The IDEO team quickly discovered that the challenge of designing a Digital@FEMSA super app for tens of millions of customers was matched only by the operational complexity of bringing together different teams that had already created various apps with separate value propositions. Not to mention the 22,000 stores specifically tailored to local communities.

To kick off the project, the IDEO team built on FEMSA’s already deep understanding of its customers by meeting them in their homes and communities. The team discovered that users didn't care about long-term rewards; instead, they wanted everyday help to thrive long-term. Connecting omnichannel rewards to regular spending would allow them to save time and money—something they said was particularly important. Along with market research, insights like these directly informed the app's design, ensuring that it was compatible with users' everyday habits and preferences.

Meanwhile, the project team also worked to ensure the app fit the priorities of the various teams inside Digital@FEMSA, designing a comprehensive process for testing joint value propositions. Together, the team created a new design system, iconography, and set of unifying principles. IDEO also worked closely with the Digital@FEMSA teams to ensure that the app's design was in line with their strategic goals and technical capabilities, and built the app's initial information architecture. They incorporated secure transactions, effortless coupon redemption, personalized offers, and a cohesive loyalty program.

From there, the IDEO and Digital@FEMSA teams quickly transitioned into the design and development phase, producing prototypes of the new app, dubbed Spin Premia. With the help of user testing, they were able to continuously iterate to improve the app's features and functionalities, creating a user experience that was both seamless and intuitive. In just 10 months, they went from a small digital team with an ambitious idea, to a 150+ people product organization and an MVP launched in one region. And thanks to a tight partnership, the teams were able to seamlessly integrate Spin Premia into Digital@FEMSA's existing systems, resulting in a scalable implementation nationwide just a few months later.

The introduction of Spin Premia was a milestone in FEMSA's digital transformation path. Following a true ship and iterate model, just a few months into the project, the company released a smaller, focused version of the app in just one city in Mexico to quickly learn from customer experience before expanding to new regions. Since then, the Spin Premia app has quickly gained popularity, offering a safe and user-friendly platform that millions of Mexican consumers have embraced. It has also allowed FEMSA to broaden its digital portfolio and extend its customer base throughout Mexico, elevating customer satisfaction and fueling business expansion.

13 million Mexicans visit FEMSA’s OXXO convenience stores every day. But the company had ambitions to leverage digital experiences to increase customer engagement.

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To get there, Digital@FEMSA needed to deliver exceptional digital products with the agility to serve an entire population.

4.7 stars

Spin Premia’s app store rating

22.8 million

active Spin Premia program users

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Midscale hotel brands are the fastest-growing hotel segment in the US, attractive to both travelers and hotel owners. But often, their messaging feels repetitive, and travelers have a tough time differentiating between them. With a warm, thoughtfully designed midscale brand, IHG had an enormous opportunity to distinguish itself in a crowded market. 

IHG’s goal was to deliver a guest experience that felt genuinely unique and resonant—and quickly. With costs on the rise, many owners were motivated to turn toward conversion brands, which allow them to refurbish hotels under a new brand rather than invest in construction, a way to grow their portfolio in a tight financing market. Meanwhile, IHG’s competitors were set to introduce new conversion brands of their own. The company was looking for a partner that could work swiftly and iteratively to deliver a distinct brand.

For the IDEO team, the answer lay in communicating the brand’s value, starting with a custom logo rendered by hand. Inspired by vintage sign painting and modernist typography, the team sketched different versions of the letterforms, reviewing them with IHG until they had a set that brought to life the generosity and sense of invitation associated with the hotel’s spaces. They also worked to ensure the wordmark was visually balanced and would translate well across a variety range of scales. From there, they built an expansive brand world, including bespoke navigation icons, a full interior and exterior signage system, and a video to support the Garner launch.

The result is a hotel brand that stands apart in its category for both travelers and owners: thoughtful and well-designed yet affordable. As competition in the midscale segment continues to increase, Garner has been central to IHG’s growth strategy. Launched in the fall of 2023, Garner opened 100 hotels worldwide in just 16 months, making it the fastest-ever IHG brand to scale globally. The brand’s increasing popularity among owners and developers is driven by the growing demand for conversion properties, which accounted for 52% of IHG’s room openings in 2025. Garner plans to continue its rapid expansion with nearly 80 additional hotels in 12 key markets, including the US, Mexico, Italy, and Japan.

Conversions account for 12% of the global hotel pipeline, enabling hotels to switch brands and refurbish, boosting revenue without expensive construction.
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The US midscale hotel segment, valued at $14B, is expected to reach $18B by 2030.

100 new Garner Hotels

in less than 3 years—the fastest-scaling brand in IHG's history

500 Garner Hotels

planned in the next 10 years; 1,000 over the next 20

Alzheimer’s and dementia are notoriously difficult to treat—and scientists estimate that some 50 percent of people who have dementia are undiagnosed. Recognition of symptoms and early intervention are key. Together and IDEO set out to conduct user research to inspire new products that would help patients with cognitive decline take charge of their brain health.

The first priority was to expand the reach of the Moving Together program, which combines group movement exercises with mindfulness techniques, led by a trained group instructor. The IDEO team conducted remote and in-person interviews in Florida, where one in five residents is age 65 and older, and rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia are among the highest in the country. One of the key insights the team discovered was that many older adults didn’t understand how behaviors like smoking, exercise, and diet can be risk factors for cognitive decline. Their input inspired a new design principle for the program: “No naked feedback.” Any time participants received health coaching advice about modifying their lifestyle, they would also be given resources on why and how to do it, so they would have a pathway to boosting their brain health. 

The IDEO team folded insights like this one into the design for four new product offerings, including personalized brain health education, new online community engagement tools, partnership programs, and health coaching services, as well as a new user interface to illustrate them. Along with Together they also developed an implementation roadmap of next steps to bring the new digital product offerings to market, such as hiring a brain health coach and creating a new course curriculum. Now, Together has enrolled 165 people in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial, which is looking at outcomes such as reduced risk of Alzheimer's and maintenance of cognitive function for the Brain Health Together program. With trial completion in Q3 2024 and product launch in early 2025, growing numbers of people with MCI will have access to this exciting program. Together incorporated almost all of the elements from the IDEO roadmap into the final curriculum, and the team often refers back to insights the team gathered as guiding design principles.

Fighting barriers to diagnosis

With its online program growing, Together wanted to take on an even bigger problem: dementia underdiagnosis. Co-founder Dr. Deborah Barnes had recently developed an algorithm that uses patients’ health records to calculate their risk of undiagnosed dementia, called the electronic health record Risk of Alzheimer's and Dementia Assessment Rule (eRADAR). Together was looking to find creative ways to equip and empower providers to use risk scores like eRADAR in primary care settings.

One piece of the puzzle? Many primary care doctors are unaware that better management of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia can have a positive impact on other chronic health issues—like diabetes, hypertension, and depression. So by encouraging providers to prioritize dementia care, they can help support the overall health of older adults with cognitive decline. The IDEO team recommended a curriculum for continuing education courses for doctors that make that link clear—another step toward increasing dementia diagnosis and improving overall health.

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Better help, sooner

To understand the patient experience, Together and IDEO decided to work directly with patients and caregivers to uncover what was stopping them from asking for dementia screening. The IDEO team quickly learned many patients were afraid of facing a diagnosis that signified a loss of agency and control, especially when they didn’t believe there were good treatment options. Often, they were unaware that there were things they could do to improve their brain health. They needed to know what steps to take after a diagnosis, and who could provide actionable advice. In response, the IDEO team designed a digital activity toolkit and physical booklet to guide patient families through the early stages of a dementia diagnosis, including recognizing the signs and symptoms, having better conversations with their doctor, and getting connected to support groups and programs like Moving Together.

Solving the problem of dementia underdiagnosis involves complex systems-level thinking and designing for the entire health ecosystem of patients, providers, and insurance payers, and solutions for Alzheimer’s and dementia care are still in their infancy. But already, this work is empowering patients and doctors to prioritize brain health and get screened sooner, and Together, which has since been acquired by Linus Health, is still working to move dementia care forward.

Approximately 12-18% of people aged 60 or older live with mild cognitive impairment, while memory loss, Alzheimer's and dementia affect more than 50 million people around the world.

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An estimated 50% of people living with dementia are undiagnosed.

165 enrolled

in the Boost Your Brain Health Clinical Trial

Many companies view culture-building initiatives as nice-to-haves. At Moderna, Mindsets are a business imperative, crucial to its plans to develop breakthrough products quickly.

For companies working on solutions as vital as a COVID-19 vaccine, delays and mistakes don’t just mean missing a product launch date—they’re life-or-death, and on a large scale. Moderna had to ensure that its employees knew how to make the right decisions, evaluate risk, and move quickly—even if they came from organizations with more bureaucracy and less risk tolerance. In 2021, IDEO sat down with longtime Moderna veterans to hear stories about moments that exemplify the company's culture, like the day a critical piece of equipment arrived but was too big to fit through the door. Taking it apart would have added days to their timeline. So employees took sledgehammers to a wall instead. Stories like this one fed into the crafting of the list of Mindsets, such as “Act with urgency: Action today compounds the lives saved tomorrow” and “We behave like owners: The solutions we’re building go beyond any job description.”

To gather feedback, the team shared the draft Mindsets with a diverse set of employees—new hires, veterans, folks already closely aligned with the culture, folks for whom it wasn’t the most natural fit, and a plethora of employee resource groups. CEO Stéphane Bancel and the leadership team took crafting and iterating on the Mindsets very seriously, wordsmithing and tweaking them with the team until they were ready to share them officially. Now, new hires learn about the company’s Mindsets in Moderna ONE, an onboarding process that IDEO helped revamp, while existing employees attend a workshop to ensure everyone at the company knows not only what to do but also how to do it effectively. In a matter of weeks, IDEO helped Moderna codify its culture for employees and set the company up for continued success. Moderna continues to embed these Mindsets across the entire employee lifecycle to systematically scale its culture.

For employees new and old, the clarity of the Mindsets has made it easier to understand expectations and to understand the company itself. Long-term veterans responded with comments like, "These really help explain why we're working this way,” while one newbie said, "It feels like a homecoming to hear the culture that we’re trying to bring through.” But more than just solving a cultural issue, the new Mindsets have fulfilled a business imperative: Holding on to the secret sauce that made Moderna successful to begin with, setting the stage for its next five years of breakthroughs.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 health crisis a pandemic in March of 2020, Moderna had fewer than 1,000 employees. Four years later, it’s more than five times the size.

Ranked #1

BioSpace Best Place to Work, large company in 2024

Ranked #6

Boston Consulting Group’s 50 Most Innovative Report in 2023

Ranked #4

Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 List in 2023

Since 2015, IDEO has measured innovation in more than 100 companies, and discovered that leaders who create effective and sustainable work environments give their teams more capacity to experiment and solve problems in creative ways. These teams tend to outperform teams that stick to the status quo.

So what kinds of changes can you make (and scale) to help your company become more innovative? It starts with simple methods like adopting digital tools, implementing new internal processes, and introducing modular physical spaces that can be flipped around to support modern modes of working. Here are five ways to get started.

1. Create a shared vision

Illustrate the future of your team to show your colleagues what they’re working toward, and what new behaviors they’ll need to adopt to get there. A vision for the future should not only create a shared understanding about what needs to change, but more importantly, explain why. To get started, identify who it is you’re serving, what value your team can provide, and what you need to achieve your goals. Next, create a set of guiding principles to help contain the scope of the initiatives you’ll take on. This list will help you maintain focus, and avoid doing too much at once. Then, compare these guiding principles with the strategic priorities of your organization to make sure that your plan is scalable, will have a positive impact on your business, and can influence the daily work of your teams. According to our research, teams that use their purpose to guide their decision-making have 61 percent more successful launches than teams that don’t.

2. Let your teams influence their space

Often, organizations over-regulate the way teams work, either in an attempt to limit liability, or maintain control. But that extreme oversight suppresses creative judgment and collaboration. It also signals to employees that they are just cogs in a machine; if their work doesn’t seem important, they’ll detach mentally and emotionally. When leaders design work environments with their teams’ needs in mind, they are more likely to be engaged and willing to adopt new, better behaviors.

Think about how your values and vision are represented in your team’s space. Do you have early prototypes hanging around represent the value of experimentation? Do your communal work spaces actually encourage collaboration? (Do you have communal work spaces?)

Modern work environments should encourage, but not dictate, the most productive behaviors. The idea is to design an environment that encourages the collaboration and experimentation so crucial to creative work, while also empowering teams to adapt as new challenges arise. Data shows that teams that work collaboratively and have flexible spaces and tools to experiment are 32 percent more successful than teams that don’t.

3. Learn how your teams actually work

It seems basic, but many leaders don’t know the ins and outs of how their teams work, which means they don’t know how to craft the conditions that will set them up for success. Make sure to check in with your teams to get a sense of what they love, loathe, and want to tweak about the way your company works. Keep an eye out for work environment hackers who are using tools and spaces in unconventional ways—manipulating what’s available to support their work as best they can. And make sure that everyone has the tools that they need: For example, people in organizations that restrict access to online collaboration tools are sometimes forced to recreate the same benefits using a combination of project management, file sharing, and messaging software.

4. It all starts with prototypes

Have an idea for a new method of brainstorming, or a more effective workspace? Test it out by prototyping with high-performing teams. The key isn’t to start with the perfect solution, but to arrive at something that works and continuously improves. Identify teams that are enthusiastic about change, and start there. And don’t forget to look to your employees for suggestions—not all change needs to come from the top, and teams have a better sense of their own needs. Prototyping is an iterative process, so teams should be given the freedom to test a lot of ideas. According to our data, teams that test five or more solutions in parallel are 42 percent more likely to create successful solutions than teams that don’t do rapid prototyping.

5. Codify and share what you learn

As teams grow and mature, the lessons they gather from experimenting with their work environments should be packaged and shared with the larger organization. Codifying the characteristics of effective work environments can help new employees develop productive behaviors more quickly. Consider creating events or programs that allow teams to share the lessons they’ve learned from prototyping and inspire others to adopt similar changes or begin their own experiments. The data shows that teams that have access to information about prior initiatives are 51 percent more likely to create successful solutions.

Creating change and empowering people to determine their optimal work environments are the most powerful tools leaders can use to set the conditions for innovation. These changes have a material impact on a company’s ability to compete in an uncertain future. But don’t be intimidated by the enormity of the challenge. All it takes is empathy, empowerment, and curiosity to set yourself and your teams on a journey toward self-discovery.

Executing innovative ideas requires creativity. And creativity thrives in a work environment that fits the dynamic needs of modern teams, from hyper-collaboration to heads-down time. As today’s organizations strive to become more innovative and resilient, they must adapt their spaces and modes of working to promote creative problem-solving across teams.

Here are three exercises and strategies that might come in handy next time you’re applying for a new job.

1. The “so what?” test

Sadly, most bullet points on resumes read like a laundry list of job tasks, and many feel redundant if those tasks can be assumed by reading the company name and job title. Instead of telling a resume reader what you did day-to-day, tell them about achievements and things you are proud of. Tell them about the moments when you went above and beyond.

Read each bullet point out loud and ask yourself this question: So what? Why is this bullet point important? Why is it taking up room on your resume? Now imagine someone else—a stranger, someone who has never met you—going through your resume the same way.

If you get defensive or fired up when you run the “so what?” test, that’s good! That means there’s something you’re proud of in that bullet point that you need to communicate. Make that the heart of your bullet point.

When I run resume writing workshops for people starting out in their careers, they can become self-conscious and feel that their limited experience isn’t worth bragging about. To prove that you can take this approach with any job or experience level, I’ll provide you with the wait-server example. (Back in the day, I worked at a restaurant and firmly believe it teaches you great skills.)

If I were to take the laundry list approach, my bullet points would read:

• Greeted patrons
• Took food orders
• Provided friendly service

That's all great, but it's assumed that a server would do those things. It’s the job, after all. With that list, I’m not telling you anything new or unique about myself.

If I communicate my achievements and proudest moments instead, my bullet points read like this:

• Worked part-time while in school
• Trained all new staff
• Organized a volunteer day for employees
• Selected as employee of the month in my first month

This has a different tone to it. In this new phrasing, I communicate that I'm good at time management, I have the ability to teach and mentor others, I was able to project-plan and activate engagement, and I very quickly made an impact.

So what, you ask? That’s what!

2. The tailoring session

Just like tailoring your clothes, tailoring your resume isn’t about creating something from scratch. It’s about snipping, hemming, and stitching things together so that it fits perfectly. Use this strategy to keep yourself from reinventing the wheel over and over again.

Keep a master resume that lists every single experience you’ve ever had. The master resume is where you don’t have to worry about page count—it’s for your eyes only, so there are no limits. Add sections and bullet points to your heart’s content. Let this master version be everything from your security blanket to your resource library.

When you are ready to apply to a role, create a copy of the master resume and give it a name that is specific to the role you’re applying for.

Now read the job description again. What are the requirements? Use those as guidelines for tailoring your resume. Because you’re starting with a master resume, you don’t need to create new language. Simply delete the text that isn’t pertinent to the role, leaving only the relevant experience.

You are almost done. Before you submit this tailored resume, read through it. Start from the bottom, then move your way up, going in chronological order. Does this new tailored resume show career progression when read from the bottom up? Is there a thread that runs through it? Does it need to be stitched together in some places? When you are ready to go, make sure you convert it to a PDF!

3. Give curly parsley the chop

In the culinary world, NFG stands for non-functional garnish. If you’ve ever ordered a breakfast dish at a restaurant that came with a random slice of orange, and the orange has a piece of inedible curly parsley stabbed into it, you have experienced NFG. This unnecessary addition has nothing to do with your dish; in fact, it may spoil some of the flavors, and you might even start off your meal a bit annoyed that you need to eat around it.

On a resume, NFGs include images as fillers, multiple fonts, italics, bold, a spectrum of colors, and charts and infographics with no data source.

Use these things wisely and sparingly. Remember, you want to create a space that is welcoming, clean, and easy to navigate. A resume with curly parsley is hard to read. If the eye doesn’t know where to look first, the mind will get tired trying to figure it out.

Best case scenario: The person reviewing the resume needs to work hard and find extra mental energy to focus amidst all of the distractions. Worst case scenario: Your resume gets passed over because it’s sensory overload.

If you do want to share more but don’t want to overcrowd your resume, here’s a challenge: Think beyond the resume.

Times have evolved. There are other ways to highlight your work. LinkedIn is the obvious one, and GitHub is useful for engineers. More and more, we see candidates creating personal websites to showcase their experiences in interactive, visual ways.

If you are feeling tight on space, provide links to other resources where you can get more creative. And there’s always the cover letter!

Hopefully these tips help save you time, energy, and a bit of anxiety when you're crafting a resume. Remember, there is beauty in simplicity—after all, the only person who can truly pull off a pink, scented resume is Elle Woods.

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In my career advising days, I’d tell job seekers that one of the most important spaces they will occupy is only 8.5 inches wide by 11 inches long—or about 21 by 28 centimeters for our friends outside of the US. Trying to capture yourself, your experience, and your potential in one-to-two pages is hard. It’s often the first introduction companies have to you. As with any space, there are ways to make it feel empty and impersonal, or crowded and noisy. Luckily, there are also ways to create a page that is welcoming, clean, and easy to navigate, too.

Immigration
There should be an AI bot for navigating the immigration process. If they can do it with TurboTax, they can do it with immigration (and I suspect there may even be fewer edge cases). It’s also easy to make something like that multilingual, which would be key. Right now, my friends in New York are paying $300-400 for an hour of immigration consultation. —Alex Staudt

Price Tags
I would like to redesign the cost of products and services to include environmental cost. This would allow consumers to factor in environmental impact as they make purchasing decisions. Currently, it is hard, if not impossible for consumers to understand the environmental impact of their lifestyles, which I believe is largely due to a lack of transparency on the corporate side, not a lack of interest on the consumer side. —Santiago Seira

Sockets
I’d redesign the electrical outlet—a standard for a century past—with a 'data as a utility' mindset. TV and radio have gone digital, voice is going digital, but power is still analog. —Ryan Osero

Razors
Shaving! It's the biggest waste of time. —David Haygood

How We Entertain Ourselves
I’d want to redesign live entertainment. Like, all of it. But here is where I’d start: There’s a gap between spending 2.5 hours seeing a play on Broadway and spending a full day immersed in the world of Disneyland. I love both of these experiences, but theater is dying (it’s basically only older populations who go, so the majority of current patrons will be dead in 30ish years) and shows (with the exception of Hamilton) aren’t being designed with an eye towards new demographics.

Disneyland and large-scale theme park experiences are resource-intensive, and I can’t imagine that too many new entertainment experiences on that scale will be created. But, at its core, Disneyland is a fully-designed, alternate reality that guests can immerse themselves in however they’d like for as long as they’re in the park. There’s freedom and choice in this experience that theater doesn’t often provide (hence the appeal and success of Sleep No More). How might we create a flexible yet fully immersive live entertainment experience? —Andrew Evans

The Menu at National Parks
I want to redesign the food served at our national parks so it reflects their mission of preserving the majesty of this nation, its wild places and wildlife, and the happiness and health it brings to humans. —Vivian Barad

Access to the Outdoors
I’d also piggyback on national parks, in particular on access. Camping and outdoor pursuits should be a right for all, and encouraged, if we want to see people care for the Earth. It doesn’t matter your background or mobility level, we should have everybody get into nature, while maintaining a balance to prevent overuse. Our bay-tech-privilege has managed to infiltrate even the basic purity of camping. —Tim Opsahl

The Olympics
I want to redesign the business model of the Olympic Games. What if the games were spread across multiple countries, instead of just one? What if each Olympics pursued an expressed goal of improving some aspect of the host country (i.e. child malnutrition, urban poverty, etc.)? —Rachel Tobias

Incontinence
Ever since I went to design school, I’ve wanted to redesign bed pans. I know this sounds super weird, but I had an extended hospital stay during my time at university, and found that the bedpan is the single most humiliating object on the planet. Obviously, my redesign wouldn't only include the object itself, but also the experience of what it means to not be able to go to the bathroom on your own and the experience of having to assist someone in this very intimate moment. —Annette Diefenthaler

Laundry
Whenever I walk by my local laundromat, I wonder what IDEO could do to make it better. Laundromats are relatively rare public shared-use spaces (similar to bath houses and communal bakeries in the Middle East and northern Africa). They provide a crucial service, especially for low income folks—a group that sometimes doesn’t get the same level of design consideration. What if they focused on some of the benefits of shared-use space, such as relaxing (you have time to read, call family and friends, play video games, etc. while you wait for your load to finish) and building community (you can meet neighbors, read about local events, catch up on the news, etc.)? —Biz Wells

Channel Surfing
F—ing remote controls, man. —Peter Olson

Police Interaction
I want to see us redesign the U.S. police-citizen interaction experience during arrests, traffic stops, and inquiries to help both the police and citizens feel safe and prevent wrongful deaths and excessive use of force, particularly against citizens of color. Maybe it's helping police organizations realign with their purpose to protect people and address any biases they may have developed. Or maybe it's an opportunity for a protective product to help police feel more secure in potentially threatening situations and therefore prevent them from using fatal measures for what they feel is self defense. Or maybe it's restorative community building between populations and the services that protect them in order to understand and break down historical tensions. I think it would be world-changing work. —Hannah Williams

The Gym
I'd like to redesign gym equipment to make it more accessible to women. I'm freakin' tired of using equipment sized for men. —Jennifer Maer

Phone Screens
I dropped my iPhone and the screen cracked. The Genius Bar fixed it in 30 minutes for $140. I asked the guy how many screens had he personally replaced and he said more than 1,000. Apple really is genius to convince us to pay that for a phone falling three feet; imagine dropping your wallet and it breaking! —Brendan Boyle

Life With a Newborn
The first year of motherhood. It’s crazy, hard, and you can feel alone and unsure that you're doing the right thing. And as a working mom, it feels like time is NOT on your side. —Melanie Bell-Mayeda

Adoption
I would love to redesign the domestic adoption process in the U.S. I hesitate to mention it because I’m not sure my heart or my patience for bureaucracy could take it. (I know, that’s all the more reason to go for it.) —Denise Burchell

Political Debate
Can we redesign public discourse in the U.S.? We are divided as a nation and it’s not going to get better on its own. What can we agree on, and how might we we use our common understanding to resist the temptation to demonize one another? —Murphy MacDonald

Emergency Response
I want to redesign the San Francisco 911 call center system. This story is all about how money isn’t solving the response time problem for 911 calls in S.F.; the issue is with training dispatchers and their quality of life at work. This seems possible to tackle from a human-centered perspective, since it’s a well-funded city system that pays its employees above average salaries. —Kim Powers

Misogyny at Work
Culture at Fox News. The organization has famously had huge problems with its treatment of women—even Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes aside. It’s clear that something needs to change and that it needs to be more than their recently announced policy allowing women to wear pants (not just short skirts) on the air. How might we help Fox uncover and adapt to who they want to become? —Joe Brown

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Rethinking products, services, and systems is our bread and butter. And when you spend your days asking, “how might we change this?” radically reframing the way you see the world becomes an occupational hazard. Designers end up sitting back, scratching their chins, and assessing the utility—or uselessness—of everything, with an eye to making it better. From the immigration process to the razor, we’ve come up with a list of 19 things we’d love to redesign, if we only had the chance.

In The Octopus's Build Your Creative Confidence series, we’ve shared exercises and activities from the book to help you approach challenges from a new perspective. We’ve compiled all ten exercises here in hopes that you’ll hit the ground running on your creative journey and excel in a future where creativity is currency.

1. Mindmaps: Push yourself to think divergently and creatively

When searching for innovative solutions, mindmaps can be a powerful way to come up with new ideas or gain clarity about a topic of exploration.

2. 15 Seconds of Brilliance: Increase your creative output

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, be ready to capture the magic.

3. 30 Circles: Jumpstart an ideation session

This quick, simple exercise is perfect for getting warmed up. Use it with a group as an icebreaker or on your own when you need a jolt of inspiration.

4. Empathy Maps: Lessons from observing human behavior

You’ve gone into the field in search of knowledge, meeting people on their home turf, watching and listening intently. But synthesizing all that data can be a little daunting. Organize your thoughts with this tool.

5. I Like, I Wish: Encourage and accept constructive feedback

We all instinctively know that constructive critique is essential, and yet it can be hard to listen to and absorb feedback without letting our egos and defensiveness distract us from what may be a valuable message. Use this exercise to help introduce feedback into the innovation process.

6. Speed Dating: Warm up a group and break down barriers

Creativity thrives amidst free-flowing social discourse. To get a roomful of strangers to innovate, start by breaking down some of those pesky social barriers. By carefully thinking about your group, you can craft this exercise to prime your participants for the work that comes next.

7. Nickname Warm-Up: Eliminate hierarchy to improve idea flow

While the previous exercise useful in situations where people don’t know each other well, sometimes you’ll encounter the opposite problem: a group meeting where people know each other too well. This warmup allows folks to “try on” a new persona and new behaviors.

8. Customer Journey Map: Empathize with customers, employees, and other end users

A journey map helps you think systematically through the steps your customers—internal or external—have when they interact with your product or service. Use this exercise to drum up new insights about your end users.

9. The Dream/Gripe Session: Define a problem to work on

Dreams and gripes are both a normal part of the innovation process. In this exercise, pair folks up to translate conversations into creative thinking challenges.

10. The Wallet Exercise: Help your group understand innovation thinking

The exercise uses a simple object that most people carry with them as a prop to discover needs, design and prototype solutions, and get user feedback. It gives everyone a chance to cycle quickly through the human-centered design process.

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Creativity is on the rise as a top skill leaders will need to face the increasingly complex challenges the future has in store for them. For those who identify as "creative types," this is likely music to your ears. For those who don't, stay with me! As luck would have it, IDEO was founded on the belief that everyone is creative—and that creativity, like any other leadership skill, can be learned and practiced. In 2013, David Kelley and Tom Kelley put that belief down on paper in their best-selling book, Creative Confidence.

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.