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.

Strategy can’t just exist in a three-ring binder. It’s the culmination of choices leaders and employees make across companies, brands, and organizations every day. It influences how employees communicate, how leaders make decisions, which opportunities they choose to pursue, and which ones they decide to leave behind. For any new strategy to succeed, it must be embedded across an entire organization, with choices, mindsets, and behaviors that are supported by workplace culture.

That’s why the art of activating strategy is just as important as the art of crafting it. It takes creative thinking to get buy-in across organizations and make it easy for folks to take action. And then, when employees are living the strategy in their daily work, their efforts must be supported by the systems and people around them. As the legendary management theorist Peter Drucker reportedly once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

We’ve found that involving employees in the strategy creation process, telling simple stories that stick with them, and fostering a culture that supports new ways of working can help pave the way for successful activation. Here’s how to do it. 

1. Distribute ownership 

“Socialization” is often tacked on to the end of strategy work, but simply publishing a framework can feel like the “Powers That Be” are dictating the “Grand Path Ahead.” Organizations can spend countless hours and significant resources on initiatives such as town halls, emails, and presentations, only for them to fall flat. This is not just a poor use of time and money; it’s a missed opportunity.

Instead, investing upfront in co-designing with a diverse group of stakeholders fosters a sense of ownership across all levels of the organization. When employees see their input in the strategy—or at least know someone who contributed—they are far more likely to engage, champion, and activate it. Beyond buy-in, this approach often leads to a stronger strategy, with a better understanding of its opportunities and risks, improving adaptability as the future unfolds.

In a recent engagement with KQED, a non-profit public media outlet in California, KQED leadership and IDEO took a deliberate and inclusive approach to designing a vision and strategy with the larger organization, not for them. We ensured that a broad cross-section of KQED employees, from on-the-ground reporters to board members, were involved throughout the process, not just at the end. We also created an interactive installation that showcased the work in progress, providing employees with a preview of the framework, an opportunity to give feedback, and a chance to connect with the KQED team members who were working shoulder-to-shoulder with IDEO. This approach gave everyone in the organization a sense of ownership over the strategy, while inspiring the core team to pursue new possibilities. “We did not want to just drop a new strategy on the organization,” says Michael Isip, President and CEO of KQED. “Quite the opposite. We wanted the organization to know that it was our shared responsibility to figure this out. We didn’t just need their buy-in, but their expertise and passion.”

2. Make the story stick

Human-centered design isn’t just about the end customer; it’s also about the people inside your company who do the day-to-day work to make things happen. These people are the lynchpins of change; the success or failure of your strategy lies squarely on their shoulders. That’s why it’s so important to help them understand their role in it and what it will take to bring it to life. 

This is where storytelling comes in. A good story doesn’t just paint a picture of aspiration. A simple, tangible narrative—with a clear call to action—can inspire the entire organization to get excited about the future and clearly define the behaviors, changes, and decisions that will make it real.

On a project helping American Express expand its customer base, an IDEO team created a series of short, internal videos about a new product called “Pay It, Plan It.” These videos helped employees develop empathy for new types of customers, understand their needs, and, of course, demonstrate how this product could positively impact their lives. “I often talk about it in terms of learning a new language,” says Kyoko King, VP, Global Commercial Services at American Express. “Amex internally thinks of itself as a rational company based on CBAs and models. The breakthrough—and the thing I’m most proud of—was bringing that customer emotion into internal decision-making, seeing Amex become emotional rather than purely rational.”

Video can be an excellent medium for these kinds of stories, but it’s not the only way to create emotional resonance in your organization. When we worked with a large midwestern corporation, their leadership viewed strategy as a deeply complex and weighty concept rather than a series of collective choices. To help the organization embrace the concept—and details—of its strategy, we designed an interactive museum-style exhibit to help connect the choices their founders made to the choices leaders were currently making and the company’s aspirations for the future. This pairing of artifacts and memorabilia with forward-looking brainstorm moments helped make the strategy more tangible, approachable, and less abstract for shareholders.

3. Enable new ways of working

A new strategy often means fresh mindsets and new ways of working. It takes time to create new behaviors, and even more time for those behaviors to become ingrained in the culture. It all starts with leaders. They must demonstrate them through their actions—in meetings, the questions they ask, and the decisions they make. By visibly embracing these behaviors, they give others permission to do the same. 

In a collaboration with a leading media and entertainment company, we developed and implemented an innovation strategy that necessitated a deliberate shift in priorities, working methods, and company culture. We hosted interactive sessions and panels to equip leaders with firsthand insights, tools, and mindsets that help foster innovation and identify behaviors that might be holding them back. To reach employees, we developed a communications strategy—including podcasts and videos—to celebrate small wins and new behaviors, and collaborated with their HR team to refine job descriptions and hiring strategies that aligned with the new direction. This is just the beginning of their efforts to support cultural change at scale, but already, they’re finding success and witnessing people change their behaviors and norms to align with the new strategy. 

Bringing strategy to life can sound simple on paper: Engage with stakeholders early and often. Share stories, simply and widely. Foster new ways of working, from the top down and bottom up. And then, live happily ever after! The end!

But it’s never that simple. People have been hired and rewarded for driving the previous strategy, so shifting priorities and rethinking daily choices isn’t just a task—it’s a fundamental change that takes time to ingrain. It’s important to be patient, stay focused on the vision, and create space for initiatives that enable activation of the strategy. Because the most successful strategies aren’t just launched—they’re lived, every day, by the people who bring them to life.

Need help embedding strategy in your org's culture? Get in touch.

(The original version of this story attributed this quote to Peter Drucker. While it is often credited to him, the true source remains uncertain.)

This piece is part of a series. Check out the first two installments, focused on methods for defining your organization's purpose, and moving from purpose to strategy.

Here’s a riddle: If a company chooses to spend time and money creating a new strategy, but employees aren’t clear on how to implement it, will it ever guide company decisions or drive progress?

Regardless of how much potential it holds, an idea in its early stages is like a flickering flame, easily extinguished by hesitation or misalignment.

Early-stage innovation is inherently fragile. It requires decision-makers to recognize this fragility and remain vigilant to potential oversights stemming from past success. Only then can organizations create the conditions of openness, encouragement, and support that nascent ideas need to take root and grow.

This is the story of how we helped a group of senior leaders move beyond the comfort of familiar formulas to create space for innovation.

Internal misalignment meets external pressure

In recent years, our client—a leading consumer goods company in China—had seen growth in its most successful product category begin to stall after decades of strong performance. In response, the company wanted to develop a new strategic offering in the same category to reignite sales. That’s where our collaboration began.

But from the outset, the project faced internal friction. The core challenge was aligning leadership levels on how to pursue future growth.

Senior executives prioritized scale: “Is the market big enough?” Earlier wins, where hero products had ridden the wave of urbanization to dominate their category, had shaped their expectations.

Business unit leaders, however, believed revitalizing the category required more than incremental change. They pushed to move beyond familiar playbooks and explore bolder directions, such as targeting higher-value customer groups. These approaches might not deliver immediate volume, but they offered long-term potential and a path to renewed relevance in a shifting market.

Yet, whenever these proposals reached the executive table, the conversation often came down to a single question: “How much volume can it deliver?” They dismissed ideas that didn’t meet past benchmarks before they had a chance to evolve.

Meanwhile, the market had already moved on. Competitors had introduced new offerings targeting younger middle-class consumers, with growing success—and our field research confirmed it. Across a wide range of households, we found consumers actively purchasing competitor products in the same category.

By the end of the research, the message was clear: the younger middle class represented a valuable growth opportunity. Whether the executive team could step beyond legacy benchmarks and make room for new thinking would shape not only this initiative but the future of the category and the company’s broader capacity to innovate.

Designing experiences that expand perspectives

Data and arguments weren’t enough to shift mindsets. So we turned to something more visceral: designing experiences to help leaders gently challenge their assumptions and expand their perspectives.

We kicked off a strategic workshop with an immersive exhibition in our IDEO Shanghai studio. The team turned key insights from internal research, market trends, and consumer home visits into tangible exhibits—concrete facts that couldn’t be ignored.

Some of the insights were blunt:

“Our so-called ‘new’ products are mostly cosmetic upgrades—not true innovations.”

Others hit harder:

“The biggest takeaway from this research? Young middle-class consumers are already buying products in this category—but not from us.”

Seeing these insights laid out physically prompted unfiltered reflection. The room fell quiet. One sticky note on a panel read: “Ouch.”

We followed with another activity—this time off-site. We took our clients to visit one of Shanghai’s most popular lifestyle destinations, known for its cutting-edge retail stores. Their task? Choose a gift they believed would resonate with a young middle-class consumer.

Many selections were easy to challenge: “Would this actually appeal to a young person?” Lively debates followed as our clients reflected on what younger consumers truly value.

One executive reflected aloud, “I’ve been in this industry for decades. But the pace of change is way beyond my experience... What should I do next? I really need to spend more time understanding this generation.”

A mindset shift was underway.

Building alignment through shared practice

As perspectives began to shift, we took the next step: building alignment through shared practices.

We designed a series of product innovation workshops. Participating client teams were intentionally diverse—spanning age groups, functions, and seniority levels—to simulate the kind of cross-functional collaboration innovation demands.

Each team was tasked with defining a product concept rooted in real consumer insight, building a quick prototype, and pitching their idea in a simulated live-streaming sales session to test resonance with the target audience.

The goal wasn’t to finalize a product. It was to rehearse the full cycle of consumer-centered innovation—from insight to positioning to storytelling.

To ground this work in real-life contexts, we recreated a series of “consumer life corners” in the space. Each corner depicted a typical lifestyle scenario based on our research, featuring everyday objects that illustrated the consumer’s routines and values.

For example, the “relaxed mom” corner included an air fryer, symbolizing this persona’s preference for convenience without compromising on quality.

Each scenario also included a puzzle. Certain key consumption choices—like what a young professional might eat for lunch during the workweek—were hidden behind covers. Teams need to decode them based on their understanding of consumers' true needs.

The exercise sparked rich dialogue. When a younger business unit leader suggested that busy professionals might opt for frozen konjac dumplings, a senior executive countered, waving a sandwich: “No way. There’s no time to cook those at noon!”

In those moments, hierarchy dissolved. Everyone was focused on a shared goal: What does the consumer actually need?

By the time teams took the stage for their live-stream-style pitches, the change was visible. The same executives who had once asked, “Is the market size big enough?” were now using phrases like “dopamine colors,” “punk wellness,” and “a feast for the eyes.”

The room buzzed with insight and energy.

Through this immersive journey, the executive team not only built a sharper understanding of the younger middle class, but also came to a deeper realization: bringing an innovation to life is far more difficult than it seems. 

As one senior marketing executive said, “I thought I understood young consumers and trends. But actually designing for them? That’s a whole different challenge.”

This shared understanding created space for innovation to flourish. Leadership greenlit and fully resourced the initiative to develop a strategic new product line targeting younger middle-class consumers. The client is also investing in broader product innovations across the company.

The larger win, however, was cultural. As a team, they learned how to protect—and nurture—the fragile spark of what’s next.
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‍“The Making of...” is a series of behind-the-scenes articles written by IDEO Shanghai designers about our innovation methods and work with major clients across industries in China. Read the original Chinese version here.

People often marvel at the impact of innovation once it lands, but reflect less on where it begins: with an idea.

Growing up with a Jetsonian vision of push-button dinners and automated cleaning, I imagined coming home to a house managed by a trusty humanoid helper. In hindsight, that glimpse of the future wasn’t a bold vision of what could be in 2040; it was a 1960s dream.

In our pursuit of future-forward thinking, we often find ourselves recycling outdated paradigms. This phenomenon, known as the “used future,” refers to the adoption of established ideas and models without critical examination of their current relevance or efficacy. First introduced by Sohail Inayatullah, a pioneer and leading voice in the field of futures studies, “used futures” are ideas about the future that we inherit without criticism, ideas that resonated in the past but are no longer fit for our emerging realities. The image of a humanoid robot tidying the home is just that—a nostalgic picture of tomorrow that distracts us from the more systemic innovations we need today. Which, given our current context, should look more like redesigning entire systems for living, rather than just one gadget for individual efficiency.

As a futurist, I am fascinated with the concept of the used future. Many leaders and organizations I work with unintentionally operate on autopilot, constantly recycling old beliefs and assumptions about what people want, what good or better looks like, or what technology should enable. Even futurists unthinkingly adopt concepts developed in different contexts and timelines, leading to solutions that are inappropriate or even detrimental to current needs. ​Designers who go after used futures are at risk of building yesterday’s dreams without realizing they're already stale. This is evident in many of the “redesigned” systems we see in today’s world:

• Urban planning that continues to favor car-centric infrastructure despite growing awareness of the benefits of pedestrian-friendly and sustainable transportation.
  
  
• Educational systems that still mirror the industrial revolution's factory model, emphasizing standardization and conformity over creativity and critical thinking.
  
  
• Healthcare that focuses on acute, episodic care, neglecting holistic, preventative, and community-based wellness and public health approaches.
  
  
• Office designs that prioritize “modernized” cubicles and centralized workplaces, overlooking the potential of hybrid models and third spaces, and ignoring costly commutes and work-life balance issues.

Each of these systems carries the DNA of an older future that doesn’t fit the reality we’re living in or the expectations we have for the future. Most attempts to redesign or evolve these systems and so many others are myopic and incremental at best—more akin to remixing previous fixes than driving paradigmatic change.

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It’s an easy mindset to slip into. Over many years of doing futuring work with clients and graduate students, I’ve returned to the same exercise. I ask them to close their eyes and  “imagine the year 2040.” Almost invariably, their minds leap to the familiar—flying cars, corporate dystopias, and neon-lit cityscapes of sometimes decades-old popular culture. The futures they could imagine are limited by inherited visions of what could be.

To break that loop, I’ve started changing the prompt. Instead of “What does 2040 look like?” I ask, “What does your birthday in 2040 feel like?” Suddenly, the answers are different. They talk about who they hope would be there, where they would be, and what they would be doing. The future becomes grounded in something personal, emotional, and ultimately, human.

And that’s where real futures thinking begins. The key is to notice when you are repeating someone else’s vision of tomorrow and get curious enough to imagine your own. But how, exactly, can you sidestep the used future?

Here are five techniques I use regularly that can help transcend the limitations of the used future:

1. Identify emerging signals

‍Looking past today’s dominant narratives means tuning into faint signals of the future, early indicators of change that hint at what might be plausible tomorrow. These signals are not trends yet; they’re provocations, cultural artifacts, early-stage experiments, or subcultures operating at the edge.

Consider IDEO’s Future of Automobility project from 2015. Introduced long before autonomous vehicles hit city streets, this work mapped a world where vehicles were shared, adaptive, and integrated into a broader urban ecosystem. It didn’t ask, “How do we make cars better?” It asked, “What happens when we stop designing around car ownership?” By interpreting early shifts in technology, social behavior, and city planning, the team envisioned new mobility platforms that anticipated today’s transformations in transportation infrastructure. Witnessing the most recent “carriage-style” entries into the autonomous market in the Bay Area, it’s impossible to miss the similarities between what IDEO imagined mobility could be and where it is today.

To avoid the trap of the used future, we need to be less obsessed with forecasting with certainty of what will happen and far more courageous in noticing signals for what is possible, no matter how speculative it feels.

2. Question the framing

Used futures often sneak in through the front door, via projects that frame the problem to be solved using assumptions, categories, or language that come from the past. That’s why it’s critical to ask: Is this work going after incremental improvement or transformational reimagining? “Better-than-today” efforts may optimize the status quo, but “future of” briefs open the door to strategic reinvention.

IDEO’s collaboration with Conservation International initially focused on protecting biodiversity hotspots. Through reframing, the team moved from traditional conservation messaging toward building a new cultural paradigm: helping people recognize nature as a source of emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. This new context led them to think of nature as their client, shifting the way conservation is valued and communicated in human-centered terms. It was a significant reorientation of purpose rather than just a new message.

3. Prototype tangible futures

It’s hard to unlearn the futures we’ve inherited unless we see, touch, or experience alternatives. Prototyping tangible futures helps us push beyond habitual thinking and brings speculative ideas into experiential form. This might mean creating speculative artifacts like newspapers from the future, designing future rituals like a daily huddle with your AI agent, or simulating entirely new systems.

At IDEO, teams often use tangible futures techniques to prototype new products, new services, and new ways of behaving. When teams work on “future of health” projects, prototypes might include a mock clinic that embodies an alternative care model, a future policy pamphlet, or the interior of an autonomous ambulance. These prototypes for interactions are tools for stress-testing assumptions and unlocking insights  creating momentum that stakeholders can react, iterate, and imagine together. You don’t need a time machine to imagine what could be; you simply need a prototype.

4. Create human narratives

Too many future visions center on technology, markets, or efficiency and miss the beating heart of change: human lives. Human-centered narratives illuminate the values, desires, tensions, and trade-offs that define meaningful futures. They help us imagine what the future brings as well as what it will feel like to live in it.

In several IDEO projects that reimagined the future of aging, teams resisted the common narrative of decline and dependency. Instead, they co-created stories with older adults that ranged from reimagining retirement as an opportunity to engage in lifelong purpose to redesigning death to helping the elderly live with intention, right up to the end. These future narratives inspired new product and service ideas and reshaped social attitudes and policy conversations.

Narrative is a strategic tool. By telling stories of a preferred future where people thrive in just, inclusive, and life-affirming ways, we can build the collective resolve to make them real.

5. Design nascent paradigms

Sometimes it’s not enough to design for a new future; we also have to design the conditions and new thinking that make shaping nascent paradigms possible, reorienting how we define progress, value, and success

In the Beyond the Bag Challenge, IDEO worked with startups and major retailers to help define what it means to design solutions that restore and renew natural systems rather than deplete them. The collaboration led to a range of alternatives to single-use plastic bags, including biodegradable options and systems for recirculating bags. Within months, several prototypes were launched in major retailers and key markets.

Avoiding the used future in design means embracing techniques that encourage not just imagining transformative futures, but also those that help us surface and question possible outdated visions as well. If we don't notice the used future, we risk creating innovation theater, polishing legacy ideas instead of surfacing the truly new needs, emotions, and possibilities. By consciously moving beyond these old visions of what’s possible, we open ourselves to a broader spectrum of possibilities, enabling designs that are not only innovative but also deeply attuned to the evolving context of our world.

‍Looking to bring futuring into your own work? Get in touch.

I’ve been waiting for a housekeeper robot since I was a kid.

The question tossed out at checkout has become such a common refrain that it can feel like background noise. Perhaps you say no—worn down by membership fatigue, especially for stores you rarely visit. Or perhaps you say yes, lured by a one-time signup perk, only to join the 35 percent of shoppers who say they belong to a loyalty program they’ve never used.

Nearly 80 percent of Gen Z and millennial consumers believe a high-quality digital experience is essential for loyalty programs. But these reward systems, typically built around points, discounts, or tiers, rarely reflect what the brand actually stands for. And when the behavior being rewarded feels disconnected from the brand’s promise, it creates a subtle but powerful disconnect. We think of this as brand dissonance: a type of cognitive friction between what a company claims it values and how it invites people to engage.

When we design loyalty programs at IDEO’s Play Lab, we begin by recognizing that a brand exists at the intersection of what it says about itself and how people experience it, across hundreds of small, accumulated interactions. Done well, loyalty programs don’t just reflect a brand’s values—they embody them, shaping how people experience the brand in the countless moments that add up to brand loyalty.

On a project with JetBlue, for instance, we were tasked with introducing a new premium service that could compete with first-class perks—but without undermining their mission to “bring humanity back to air travel.” Rather than replicate a tiered status model, we grounded the work in a different philosophy: speak to modes of travel, not travel classes.

We designed for different player types—offering “power-up” benefits like faster security, better access to overhead bins, and higher quality food and beverage options. These upgrades honored JetBlue’s inclusive ethos and resonated more with the airline’s loyal passengers.

The result? The new offerings, introduced in 2011, drove its EvenMore line of perks, generating $230 million per year, with a 30 percent annual growth rate, and increasing revenue per customer by 20 percent. That success didn’t come from gamification for its own sake—it came from building a loyalty experience that reflected JetBlue’s values and aligned with travelers’ intrinsic motivations.

Designing for the next generation of consumers brings added complexity, as brands must account for shifting behaviors, rising expectations, and evolving definitions of loyalty. Programs that feel overly transactional or inaccessible often fall flat. Younger, digitally native audiences are highly discerning and research nearly every product online before buying—not just to find the best deal, but also to assess whether a brand aligns with their values and feels worth supporting. They gravitate toward brands that feel authentic, expressive, and purpose-driven. Think REI Co-op or Trader Joe’s. Earning their loyalty means creating experiences that reflect who they are and who they aspire to be—rather than how much they spend.

That’s where game design offers a powerful blueprint. The best programs go beyond transactions, building ecosystems of engagement that give people agency, align with their intrinsic motivations, and evolve over time. Not to be confused with basic gamification, which adds a superficial layer of points, badges, and leaderboards as a way to incentivize customers, game-inspired programs can go deeper and reward engagement in ways that are rooted in brand values and reflective of real-life consumer behavior and identity. Here are three ways we could design a more sophisticated game approach to loyalty programs across three industries: retail, restaurants, and hospitality.

Pokémon Go for retail

Imagine the goal for your brand is to tap into self-expression, identity, culture, and community through your loyalty program. Your app could include an AR feature that lets users scan physical environments—like storefronts, catalogs, or product tags—to reveal hidden offers, collect digital rewards, or unlock exclusive quests. Shoppers could level up based on their interests or shopping style (e.g., “Sustainable Shopper" or "Sneakerhead"), earning rewards that reflect their values and deepen their connection to the brand. Think Pokémon Go meets personalized product discovery.

Gamify the wait at restaurants

Every parent dreads the restless stretch between sitting down at a restaurant and the food arriving. It’s often when screen time rules go out the window—and then backfire when the meal arrives and a tantrum ensues as you try to pry the screens away. Now imagine you operate a chain of family-friendly restaurants. When families are seated, they can scan the table to unlock secret menu items or interactive mini-games that reward adventurous eaters (“no repeat dishes for two weeks”). Better yet, what if your kids could feel like they’re helping prepare the meal through a restaurant simulator game, synced to the real-time cooking process—turning wait time into a playful, immersive experience that reinforces family connection and the fun of dining out together?

Turn hotel stays into an open-ended travel adventure

Let’s say you run a hospitality brand that caters to travelers who care about connection, creativity, and belonging—not only price or convenience. Imagine if guests could earn recognition beyond the number of nights they stay, reflecting how they make travel a part of their lives. Like the cozy game of Animal Crossing, rewards are given to players for consistently returning and doing small, meaningful things over time—earning recognition for sending postcards, documenting hidden gems to help fellow travelers, or simply enjoying breakfast in bed. Each stay becomes a chapter in their story, where they can log snippets of music, photos, journal entries, and even scents as mementos to savor and relive later. Over time, their loyalty profile becomes a rich, emotional artifact of their journey and identity as a traveler—not just a status tier.

Gaming culture has reshaped how people shop, connect, and stay loyal to brands. The most effective loyalty programs operate like games: they offer agency, build a sense of progression, and create emotional resonance. Grounded in a brand’s core promise, they reward behaviors that reflect what the brand truly stands for and show up in the everyday moments that matter. And while they’re inspired by game design, they don’t need to look like games to make people want to keep playing.

So let’s build something better. Let’s co-create the future of loyalty—one that feels like a game your customers actually want to keep playing.

“Are you a member of our rewards program?”

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.