When it comes to food, we often have to choose between health, convenience, and taste. Parents struggle to get their kids to eat veggies. The same daily salad can become boring or bland over time. Produce often withers in the crisper drawer.

Betterer Foods set out to make one of the world's favorite foods healthier. Rice is a beloved food across many cultures, but many people now avoid simple carbohydrates due to diet restrictions or health concerns. Innovations and alternative options have mostly been limited to products in the freezer section, like riced cauliflower.

Betterer Foods created RightRice: a dry, shelf-stable grain made from rice and vegetables, including lentils, chickpeas, and green peas. RightRice has more than double the protein, five times the fiber, and 40 percent fewer net carbs than traditional rice. But the product still tastes and looks like rice, and is faster and easier to cook.

RightRice founder Keith Belling, the founder and former CEO of popchips, asked IDEO to design a brand that would communicate the product’s benefits. The start-up needed everything from a defined target consumer and brand story to a stand-out package design, website, and go-to-market materials.

The team listened to people's challenges with rice and eating healthfully: home cooks find it difficult to store fresh foods without them going bad, busy professionals are strapped for time when preparing balanced meals, and parents sneak vegetables into dishes like casseroles or mac and cheese. Some consumers say they avoid rice because it’s a carbohydrate, which is forbidden in so many of today’s diets. People describe themselves as “carb phobic” or say they consider rice a “guilty pleasure.” Others don’t eat rice because it makes them feel sluggish or bloated, or is too difficult or time-consuming to prepare. Overall, people wished rice could be healthier, simpler to cook, and still taste delicious.

IDEO translated these insights into a brand foundation that helped RightRice come to life on shelves, online, and in the world. The package messaging emphasizes the vegetable ingredients, and the cut-out window lets consumers see that the product looks like rice. The shape of the window simultaneously forms a bowl of rice and a smile.

Rice is a household staple around the world. The RightRice brand makes it easier for consumers to have health, convenience, and good taste in one accessible product. RightRice launched nationwide in Whole Foods and Amazon in February 2019.

Since this launch, the company has expanded both its reach and product line. RightRice is now available in nearly 5,000 retailers nationwide in addition to Whole Foods and Amazon, including Sprouts, Wegmans, and approximately 1,800 Kroger stores. Over one million bags have been sold.

The company has received numerous awards and acclaim, including being named “Best Plant-Based” by People’s 2019 Food Awards. Building on the success of RightRice, Belling and his team launched RightRice Medley, a blend of RightRice, ancient grains, and vegetables, in 2020. This new product, which features the same branding the company created with IDEO, has doubled the company’s shelf presence at Whole Foods.

After 40 years of rapid development, China's economic growth has reached a critical turning point.

However, looking at the world, today is also the most complex and uncertain era in human history. The traditional engine of economic development is slowing down, while innovation and other emerging ideas are helping the economy burst into dynamism. To ride this trend, China has already put in place comprehensive policies to ensure that the country can achieve this magnificent transformation—not only to maintain economic growth, but also to achieve high-quality development. To this end, what China needs most is a group of new business leaders with a sense of cooperation and innovation to lead and realize this change as a pioneering force.

People of insight can often see the situation clearly with a forward-looking eye. China's society and economy are undergoing transformation and upgrading, and market demands are constantly changing driven by technology. While seeking business development, many mature entrepreneurs with successful experience have realized that they need to explore some of the most essential issues inwardly, including: The original intention and mission of the enterprise and the role that enterprise leaders should play. However, without a systematic approach, transformation and upgrading, strategic decision-making, management mode and cultural construction cannot truly serve the enterprise

As a top institution of higher learning in China, Tsinghua University has always placed an important strategic position on cultivating innovative talents for China. IDEO is the world's leading design and innovation consulting firm. As a pioneer of design thinking, IDEO has always been committed to applying design and innovation capabilities to solve the world's most complex problems. After discovering the need for China's economic and social transformation and the need for innovative leadership by Chinese entrepreneurs, Tsinghua University and IDEO jointly launched the "Leading China" program in 2018. This program is aimed at senior management of Chinese enterprises, and aims to train entrepreneur trainees to use new perspectives and ideas through a one-year innovative leadership course to seek solutions for the systemic changes that need to be achieved in the process of social transformation in China.

The students of the first "Leading China" program came from more than 30 entrepreneurs from 20 different industries. The teachers who participated in the lecture included 73 Chinese and foreign experts including Shan Jixiang, the former dean of the Forbidden City, Masahiro Kuroyama, the father of Japanese industrial design, and Jake Knapp, the inventor of "Design Sprint". As China's first innovative leadership course with design thinking as the core, the project is equipped with "design to open enterprise creativity", "reshape enterprise competitive advantage", "forge innovative business system", "innovate with the help of finance", "embracing Industrial Revolution 4.0" and "Win-win China Created 2030" six modules. The trainees traveled to nine cities in one year, and completed the courses in the interactive teaching of inspiration and the exchange and sharing of practical experience. Many students said that the course not only helped them find the direction and path of enterprise reform, but also improved their way of thinking, strategic planning and leadership models.

Liu Feng, the founder of Top Intelligence, gave an example of the inspiration brought by the six pillars of "vision-led" enterprise reform. Through "vision leadership", he not only sorted out the original intention and values ​​of the company, but also launched a series of measures based on this starting point, which improved the company's various aspects from the telephone customer service process to the organization of the annual meeting, and mobilized the enthusiasm of employees. This greatly improves the company's efficiency and flexibility. Ting Zhihong, chairman of Hongtu Logistics Co., for example, said that the biggest change brought by the course is her awareness of the importance of empowering the team. The company has now built many platforms to give employees more room to play, to create markets, to put decision-making on the front line, and to let employees play the role of company operators. Her company doubled its profits in 2018. Hu Chao, founder and CEO of Leyou Pregnancy and Baby, introduced that what most executive courses learn is knowledge, and what this course learns is people-oriented values ​​and ways of thinking.

The students of the first class of "Leading China" graduated in December 2018. Regarding the course of this year, Wang Jingwei, former assistant dean of the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, commented: "Since the project was launched, we have not only witnessed the true value of design in a business context, but also experienced first-hand the use of people-oriented The difference between the designed executive courses is that the entrepreneurs who participated in the courses quickly entered a state of immersive learning, and many students quickly began to practice the methods they learned in the enterprise.”

On April 8, 2019, the list of winners of the 3rd "Changing the World Innovation Award" was announced, and the "Leading China" project was shortlisted for case nomination, becoming the only Chinese innovation case in the education category. The "Change the World Innovation Award" was announced by Fast Company, one of the world's three major financial and business media organizations.

As one of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers, the Chinese brand vivo is widely known for its exceptional technological innovation and top-of-the-line photography and gaming hardware. But in an increasingly saturated phone market, vivo understood that it wasn’t enough to lead the pack based solely on technological excellence. To win the hearts of young Chinese consumers, they needed to become a beloved brand.

China consumes roughly 30 percent of the world’s smartphones, presenting a tremendous market opportunity to brands who wish to capture young consumers’ loyalty. In order to achieve that, vivo wanted to design a complete brand experience beyond the devices themselves—one that would express the joyful vivo brand spirit through services and retail experiences. One of their first key initiatives was to build its first concept store in an iconic building in Shenzhen, China.

Before building the concept store, vivo approached IDEO to explore what kind of in-store experience would resonate with young Chinese people. The concept store needed to convey joy in a meaningful, tangible way, while also setting the stage for vivo’s future brand systems. With this in mind, IDEO set out to explore how vivo’s young consumers experience fun.

After conducting research in four different cities, IDEO shared the stories of young Chinese consumers back 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 expose themselves to new experiences, express themselves in different ways, expand and deepen their social connections, and build knowledge and skills.

Through this understanding of how young Chinese define “enjoyment,” IDEO helped vivo identify the value proposition of the concept store as expressing oneself 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 concept store launched at Shenzhen on March 22, 2019, featuring an upper level dedicated entirely to interactive experiences with photo booths, sound recording, and lighting technology. The engaging, lively and positive atmosphere of the store represents a major milestone in vivo’s transformation from a smartphone maker to a consumer brand.

WATCH: Official launch video provided by vivo.

As China's agriculture moves towards scale and sustainability, helping farmers grow healthier food with resilience is a matter of national economic security and individual livelihoods.

Bayer Crop Science—with its mission to accelerate China's agricultural modernization and benefit Chinese farmers and consumers—has provided high-quality products for millions of growers in China over 18 years. Yet its service relies heavily on multi-layered distributors and retailers across the country. The last mile of Bayer’s product delivery spreads across tens of thousands of highly fragmented retail stores, making the quality of service difficult to monitor and control.

Together with IDEO, Bayer Crop Science aimed to uncover new ways to engage with local farmers and retailers, and develop design concepts for its diverse set of retailers—establishing local relevance as well as the potential to scale nationwide.

With this ambition in mind, a team formed by Bayer Crop Science and IDEO launched into a design sprint in the rice fields of China’s Anhui province. Field research uncovered multiple challenges facing Bayer Crop Science’s retailers. First, each store needed to serve more than one hundred farmers, many of whom rely solely on the store owner to understand how to use the products. Retailers struggled to meet a high daily demand for direct support in a way that provided a positive customer experience.

In turn, farmers felt they had insufficient access to expert advice. While many farmers shared similar needs, there was no system for aggregating requests or arranging group instruction. Given that many rice farmers are illiterate, pre-printed educational pamphlets had limited impact, and retailers lacked tools for providing targeted support. And because the retail stores were also used for storage, little space remained for educational or community programming.

With these constraints in mind, the team needed to come up with ideas and design concepts that could be easily integrated into the daily lives of the retail store owners. The team brainstormed hundreds of concepts and quickly prototyped a select few. One retail store in Dangtu was transformed entirely into a live prototype set. Over three days, more than 50 farmers and retailers came through and provided feedback. From there, the team was able to make daily iterations of the concept, evolving the experience in real-time.

The Bayer team was energized by the potential of these prototypes to enable more customer-centered retail experiences. An exhibition of the concepts was set up during the National Annual Sales Conference of Bayer Crop Science in China, during which a much wider audience from Bayer experienced not only the concepts, but also the immediate feedback from farmers.

One year after the project’s completion, more than half of the design concepts have been included in Bayer's support kit for dealers. In 2019, these concepts will be rolled out in more than 1,000 flagship stores across China.

The work has also accelerated Bayer Crop Science’s efforts to build an ongoing engagement mechanism with its retailers and growers. Its online platform, Bayer Joy Grower, now has more than 10,000 retailers and will be expanded to growers soon.

After steaming smooth, straight pieces of wood, Katie sculpts them into loose knots, braids, and squiggles, inherently fluid shapes that defy the medium’s natural rigidity.

To me, Katie’s work represents open-mindedness, possibility, and the means to evolve beyond appearance, expectation, or past. Her sculpture that sits in our living room—a wooden braid that bends upwards in an elegant arc, like a ballerina’s arm extending over the bar—reminds me to be unafraid to challenge the seemingly accepted, even when it comes to myself.

Katie sat down with me to share more about her craft, plus her fondness for classic 80s movies and finding freedom in chaos.

In one sentence, who are you?

I am many things: an artist, mother, wife, designer, and powerhouse.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

I’m an artist specializing in wood. I bend wood by steaming it, which is a unique and pioneering technique that challenges classic woodworking practices. I learned the craft from a young age. Growing up, my grandfather and father were both carpenters and taught me how to work with wood.

3 favorite possessions?

1. My father's Old Timer pocket knife. 2. My wedding rings and grandmother’s jewelry. 3. My adventure hat.

What does a typical work session look like?

I like to have a lot of projects going at once, so there are typically a couple things in the works at any one time. I tend to work a bit on each project all at once. Sometimes it can be a bit hectic, but there’s something in this chaos that allows me to move freely from project to project.

How do you get over creative block?

I try to take a step back. I change my surroundings and not think about the project. I find that once I zoom out, I find the solution I was searching for.

What was the last item on your to do list?

Getting a pedicure. Sometimes making time for myself can be tricky.

How do you see the world in 2078?

Hopefully I'll still be around then. Let’s see... I hope to be telling my grandchildren about growing up in the 80s, and blowing their minds by showing them ET and The Goonies. I hope that the world still holds on to the classics, like going for road trips, camping in cars, or reading books snuggled under a blanket while its raining outside. I hope that the world is similar to today and yesterday. Mostly, I just hope it’s not uninhabitable because of global warming or something crazy like a nuclear explosion.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

I’d like to have a solo exhibition in Japan.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

My number one creative crush is always Aleksandra Zee. She's my creative sister. Windy Chein’s ombre knots are killing me, and Meryl Pataky is truly pushing the boundaries of neon art.

With a dose of hot moisture and a little imagination, San Francisco-based woodworker Katie Gong makes the seemingly stiff become supple. Kind of like my attitude after a bath.

Having already used acrylics, oil paints, graphite, and finally moving on to digital art, there was not much left to experiment with to broaden my artistic arsenal.

Or so I thought.

It was 25th of September, 2016, when my artistic alter ego was born. During that period of my life, I was searching for a way forward, having just returned from university without a job. I spent most of my time ideating and planning my next move.

That afternoon, I sat down to take a break and illustrate my state of mind. I started what was meant to be a 20-minute drawing session with a 0.5mm fine liner. That pen, plus an old notebook that I had used back in university, became my weapon of creativity.

When I was done, I had a character that I named “the relentless dreamer”—a tiny figure with a peculiar helmet that shielded his wandering heart from reality as he knew it, granting him the ability to see far beyond the clutches of a life he deemed to be limited. This tiny figure reminds me that it is crucial to be idealistic, ambitious, and forever creative.

Drawing this character gave me an emotional release unlike anything I had experienced before through art. Though I was often plagued with a sense of anxiety around what my drawings would mean or stand for, this time, I felt weightless.

I began focusing on these black and white ink drawings, and the experience was cathartic. Each one entwined with the stories that brought them to life. Even though most of the figures I drew were imaginary, I was taking my life and experiences and expressing them through my illustration. I would envision part of the figure in my mind and let the rest appear.

My intention was for viewers to move their eyes constantly as they looked for meaning in the drawing or simply made out the shapes.

Some of my work is dark, some full of mystery—a mystery I hoped that others would try solve as they navigate the intricacies of the line work.

Amidst all the visual chaos, there was one constant: A human element. The figures would serve as my connection to the pieces, and I hoped they would resonate with the audience, too.

These days, you will probably find me seated in the corner of a cafe with a fine liner pen. To many, I am just an artist, ardently sketching away. But what I’m actually doing is getting a little dose of sanity, as I move the images in my mind onto the pages of my book.

And in that very moment, I am dreaming… relentlessly.

Want to see what other IDEOers are drawing and doodling? Take a peek inside more designers' notebooks.

Two years ago, after spending most of my life mimicking artwork that appealed to me, I assumed that I had reached my artistic peak. I had been drawing since 1999. I still enjoyed working on portraits and surrealist compositions, but creatively, I felt stuck. After starting university, my product design work proved to be quite fulfilling, but my personal work was feeling uninspired.

Creativity Challenge # 6: Warm up a group

Creativity thrives amidst free-flowing social discourse. To get a roomful of strangers to innovate, you may want to begin by breaking down some social barriers. When this exercise is done right, the room will be abuzz with chatter and laughter, and participants will be more open to what comes next.

Tool: Speed Dating
Participants: Pairs in groups of any size
Time: 15-20 minutes total, 3 minutes per round
Supplies: Paper printed with a set of questions for each participant. Several different sets of questions will be needed to accommodate the entire group.

Instructions

Step 1: Give each person a list of open-ended questions. Several different sets of questions should be spread throughout tables in the room so that people aren’t continually being asked the same questions.

Examples of possible questions:

• How would your closest family members describe you?
• If you had a million Euros to spend in a way that benefits humanity, what would you do?
• What do you wish your parents had told you?
• What was a live performance or show you really loved, and why?

Step 2: Ask each person in the room to pair up with someone they don’t know very well or have never met. This may involve getting up and moving seats.

Step 3: Have one person in each pair ask a question from the list. Allow three minutes for the other person to answer.

Step 4: Have each pair switch roles and repeat, asking a different question on the list

Step 5: Tell everyone to find a new partner and repeat the process for a couple more rounds.

Tips from the field

You want to keep people moving to create a well-orchestrated round-robin. Be proactive about timekeeping. Assign someone to be a facilitator or timekeeper. To add a little fun, use a buzzer or gong to announce that time is up.

Depending on the nature of the working session that will follow the Speed Dating exercise, you can tailor some of the open-ended questions to be inspirational and loosely related to your topic. For example, if the objective of the meeting is to discuss the future of workspace for the organization, one of the prompts may be, “Describe an inspiring space you have worked in.”

Give a little thought to the type of questions you use. Meaning-of-life questions and superlative questions (the most, the best, the worst) can cause people to stall out or draw a blank. The whole purpose is interaction. So if your question stumps your partner for even a handful of seconds, it’s not quite right. Try the questions out on someone before you use them in a group setting.

If your group might be uncomfortable with an activity that includes the word “dating” in the title, call it Speed Meeting—which we have found works with Nobel laureates.

This post was taken from Chapter 7 of Creative Confidence. Purchase the book for more on how to use creativity to solve problems, or view more from this series of creative exercises on the IDEO blog.

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

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1. Design for human capabilities

We are in an uncomfortable place at the moment. Technology has connected us all more than ever, but we are feeling less substantive connection with one another. Human interaction has been reduced to lowest common denominators. Unhappy people click more. Now technology is starting to displace us. In the next few years, deep learning-based AI will take over human activities, from driving to medical diagnosis. The discomfort is increasing as society faces mass redundancy, increased inequality and a crisis of meaning. We can all feel it coming. Design can help.

The amazing thing about good design is that it looks at ambiguity and disruption and sees fertile ground. There is huge opportunity when we focus on things that humans are uniquely equipped to do—empathy, creativity, care, love.

If we do it right, we can conceive and shape new roles for humans in a layer on top of the efficiencies that machines can achieve. We can use those uniquely human traits to re-find and enhance community and depth in our relationships with each other. We can go from Artificial Intelligence to Augmented Intelligence.

—David Webster, Partner, IDEO Palo Alto

2. Design for emotional wellness

The uncertain state of the world is having clear consequences for individual health. You see it in the headlines everyday: Kids paralyzed by anxiety. Suicides by gun. Addiction to opioids. We live in the most technologically connected times, yet our rates of loneliness are increasing. If you dig deep, the common root is an absence of emotional and mental well-being.

I’m not talking about the well-being that’s branded through luxury experiences, like wellness retreats. I’m talking about what Maslow missed at the very bottom of his hierarchy: that sense of inner well-being that is absolutely necessary for our survival as humans.

What’s exciting about our moment now is that science has surfaced the myriad ways we can cultivate emotional and mental well-being—all of which are new channels for design.

Designing ways to get better sleep is also a way of designing for resilience to stress and better ability to manage our emotions. Tackling loneliness and designing for meaningful social connection is also a way of designing for a stronger immune system and brain protection. (Conversely, enabling chronic loneliness is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.) Designing ways to help people find their sense of purpose and meaning in life is an incredibly powerful way to design for healthier mind and bodies.

More and more, designers will realize their superpowers. Doctors and nurses are key players in facilitating wellness, but let's not forget that designers can be healers, too.

—Ann Kim, Portfolio Director, IDEO Cambridge

[This portion was also featured in Fast Company.]

3. Design for circularity

While it's easy these days to lament the state of the environment and the need for change, there's some hope to be found in the increased momentum towards a more circular economy. Collaborations between industry and design have yielded smart, feasible ideas for redirecting waste streams and reconnecting key stakeholders.

Businesses are investigating new product and packaging design that enables materials to be used again and again; they're asking how to leverage logistics in more efficient ways; and they're conceiving of new ownership models that could extend the lifecycle of the products they make.

The next questions on the horizon revolve around the economic systems that need to be in place to support these circular innovations. For example, we can design buildings so that they can be deconstructed—a circular engineering idea—but the cost of labor makes that reality prohibitive. In 2019, it's time for more applied circularity, leveraging emerging technology, organizational design, human insights, and social networks to create the conditions for the circular economy to take hold.

—Lauren Yarmuth, Portfolio Director, IDEO New York

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With 2018 fading into the distance, we're looking with hopeful eyes toward what the next year may bring. Our ongoing projects and client work help us hold up a mirror to reflect on what’s been happening and make informed predictions about what’s to come. Here are a few forecasts from IDEO leaders on prospective trends in design and tech.

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.