Before Eat Real can advocate for better school meals,  it has to connect with school leaders—and donors. As the organization expanded its work beyond school certification, it needed an updated soup-to-nuts branding redesign that represents its purpose.

To get started on the five-week sprint, the IDEO team conducted a brand audit and interviews with Eat Real staff, board members, and donors. The team learned that Eat Real’s brand messaging and voice showed up inconsistently, and that board members wanted greater clarity around communication to prospective donors. Several people expressed a desire to change the original logo centered on a fork to a more culturally-inclusive symbol, and for the logo to be separated from the Eat Real Certified stamp, since the organization had evolved to do much more than just certification.

The IDEO team worked in close collaboration with Eat Real to deliver comprehensive brand guidelines, including Eat Real’s brand purpose and core values, positioning and personality, logo and wordmark, visual expression, verbal expression, and brand showcase. The brand’s new tagline, Nourish the Future, speaks directly to how real food access unleashes the possibility for a healthier society and a healthier planet. A new mark combines three elements that signify much more: a welcoming bowl (joy and ritual), the serving spoon (generosity and nourishment), and a sprouting leaf (a future where children and the planet flourish). The team also landed on an unapologetically vibrant color palette, to bring surprise and energy to the brand. From this foundation, Eat Real created a new website, completed a photo shoot with IDEO's art direction, and launched the brand with new messaging and collateral within a year. Now, Eat Real has the tools it needs to scale its operations and affect real change.

To scale its program and be at the center of sustainable food systems change, Eat Real needed branding and messaging to reach a new set of philanthropists.

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Almost 30 million US kids depend on public school lunches for more than 50% of their daily calories. These meals are frequently made up of ultra-processed, unsustainable foods that contribute to type 2 diabetes and obesity.  

2023 funding goals reached

with its new branding, beating its end-of-year fundraising goals, and putting the nonprofit on track to serve more schools in 2024

129M

meals served to 360,000 students every year at schools that have gone through the certification program

Most end-of-high-school experiences, like the Chinese gaokao exam, the global IB Extended Essay, or the US-based AP Capstone program, are focused on testing and academic, classroom-based activities. Yungu School, a private K–12 school in Hangzhou, China, founded in 2017 by Jack Ma of Alibaba and funded by Alibaba partners, wanted to take a different approach.  Yungu’s vision: combine the renowned Chinese National Curriculum with an international, competency-based learning mindset.

Designing a new capstone course that brought together the perspectives of Yungu School’s many stakeholders was a complex challenge. The solution? IDEO formed a “co-creation council” composed of eight Yungu School middle- and high-school educators who held different positions within the school, spanned tenures, and came from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds, including Chinese, European, and American. Bringing together educators from a range of backgrounds and points of view fostered alignment and sparked new ideas. In addition to the council, IDEO and Yungu educators gathered additional input from students and parents and crafted the objectives, design principles, and blueprint for the change-making 18-month capstone program.

The collaboration resulted in a tailored, insight-driven capstone course that progressively builds learners’ confidence and agency via five modules: “Get Inspired,” “Find Yourself,” “Dive Deep,” “Go Big,” and “Give Back.” The learning cycles, which range from one week to half a year in length, teach students how to move from ideas to impact in topic areas they are passionate about and which have a bearing on pressing issues like climate change, digital privacy, and reducing food waste, among other global challenges. The goal of this iterative approach is twofold. Equip students for “global citizenship” by identifying personal ways to make a positive impact. And foster “entrepreneurship” by learning to be critical, creative, and optimistic systems thinkers who embrace a growth mindset.  

To ensure a solid foundation for the new course, IDEO also created a week-long design-thinking training program for Yungu’s teachers. The professional development experience boosted their creative problem-solving and taught them how to move from being “expert instructors of curricula” to “encouraging guides” of capstone students who would need to demonstrate their proficiency through a final product, presentation, or performance rather than a final exam. The collaboration concluded with an immersive exhibition that allowed all stakeholders—educators, students, and parents—to experience the content modules and transformative course for themselves.   Since launching its capstone program in 2022, Yungu High School has added lectures from social entrepreneurs and workshops that teach communication skills to the innovative course, garnering awards from media outlets like Fast Company. Most importantly, the signature program has enabled The Yungu School to embody its noble and audacious mission—empowering students to become future innovators for social good.

Today’s high-school seniors learn how to memorize academic content and pass tests but aren’t prepared to make a real-world impact after graduation.

196 college offers

and $1.442 million in scholarships received by over 40 graduates from Yungu High School’s class of 2023

2023 Finalist

Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards, Learning category

Design thinking was embedded in the creation of Omada Health from the earliest phases, and Omada has taken that forward as a strategy for success.

Over the past decade, the digital health company has grown from a couple of early career IDEOers testing concepts at the very frontier of digital health, to a company with nearly 2000 employers on its customer roster and more than one million users of its healthcare products.

Omada’s origin story began at IDEO in 2011, when its now CEO, Sean Duffy, an MD/MBA student at Harvard, joined IDEO as an intern, after a partner found his resume on the copy room floor. What was supposed to be a summer internship led to an exploration of the potential impact of digital tools on chronic health problems. IDEO partner Dennis Boyle gave Duffy and his co-founder and fellow IDEOer, Adrian James, the time and funding to do human factors research, meeting with people with prediabetes and metabolic disease in their homes to learn more about the care they were getting. What they heard was that no product or service was meeting the realities of their daily lives.

Five months after he landed his internship, and with the company’s blessing, Duffy and James spun Omada Health out of IDEO. Together, they raised a seed round, and continued to lean on design thinking methods, prototyping early versions of their product, then testing it with real patients. Duffy himself even served as the company’s first health coach. By sticking with the mindsets they had learned at IDEO, they avoided the pitfall of falling in love with the popular approaches to digital health of the era—like detailed food tracking or bluetooth enabled pill bottle tops. Instead, they stayed focused on creating what patients were asking for: a digital product that provided support, accountability, and evidence-based solutions. 

Today, Omada Health is a virtual-first, integrated care solution that provides patients with clinical care plans using digital tools and one-on-one, personalized coaching. It helps users manage chronic conditions including pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, joint and muscle health, and behavioral health. More than a decade after its founding, it counts nearly 2000 employers as customers, has more than one million users of its products, and has published 24 peer-reviewed studies on its outcomes. Not to mention a $1.3 billion IPO in June of 2025. But it’s still going after its North Star: to bend the curve on preventable chronic diseases nationwide.

About 60% of adults in the US live with a chronic disease. According to the CDC, 90% of the nation’s $4.1 trillion annual healthcare expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions.
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Diabetes is the country’s seventh leading cause of death—and the most expensive. Diabetes accounts for $1 out of every $4 in US healthcare costs. In addition to the cost of care, diabetes costs employers $90 billion annually in lost productivity.

Nearly 2,000

employers now partner with Omada

1 in 10

commercially-insured Americans have access to Omada through their health plan or employer coverage

$1.3 billion

valuation at Omada's IPO

Finding the right beauty product online isn’t easy, as shoppers are deluged with choices.

On top of information overload, our research unearthed varying emotional and functional needs when exploring beauty products. When looking for makeup, for example, shoppers are interested in self-expression and open to exploration. But when buying skincare products to fix an acne problem, say, people feel a bit more vulnerable. That insight led to rethinking the retail environment as a space that offers both free range exploration and trial spaces along with engagements that address the individualized needs of customers at different life stages.

Acknowledging that entering a new phase of life can make people feel insecure about their looks, we asked research participants, What does “beauty power” mean to you? Responses suggested a lack of trust in unbiased voices online about how to look and feel powerful. Digital shoppers are continuously bombarded by ads and influencers who are incentivized to push brands who hire them. Shoppers love Sephora for being a neutral space that showcases multiple brands, so we leaned into that strength, designing displays that offer product reviews and details that enable consumers to make informed decisions.

Those displays started as prototypes in a Sephora concept store that filled an entire floor of IDEO’s Shanghai office. In our bright, modern space, consumers of all demographics explored a self-led experience designed to delight. A “Play Table” allowed visitors to freely explore products, using digital platforms to access product details and reviews. Beauty consultants were close at hand to offer assistance. At another pitstop, the “Sephora Beauty School,” offered a spectrum of classes and community activities, providing hands-on guidance and enabling participants to test out beauty bloggers’ techniques. The “Care Table” addressed more personal skincare needs, providing a semi-private setting for individuals to remove makeup, try out products, and consult with experts. Here, digital tools helped consumers understand their skin type, facilitating personalized consultations akin to professional medical care. These innovative features aimed to create a unique, exploratory experience, blending digital convenience with concierge in-store service.

The feedback garnered from that prototype helped the team iterate quickly and gave Sephora the confidence to launch its first “Asia Store of the Future” in Singapore in 2022, followed by a second store in Shanghai in 2023. The Singapore store, situated in Raffles City, offered consumers a free-flowing, interactive beauty playground with a blend of digital and personal services, much like our early prototype.

The success of these two shops validated Sephora’s “Store of the Future” strategy. But experiences must evolve to stay fresh, so the team set up an “engagement indicator” tracking customers’ interaction with digital touchpoints to provide Sephora with valuable insights. Based on those insights, Sephora can continue to iterate its in-store experience and foster loyalty as its customers’ preferences shift.

As hoped, Sephora’s revitalized storefront blends digital and physical experiences in a way that gives every person who enters the store the feeling that they are stepping into their own “beauty power”.  By getting close to its customers, building early prototypes, and learning as it goes, Sephora has redefined the in-store experience, ensuring its relevance and appeal in a rapidly transforming retail landscape.

E-commerce has created tremendous challenges to companies whose core business revolves around retail stores.

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Online consumers struggle to make informed decisions with the deluge of choices online.

2

“Stores of the Future” launched

107%

traffic increase within four months of Shanghai store launch

In one sentence who are you?

Artist from Bristol, UK, currently living in NYC.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

I draw and paint every day. It is hard to pinpoint how I learned to draw, but I have been practicing since I was a young lad. I would always draw what was around me.

I have always been inspired by artists who draw with an energetic, loose line. Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Chris Orr, Robert Weaver, and Linda Kitson were artists I looked up to.

As I got into my early teens, I really got immersed in depicting the urban environment. This was fueled by picture books that my dad would bring back from trips to the US. American cities didn’t look like UK ones.

I went to art college, but I largely stuck to my guns and just made the work that I wanted to make. To be honest, I’m making it up as I go along.

WATCH: IDEO San Francisco mural, 2017

3 favorite possessions?

My sketchbooks from the last 25 years and a giant Spitfire that I made and had hanging in my old studio.

What does a typical work session look like?

I am normally juggling three projects, so I try to split up the day and do a few hours on each.

I tend to do the large-scale work in my studio apartment, and then I have a desk in a shared studio where I do smaller jobs.

So I guess I work in two to three hour bursts, and then go do something else. Obviously, if there is a pressing deadline, that goes out the window. I do 12-plus hour sessions sometimes.

How do you get over creative block?

Go running, to the gym, or for a pint. Talk to a friend and then go out and draw something. Or just start something. Sometimes I think too much.

I also keep a small, pocket-sized sketchbook on my person, so that when I am traveling about the city I can draw people and things that catch my eye. It is a lovely way to see stuff. People spend so much time looking at their phones these days, they miss out on so many things that are happening in real life.

How do you see the world in 2078?

Warm.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

I’d like to watch a cricket test match in the Caribbean.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

I am looking at painters a lot these days. Here are a few: Peter Doig, Paul Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Jules de Balincourt, Enoc Perez, John Virtue, Edward Hopper, George Bellows…

I first discovered Patrick Vale's work while sourcing muralists for an installation in our entryway. I became entranced by the organized madness of his large-scale cityscapes—the attention to detail, consistency, and sheer patience they required to complete. Pat embedded himself in IDEO's San Francisco studio for more than a week—morning, noon, and night—to create an alternative map-view of San Francisco. I caught up with him to get the backstory.

As the person in charge of the overall employee experience for IDEO San Francisco, I should have known better. Neither my husband nor I have any experience running a coffee business. Had we known how hard it would be, we would have surely taken one look at the space and balked. Instead, we tore down walls, stood in line at the city building department, had our eyes opened wide, cried out in frustration, and in the process, learned a hell of a lot.

Thinking about starting a side business after hours? Here are 5 lessons we learned the hard way:

1. The laws won’t bend around your business

Turns out it’s staggeringly difficult to open a city-approved and permitted food establishment in a space where there hadn’t previously been one. The ADA laws (The Americans with Disabilities Act) are incredibly intricate. When IDEO opened a new office to house our growing business, I already understood the language the architect used to describe ADA issues we might face, and how bureaucratic and difficult the permit process might be.

2. Designing a great experience = problem solving

If you're starting a side biz, think hard about which learnings from your day job are transferable. Working in experience design, I already knew what it was like to be in a constant state of problem solving, failing quickly, and learning from it all. My relationship with the IDEO community and my commitment to giving them what they want—and to saying no when necessary—was paramount. I use my skills in thinking about space, how best to use it, and how to realize potential problems before they surface every day at Snow White.

3. Everything will go wrong

We installed an ice cream machine that failed almost immediately. (Who knew your ice cream machine won’t stay cold enough if your shop isn't air conditioned?) We’ve also dealt with the lack of a freezer or a proper ice machine, too little dry storage, and leaking sinks. When you're starting a new business, expect to be prototyping and problem solving around obstacles constantly.

4. Take breaks and rely on your community

We’ve learned when to say no and when to take a break. That has been essential to avoiding burnout. Expect to call in lots of favors and make sure you return those favors over time. We’ve made strong relationships with our community by asking them for favors when we need to, and giving back to them when we can.

5. Blind faith is your friend

Some lessons are less tactile, like how being fearless pays off in the end. It allows me to make quick changes without feeling paralyzed. We all let barriers get in the way. We come up with reasons why something won’t work. The blind faith we had when we decided to open the shop is in itself a lesson—and the most important one we learned. I've taken that lesson back to IDEO (and we certainly have better coffee in the office now too!).

A year later, the learning continues. We’re constantly trying new things to evolve our business. Stop by Snow White Coffee Bar for a latté some time and let our defiance inspire you to jump into something you think you can’t.

Last winter, while walking down a busy shop-lined street a block from our home in Oakland, my husband and I noticed a handwritten FOR LEASE sign posted in the window of a dirty dry cleaners. “This is such a great location, someone should put a coffee shop here!” we joked. But it was no joke—four months later, on April 20, 2016, we opened the doors to Snow White Coffee Bar.

Inspired by the New York Times’ piece on How to Fall in Love with Anyone, I reached out to my fellow IDEOers and asked about some of their favorite ways to break down barriers when meeting new people—especially in a group setting. They showered me with activity ideas.

Here are my top 5 favorite ways to break down barriers:

1. 3 Things in 3 Minutes

Everyone partners up with someone, ideally a person they don’t know well. Each pair has three minutes to discover three things they have in common that go beyond the obvious, like “We’re both in this room together,” or “We’re both wearing glasses.” After three minutes, everyone shares what they’ve learned with the group. Discoveries get pretty specific and have ranged from “We both have an adopted 11-year-old daughter from Guatemala” to “Our moms went to high school together in Detroit!”

2. Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Each person brings photos of their life (house, room, stuff, friends, etc.). The only rule is they can’t be in the images. When the group comes together, each person puts up their photos, and everyone has to guess whose life is whose. After each person is revealed, they have an opportunity to share a few components from their lives that are represented in the photographs.

3. Grouping Game

Create a series of categories that a group can use to organize themselves. They might be as simple as “cat person or dog person” or “Mac user or PC user,” or provide a bit more context about people’s background, such as “oldest, middle, youngest, or only child” or “religious or non-religious.” Once you have a handful of categories, call them out one-by-one, and have people form groups based on how they identify. For each round, have people ask one of the other questions of another group. By the end of the exercise, they will have been part of a dozen or so different “communities,” each comprised of a different set of people.

4. Acknowledgement Line

Have the group form two lines facing each other. Then, have them partner with the person they’re facing and take turns following these prompts (even if you know nothing about them):

• What do you want to know about this person? (Curiosity)
• What do you appreciate about this person? (Appreciation)
• What do you want to share about yourself with this person? (Acknowledgement)
• What can you contribute or give to this person? (Contribution)

5. Uniqueness Share

Each person takes turns sharing a fact about who they are or what they've done. If someone else in the room has done it before, then the person sharing needs to come up with another fact about themselves. So, if one person says, “I biked across the country,” and someone else says, “I’ve done that too!” then you would need find another fact, such as “I lived in Thailand.” Keep going until you find something that is truly unique about each person.

Any one of these exercises will help bring a feeling of common humanity into view. So, next time you enter a room full of strangers, save the cheesy icebreakers and admit that you’re a cat person instead.

Thanks to Mollie West Duffy, Neil Stevenson, Deirdre Cerminaro, Caryn Voskuil, and Heather Currier Hunt for their contributions.

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Walking into a room of strangers can feel daunting. Small talk is hard enough, and it’s even trickier to delve into deeper topics right off the bat. I chuckled when I found out that the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows has a term for the realization that every person has a story as complex as yours. But how do you unlock those stories with someone you've just met?

Working in food and hospitality design, I’m always on the lookout for what's new in the space. So, the moment I heard about SingleThread, I booked a night for my husband and me as an anniversary gift.

I suppose it’s an occupational hazard that I couldn’t help but notice the thoughtfully considered details that give SingleThread its hospitality superpowers. We were swept off our feet personally, but I also walked away with design insights that I took back to work.

At IDEO, we look to extremes for inspiration—people, brands, or environments that exaggerate specific behaviors. When we designed a line of ergonomic kitchen tools, we prototyped with both sous chefs and with those suffering from arthritis. Edge cases reveal what is or is not working, helping us generate opportunities for innovation.

SingleThread is most certainly an edge case. The name says it all—their vision is highly crafted, and a thread of that vision is woven into every detail of the experience.

3 lessons SingleThread Farms taught me about designing modern hospitality:

1. Don't tell your brand story, weave it in

At some hotels, the brand or theme takes over everything. Sweden’s IceHotel, Japan’s Robot Hotels, Underwater, and Disney's Star Wars hotel might be fun once or twice, but they're less about a tailored guest experience, and more about their own story.

To say that SingleThread’s theme is “farm to table” would be a gross oversimplification. The larger purpose, as its creators Kyle and Katina Connaughton shared with us, is “to be an extension of our home.” That is demonstrated in every detail, from the open kitchen serving a kaiseki-inspired menu that changes with the micro-seasonal produce Katina has pulled out of the ground that day, to the guest rooms upstairs, where the mini-bar is replaced by a curated selection of gratuit handmade snacks and beverages.

About halfway into our 11-course dining journey, we were presented with a basket of mismatched sake cups and invited to “choose one that speaks to us.” That was a first.

2. Aim for personal, not personalized

Personalization, the longstanding holy grail of the hospitality industry, is being reframed in the sharing economy. Airbnb's “belong anywhere” message is made real by guided experiences that help guests feel at home in the local culture.

SingleThread builds in degrees of freedom that make the experience feel personal, not programmed: A towel hook thoughtfully placed just outside the shower door so you aren’t left to tiptoe across the floor, a wooden ladle atop a tray over the bath, pre-filled with soaking salts.

At a nightly pre-dinner meeting, the staff reviews guests’ bios and dietary requests so they can adjust the dining experience in a seamless, subtle way.

3. Put smart tech in a supporting role

Tech features in hospitality are growing fast. From Disney’s MagicBands to mobile check-in apps, hospitality providers are looking for new ways to meet guests’ needs.

SingleThread has mastered hidden tech, integrating just enough to create a highly sensual, human-centered experience that connects them more deeply with their guests.

Guests prepay through a reservation ticket system called Tock, so that any transactions that might take them out of the moment—tipping the bellhop, front desk check-in—are removed from the equation.

A front door camera helps to ensure you are greeted by name when you walk inside.

For keyless entry into your room, you’re invited to create your own passcode.

Each room is equipped with a Teforia tea system that calibrates the exact time, temperature, and amount of water needed to brew you the perfect cup.

These smart tech moments aren't show-stoppers. They're there to remove friction from the experience.

Though SingleThread Farms is a boutique hotel, it doesn’t take five stars, or dollar signs, to show guests you truly understand their needs. It was the small design moments that made our stay an experience I (and my marriage) will never forget.

Have your own outstanding hospitality experience to share? Share with me on Twitter @MeijaJ with the hashtag #HospitalitySuperpower.

Header image by Garrett Rowland.

Where would you like your breakfast served? Your room? The study? The roof? This was the kind of tough decision I faced during my stay at the SingleThread Farms, the highly anticipated inn and restaurant that opened in Healdsburg late last year. After the 90 minute trek from San Francisco, I was welcomed by name and guided to my room, where I tapped a code I’d made up for keyless entry. I never touched a credit card during my stay.

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.