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

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

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

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

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

87,000

site visits to to HandholdMA.org since launch

223,000

people reached in bilingual social media campaign

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

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

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

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

Top 1

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

260M active users

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‍

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

Honorable Mention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5% increase

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

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

Creativity Challenge # 2: Increase your creative output

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

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

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

‍

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

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

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

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

1. The Owner’s Manual

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

2. The Architect

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

3. The Ambassadors

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

4. The Hive

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

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

‍

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

Practical is good. But when you are applying to your dream job, being practical is not enough. Cover letters may seem like an extra step, but for those of us on the other side, they’re a way to cut through the noise. I might see 300 applicants for a single job. A cover letter helps me understand the people behind these pieces of paper, and who might really make a difference in the role.

Maybe candidates feel too much pressure to write the perfect cover letter, so they skip it. To that I say, don’t let perfect be the enemy of great. And don’t miss an opportunity to show a company who you are and what you bring with you.

Here are five tips to help you write a compelling, well-crafted cover letter, with excerpts from real letters that helped IDEOers get in the door.

1. Explain why this position makes sense for you now in your career

If you’re shifting industries, or looking for a role with more responsibilities, your qualifications might not be obvious based on a resume or LinkedIn profile. Remember, this isn’t about selling yourself; this is about sharing yourself.

Here's a good example:

I am interested in the recruiting coordinator role because I believe that I have the best skillset and mindset to navigate the different elements of this position, and I am very interested in growing in a career in HR.

My experience in office coordination and operations management has taught me that my workplace passion is in people operations and support. My favorite phrase to dish out is, “Don’t worry about it, I got you.” My goal always is to set people — employees, visitors, friends, strangers — up for success. Whether that means labeling which drawer has paper clips and which has paper towels, or directing questions to people who have the answers, or ensuring that new hires have all they need and more waiting for them on their first day. I strive to be a bridge between teams to help members get what they need to get the job done well, and I am passionate about finding ways in which we can improve that entire interaction. I geek out over creating, improving, and discussing process and ways we can make interactions more human.

2. This is an introduction, not a manifesto

Aim for two paragraphs (if you end up with one or three it’s okay). There is no rule that says cover letters need to be lengthy to lend insight into your background and your interest in the role. On the flip side, the two sentences that state the obvious—you’re applying to such-and-such company and that you hope for an interview—aren’t really cover letters. If this is your go-to move, ask yourself why you’re applying to that role and if you are really interested in it or qualified for it? Because those are the same exact questions the recruiter is asking.

Here’s a pithy explanation of who a candidate is, and what she wants out of a career:

I’m half Scottish, half Chinese and have lived and worked across seven cities in three continents in the past 10 years. I have the unique ability to imagine the world from multiple perspectives. I’m a leader, a dot connector, and a storyteller. I’ve been looking for an opportunity that combines my unique interests in design research and education, and would look forward to hearing more about the team and projects and share how I can contribute.

3. Show some personality in your writing

Try to strike the right balance between being sincere and being authentic. A sincere cover letter gets the reaction, “Wow, they really mean everything they say.” An authentic cover letter gets the reaction, “Wow, they didn’t hold anything back.” Cover letters can have a blend of both—just remember that this is a first impression. When in doubt, stick with sincerity.

Here’s how one successful applicant explained his background, and his values:

So as I sit here in the airport terminal waiting to board, I wonder about the question of my own destination. After honing my expertise in insight-led branding, I want to bring it to a greater range of projects for a company that would allow me to make a positive difference in the world. I feel like my experience with junior designers, my advocacy for design as language, and my commitment to collaboration would help me to be an asset for a brand that shares these goals. After all, that’s what all of us are looking for, to invest our time in brands with which we share the same values.

4. Keep it focused

Sharing a portfolio or summary of past work is not the same as a cover letter. If you want to get visual with images, graphics, charts, and artwork that’s great, just make sure it is in service of communicating why this role, and why you.

This is the entirety of one successful cover letter:

I’m a scientist, a writer, an educator, an artist, and an avid autodidact. What makes me an effective educator is that I have a genuine and self-motivated thirst for learning and for sharing that information with others. My experiences create a design process that is equally as analytical as creative, as researched as inspired, and as concise as expressive. On my nightstand right now, I have The New York Times, Popular Mechanics, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, The Economist, and US! Weekly. It’s a mixed bag, but it’s the best way I can show you that very few things escape the reach of my curiosity. Welcome to my brain:

This image complemented the message of the above cover letter.

5. Address it to the correct company

Yes, this sounds basic, but—believe it or not—this mistake happens all the time. It’s perfectly normal to have a cover letter template you enjoy using—just make sure to tailor your cover letter to the role and organization. And always proofread. (For the companies and roles you’re most excited about, have two other people proofread.)

Here’s how one applicant showed us—in an opening sentence—that they knew a lot about IDEO and the work we do. (Creative Confidence is a book written by David and Tom Kelley, partners at IDEO).

Dear IDEO hiring team,

I put down Creative Confidence on a cold, March Toronto day with a profoundly different perspective on what it means to do meaningful work.

These are all important points to fold into your cover letter, but remember, what matters most is that you show a little personality. After all, we want to hire you, not your resume.

‍

Let it be known, I love cover letters. For applicants, they’re the best way to express thoughtful excitement for a job. For recruiters like me, they’re the best way to learn about the motivations and aspirations behind an application. But much to my dismay, these days, there’s a common belief that cover letters are superfluous compared to the more practical resume or LinkedIn profile.

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

Creativity Challenge #1: Push yourself to think divergently and creatively

Actively engaging in exercises that foster divergent or unconventional thinking can encourage the generation of ideas. When you are searching for innovative solutions on your own, mindmaps can be a powerful way to come up with ideas or to gain clarity about a topic of exploration. They are extremely versatile, and we use them all the time. From coming up with ideas for a family vacation to identifying home projects to tackle over the weekend, mindmaps can be used for all sorts of problem solving. They help you chart the recesses of your mind surrounding one central idea. The further you get from the center of the map, the more hidden ideas you can uncover.

Tool: Mindmaps
Participants: This is usually a solo activity
Time: 15-60 minutes
Supplies: Paper (the bigger the better) and pen

Instructions

Step 1: On a large blank piece of paper, write your central topic or challenge in the middle of the paper and circle it. For example, you might write “A great dinner party for friends.”

Step 2: Make some connections to that main topic and write them down, branching out from the center as you go. Ask yourself, “What else can I add to the map that is related to this theme?” In the dinner party example, you might write down “everyone in the kitchen” and “make your own sundaes” as two avenues of thought. If you think one of your ideas will lead to a whole new cluster, draw a quick rectangle or oval around it to emphasize that it’s a hub.

Step 3: Use each connection to spur new ideas. For example, under “make your own sundaes,” you might write “have dessert first” or “cook at the table.”

Step 4: Keep going. You are done when the page fills or the ideas dwindle. If you are feeling warmed up but not finished, try to reframe the central topic and do another mindmap to get a fresh perspective. If you feel you’ve done enough, think about which ideas you would like to move forward with. After drawing the mindmap shown here, David threw a big dinner party in which guests changed tables after each course, enabling them to talk to everyone in the room. Each challenge presents an opportunity for innovation.

Tips from the field

Generally the first set of ideas that branch from the center will feel cliched or obvious. That happens to everyone. Those concepts were in your head and were just waiting to be captured on paper. As the map progresses, however, your mind will open up, and you’ll likely discover some wild, unpredictable, dissociative ideas.

As you experiment with mindmapping, you may find it valuable in all sorts of creative endeavors. As David’s former colleague Rolf Faste used to say, mindmapping can:

1. Get you started and help you overcome your fear of the blank page.
2. Help you look for patterns.
3. Reveal the structure of a subject.
4. Map your thought process and record the evolution of an idea. (You can trace it backwards later in search of new insights.)
5. Communicate both the ideas and the processes to others, so that you can guide them on the same mental journey.

You may be wondering when a mindmap is better than an ordinary list. Lists are great at keeping track of things we don’t want to forget. But the to-do list assumes we know what we want to put on it, whereas, at the start of a mindmap, we don’t yet know where it’s going to lead us. Mindmaps are good at facilitating divergent or unconventional thinking; lists are good for capturing the best answers among the thoughts you already have. Mindmaps help to generate ideas. As such, mindmaps are particularly useful early in the creative process. Lists are better later on, when you want to capture the ideas you’ve generated and are looking for a best solution to pursue. Each of the chapters of Creative Confidence started as a mindmap. Later they evolved into lists of stories and ideas that we wanted to weave together. When you are trying to create something new, use mindmaps to generate ideas and lists to capture the best ones. Together, they can be a powerful combination.

This post is the first in a series of exercises taken from Chapter 7 of . Purchase the book for more on how to use creativity to solve problems.

‍

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

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.

‍

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.