but its real power was that it made me mindful. I now experienced a moment of choice — of personal agency — when I spied something yummy in the kitchen. Did I want to eat that yumminess or take its picture? Taste the food or just toast to it?

I’m now about eleven months into this experiment and I wish I could say that sticky brioche french toast bites no longer hold my mind prisoner, but nothing is ever that easy. I will say, though, that the moments of agency build on one another. It feels good to be in control. Soon after I started the blog, I found myself dusting off the old food-tracker app, drinking more water, and eventually working out.

It’s rare that I stick with any behavior for more than a few months at a time, but whenever one slips out of reach, another is there to rise and take its place, like an endless supply of chocolate-covered almonds. Or another slice of spiced carrot cake with orange-scented frosting. Or a cheddar-cheese arepa with chipotle aioli, all cozied up in a handy to-go wrapper.

Maybe I better go free up some space on my iPhone.

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Here’s what they won’t tell you about IDEO, or for that matter any company where you might happen to work: It will make you fat.

Here’s what they won’t tell you about IDEO, or for that matter any company where you might happen to work: It will make you fat.

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.