Obesity exists at the complex intersection of a clinical condition and a cultural force. Clinically, it comes with a diagnosis and treatment plan. Culturally, it is influenced by beliefs, identity, and self-worth, making it deeply personal and often taboo. Families, healthcare providers, and experts tend to avoid the fraught “o-word,” opting for euphemisms instead. For families on Medicaid, these challenges are even more pronounced. Award-winning health-tech startup Clarity Pediatrics, together with designers from IDEO, IDEO.org, and with support from Rise Together Ventures, sought to uncover the obstacles to healthier lifestyles and create a free report for US pediatricians who want to bend the curve on the childhood obesity epidemic.

Research with kids and parents on Medicaid in Dallas, Texas, and California’s Bay Area, along with interviews with healthcare providers and experts across the country, uncovered stories of stigma and frustration. Parents spoke of the daily challenges of balancing multiple jobs, sourcing affordable healthy food, and finding time to make necessary lifestyle changes. They described rushed pediatric visits that left them with unclear next steps and feelings of blame. Provider conversations echoed these struggles, noting time constraints and limited follow-up options.  

Ultimately, food had become a daily torment for these families. Eating was unavoidable and also one of the few affordable indulgences low-income parents were able to provide. Once kids left their own homes, they were surrounded by unhealthy temptations, making it feel impossible for parents to maintain control. The popularity of costly new weight-loss medications and surgical procedures added another layer of complexity for families who had been underserved by—and therefore distrustful of—America’s healthcare system. With so much of the responsibility placed on parents to self-direct care, inequities deepened, adding to the burden of families already at a breaking point.

To design a path forward, IDEO and IDEO.org mapped a family’s needs before, during, and after pediatric visits. This work revealed critical parts of the journey where families needed more support: recognizing early signs of obesity, navigating provider conversations, and sustaining healthier habits at home.

These insights informed a theory of change framework that provides actionable guidance for stakeholders involved in obesity care. Grounded in three opportunity areas along the patient journey—building awareness, confidence, and capacity—the framework highlights how trust, dignity, and systemic support can lead to lasting outcomes.

IDEO and IDEO.org also developed 10 user-centered concepts spanning digital, physical, and service offerings to reduce stigma and empower families to sustain healthier lives. These ideas address dignified diagnoses and structural inequities, among other pressing issues. Complementing these concepts, IDEO created a short documentary of a mother discussing her family’s experience navigating childhood obesity to help pediatric providers—many of whom have had very different lived experiences from the families and patients they serve—better understand the realities of the daily struggles of many families on Medicaid.

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Designed for the public good, the interactive website and free downloadable report, Reimagining Childhood Obesity, contain research findings, design recommendations, and a theory of change framework. The goal: provide practical, actionable guidelines for pediatricians, educators, healthcare organizations, and innovators to meet families and kids where they are and support them as they move toward a healthier future.

21% of US children are obese. 40% of Latino youth are either overweight or obese.

26% of kids on Medicaid experience childhood obesity, compared with 11% on private insurance.

525,600 minutes: Total time per year parents spend caring for their children. 17 minutes: Average time a pediatrician spends with a child during their annual exam, a small window to address a complex chronic condition such as obesity.

10

user-centered ideas to help pediatricians reduce the stigma of childhood obesity in an accessible report

3

opportunity areas for building trust with young patients and providing family support

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With its reach, Acer saw an opportunity to power positive choices in the billions. ‍

But new products and services won’t succeed if consumers don’t want them, no matter how sustainable they are. A few years go, the Harvard Business Review’s report, "The Elusive Green Consumer," found that about two-thirds of those surveyed said they wanted to buy brands that advocated sustainability. But only a quarter actually did.

Meanwhile, the market for climate era products is only growing: In 2022, Forbes found that nearly 90 percent of the Gen X consumers they surveyed said they’d be willing to spend more on sustainable products, compared to just over a third two years before. The desire was only higher among Millennials and Gen Z; they just didn’t like what was on offer.

To drive sales and growth, and meet its sustainability commitments, Acer needed to capitalize on desirability, deepening the connection between Acer’s sustainable options and consumer needs, lowering the barrier to purchase. To that end, Acer and IDEO created the Acer Climate Lab, a cross-organizational team and initiative, to launch the company on a transformative journey to deepen the connection between Acer's conscious technology and the realities of people's lives and needs across four strategic areas.

Together, the combined team conducted extensive research to better understand consumer attitudes and behaviors toward sustainable products, and identified everyday areas where Acer’s conscious technology might be able to have the most significant impact: living, working, moving, and learning.

• Living: Envisions homes as hubs of energy efficiency and climate resilience, leveraging technology to optimize energy use, enhance air quality, and enable proactive climate management. These concepts include technologies like smart energy systems, adaptive air solutions, and integrated home management platforms explore how technology can support sustainable daily living.
  
  
• Working: Reimagines the workplace with flexible, sustainable technology solutions that prioritize resource optimization and circular practices. Concepts such as Acer Loop could provide a subscription-based model that ensures access to the latest technology, supports remote work, and reduces electronic waste through effective recycling and rehoming practices.
  
  
• Moving: Focuses on the transformation of urban mobility by integrating technology into systems that promote sustainable transportation. Concepts could include e-mobility hubs that highlight how urban spaces could offer seamless access to shared, low-emission travel options, reducing reliance on traditional carbon-heavy methods.
  
  
• Learning: Explores pathways to sustainable education by imagining environments where technology supports circularity and accessibility. This includes ideas like refurbished devices for students, repair and reuse programs, and educational spaces designed with climate-positive principles, nurturing eco-conscious habits in future generations.

Together with Red Peak and Sid Lee, the team launched the culmination of the work at COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, positioning Acer as a pioneer in climate positive technology. The exhibit included immersive experiences and interactive displays demonstrating how Acer's sustainable solutions seamlessly integrate into everyday life. Visitors could engage with scenarios depicting sustainable living, working, moving, and learning, emphasizing the practical benefits of Acer’s innovations.

Acer's journey through the Climate Lab project underscores a commitment to sustainability that goes beyond mere compliance. With this new cross-business team tackling the real-world barriers faced by consumers, Acer is paving the way for a more inclusive, sustainable future. This initiative not only aligns with global climate goals, but also sets a precedent for the tech industry, demonstrating that with the right approach, sustainability and innovation can go hand in hand.

In a survey, 65% of respondents said they want to buy brands that advocate sustainability, yet only about 26% actually do. 

Nearly one in two consumers say they either don’t know what information to trust, or that nothing can influence how much they trust a business’s commitment to sustainability.

1 cohesive strategy

for climate era products across 6 different fields

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With the introduction of generative AI, Ethiqly and IDEO saw a unique opportunity to help teachers, by cutting down the time it takes to provide each student with feedback on their writing assignments. But to get there, they had to learn from the experts themselves. To kick off the project, the team headed into the classroom to co-design with students and teachers.

One of the first problems they discovered? Traditional methods of grading essays are laborious and inefficient for high school teachers, who are already notoriously busy and overworked. What teachers really wanted was to spend time giving each student the personalized feedback that helps them grow. Meanwhile, students really struggled to get started on their writing assignments, overwhelmed by looking at a blank page.

Together, the team started to think about how it could harness AI to make personalized instruction more accessible for all students, helping teachers provide better feedback at scale, and giving students the support they need to not only get started on their writing assignments, but improve their work. 

With insights directly from students and teachers, the IDEO team built working prototypes, allowing them to beta test the product in schools, and demonstrate value to investors. They also developed a brand identity and style guide for launch, which came to life in a pitch deck, landing page, and other brand expressions.

The resulting product is a sophisticated blend of AI technology and user-friendly interfaces that empower teachers and inspire students. The goal isn’t just to get to a finished essay, but to assist students in developing critical thinking skills. Ethiqly's tools help students organize their thoughts and get writing by providing contextual prompts and suggestions—without doing the work for them. And the AI assistant supports teachers by suggesting comments based on evaluation criteria they have set, and teachers choose which feedback is relevant for their individual students. Students never see it without teacher approval.

As one teacher told the team, “With leveraging AI more in education, there’s this fear that it’s deprofessionalizing the field or it’s a direct replacement of a teacher in a classroom. I think it gives us meaningful data, so that we can actually teach the way that we want to in order to support our students.” Now, Ethiqly is in use in classrooms in 25 countries, positively impacting students across the globe.

Teachers know 1:1 interaction is key to student success, but an EdWeek survey found only 46% of teachers’ time is spent teaching, while 25 hours/week goes to other tasks like grading and making lesson plans.

25 countries…and growing

Ethiqly’s reach in classrooms around the world

Designing a piece of a city, like a park, doesn’t start with a blank slate. There are always traces of the past and the present, and the lived history of its residents.

To create a full picture of that story, the IDEO team built workshops for the community centered around questions about the unique experiences of living in Frisco. They invited them to reflect on the communities they grew up in, the city of today, and the public spaces that have played formative roles for them. 

From their answers, a common value emerged: heritage. Frisco is a rapidly growing city, with residents whose families have lived there for centuries living side-by-side with more recent neighbors from diverse cultures and ethnic groups. Participants shared a vision of Grand Park as a unifying, shared space, a backdrop where many families can form foundational memories in Frisco.

Next, IDEO brought in multisensory design prompts to help participants further conceptualize the park. How did they want it to feel, sound, and smell? In the built-up, suburban city of Frisco, residents imagined a space that was less planned, enabling guided wandering and exploration. They also hoped that the park would inspire loved ones and descendants to feel a sense of curiosity and wonder.

At the end of workshops and sessions with community groups, the IDEO team took Polaroids of participants, asking, “What’s one word you want to describe Grand Park in the future?” Those words informed the collective vision that IDEO delivered to the city of Frisco, which included spatial concepts, user journeys, and branding for the park, all designed to showcase its unique landscapes. In January 2024, Frisco City Council approved the vision statement, and officials expect to break ground in the second half of 2025.

The population of Frisco is growing rapidly; its population is up 516% since the year 2000.

At more than 1,000 acres, Grand Park in Frisco is even larger than Central Park in New York City.

Less than 1% of Blackland Prairie soil remains in the region, and some of it is in Grand Park.

94

Frisco residents were engaged in the process, from City Council members to high school students

200+

respondents shared anonymous feedback on what they imagined the park should be

In this case, the kid is my daughter, Quinn. As face-squeezingly awesome as this was for her, it was an adventure driven by design. My team’s design researcher didn’t want us merely to observe; she wanted us to feel this place—its buildup, its storytelling, its magic—as a kid feels it. And for that, we needed a Quinn.

But aren’t there already plenty of kids at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Well, yes, one or two. But it's a different experience when it’s your sleeve being tugged. As a designer, you can observe what others are feeling—but you get a richer kind of fuel for design when you feel it for yourself.

IDEO New York has been inviting Quinn to share her opinion, inspiration, and feedback since she was 5 years old. The first time, she helped a team designing an alarm clock to make Mondays less dreadful and more delightful. Initially, the team planned to record her laughter, but they enjoyed her input so much that she was asked back to test materials, prototype concepts, and model for their website. Since then, Quinn has helped lead workshops, taught a class of grad students about gender bias when she was in the second grade, and built a fort of umbrellas in our café.

Quinn has earned such favor in our community that it was suggested (not by me) she be offered an official internship. And so, last autumn, when her school let out for half-day Thursdays, Quinn came to the studio and took up the mantle of IDEO’s Kid-in-Residence: The Quinntern.

Again, it wasn't all fun and games. Designers were asking her for help left and right. Here are four reasons why.

1. Kids don’t know the rules

Our project teams grab Quinn for their brainstorms because she listens to the problem and tries to solve it. She doesn’t think about financial viability or the laws of physics—she just thinks. Eventually, it's our job to add those things back in, but in the divergent phase of a project, she's a superstar.

Although she's prone to insert dinosaurs and robots into her concepts, she cuts to the core of an issue and simplifies the needs behind it in a way that can inspire us to develop a dinosaur-free solution.

2. Kids are buzzword bloodhounds

Einstein long ago reminded us that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it. Tapping a kid is the ultimate way to prove this out: If they’re confused by a concept or question, it usually means we have a lot more work to do.

Quinn will call us out on our assumptions—happily and loudly—and she won’t fall for any design jargon or doublespeak. Getting critiqued by a kid keeps you honest.

3. Kids are full of surprises

Kids see the world from a different perspective and value it with different priorities. Having first-hand access to that unique point of view helps jumpstart creativity.

At one 30-person client meeting, we wanted to establish a sense of play from the start, so Quinn ran a silly-face photobooth for us. As lawyers and Wall Street professionals walked in, she had them pose and make the silliest face possible. Many were hesitant to relinquish their dignity, but couldn’t say no to a kid in a sparkly hat. Then they posed for a second picture. And a third. Others were caught off guard when Quinn asked them to stop wagging their tails or to tilt their heads so the light would flatter their antlers. It took them a minute before it clicked: Oh! Kid imagination!

When an adult asks another adult to do something goofy, it can be hard to summon the vulnerability on the spot. But when a kid swoops in, the game changes. Vulnerability and playfulness beget vulnerability and playfulness.

One more, very important reason:

4. Kids are the future of great design

As part of her internship, Quinn created a project to prototype ways to “stop kids from squashing other kids’ creativity.” She interviewed members of our community about their experiences, hosted a lunchtime brainstorm for the entire studio, and designed exercises with her teacher to help kids be who they are instead of changing who they are to fit in.

Showing a kid that you value their insight arms them with the tools to value themselves. Quinn is at an age where the sphere of creative confidence begins to collapse under the pressures to conform. When you ask a class of second graders, “Who’s an artist? Who’s a dancer?” you get a sea of waving hands. Ask a fourth-grade class and you get a field of crickets.

For Quinn, IDEO has functioned as a force field against flagging creative confidence. Being our Quinntern has empowered her to push back against conformity and make room to be herself. She gets feedback from adults who aren’t her parents or teachers, but who value her creativity, appreciate her point of view, and model what a creative life can look like. I don’t know how long it will last (the teen years are around the corner, after all), but for now, it’s lovely to see her creative bravery continue to flourish.

And, like usual, it was a huge help at Harry Potter World. Quinn and I arrived on the second day of research. On the first day, my teammates had explored the park, enjoyed the rides, watched the crowds, and eaten way too much ice cream. We all expected day two with Quinn to be an encore presentation, with the added benefit of a nine-year-old’s real-time annotation. But after the first ride—after seeing the place through Quinn’s excitement, impatience, and joy, after experiencing the distance of the walk and the length of the wait from her perspective—the team felt how time and space warp when you’re in the orbit of a child.

Our design researcher leaned over to me and whispered, “This is a completely different place with her here.” I had to agree.

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If you’ve never seen a nine-year-old kid grab her own cheeks in overwhelming excitement, here’s how to rectify that: First, have a nine-year-old. Then pull that kid out of school in the middle of the day for a surprise double whammy: not only the chance to do research for a project with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, but the opportunity to conduct that research at Harry Potter World. Hand the kid her suitcase, get in the taxi, and pray those cheeks survive the trip.

Those things drive us nuts too. But those tiny moments of frustration can become fodder for a totally new way of thinking. What if the card reader sung the ABCs? What if pen caps locked? What if water balloons tied themselves? (Luckily, someone has already put some time into solving that last one.)

At IDEO, we spend a lot of time rethinking everyday life, from tiny pen caps to the giant, bureaucratic process of applying for a visa. Like we said in 2017: This kind of thinking is our bread and butter. Back then, we asked the IDEO community what they were dying to redesign, and the answers were so provocative that we decided to do it again. Here are 24 more things we want to redesign, if only we had the chance.

Work
The timecard. With a little AI juice attached to email and calendar, there’s no reason that anyone should have to create a timecard: They just need to review it. —Joe Brown

Corporate training. Every organization needs the ability to grow new and adaptive capabilities. Those skills won’t be coming in from an external job board, and definitely not at scale. —Peter Hyer

I want to take a hack at reimagining the experience of identifying and applying for a job. At scale, it's currently a dry, massive vortex of duplicative job boards, cluttered search engine results, and mounting self-doubt and uncertainty. What if we had a universal tool that could help point a candidate to a strong-fit company, job family, industry, or job title based on a series of filters they could manipulate? Job security can prompt a domino effect with a host of other social issues, so let's put candidates back in the driver's seat and make the process of getting there more personal and human-centered. —Chloe Partelow

Networking. It's uncomfortable, awkward, daunting, and surface-level. No one wants to do it, but everyone feels like they need to. —Melissa Lobato

I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of the actual places where we work. I think the workplace should allow more flexibility and choice and generally be more global. I’d like to see deconstructed offices in neighborhoods where people live and like spending time. It will reduce commuting costs, improve productivity, lifestyle, geographical choice, create more diverse and dense neighborhoods, and allow for more creative collisions. —Kateryna Romanova

Education
College, especially a liberal arts education. Turn it into something much more relevant to close the skills gap in the marketplace, and make it much more about life-long learning. —Suzanne Gibbs Howard

Vocational school. I’m not sure that “everyone needs to (and can) go to college” is the right narrative. That’s the message I got growing up, and vocational schools or trades were either implicitly or explicitly judged. I think we are in a time when we need to take a good, hard look at alternative forms of education. —Meg Rice

The lower part of the k-12 education system. Why isn't it more globally aligned and translatable? Why does it assume that you live in one country for 12 years? —David Sjunnesson

Our approach to digital literacy. When our 70-plus year-old dads accidentally tweet a search query, we make fun of them instead of recognizing that behavior like that is indicative of large, looming societal problems between those who have tech know-how and those who don't. —Rachel Young

Cuddling
Cuddling. Seriously: what are you supposed to do with your bottom arm?!?! —Santiago Seira

Breakups
The breakup: Ow. It hurts. I don't know how to go about redesigning this, but I know there’s a lot of room for reflection and plenty of nuggets of truth to be gleaned from any moment that rips you apart. I have reflected on how to create a scaffolding for yourself that helps you walk out the other side with a sense of gratitude and growth—but still, ow! —Leah Jarrett

Breakups. And I’d start with an interesting provocation from Star Trek. —Lisa Tacoronte

Health
Electronic medical records (EMRs). Some doctors spend up to 50 percent of their days doing admin work, mostly in EMRs, and they are notoriously not user-friendly, not interoperable across companies, and even can cause medical errors. —Jessica Watterson

Single-Use Plastics
Unnecessarily one-time use and/or made of plastic: floss. Coffee cups. To-go containers. Toothbrushes. Plastic water bottles—or anything that holds water. Makeup packaging. Tampons. —Shuya Gong

Recycling How-Tos
Every single recycling/garbage/composting receptacle on the planet. I challenge you to find anyone who can understand and follow those rules. —Chioma Ume

Our Relationship With the Environment
How we make decisions that impact the environment. I'm inspired by seeing calories on food in restaurants, which helps me make informed choices. Why don't we have something similar for electronics, ordering on Amazon, food in the grocery store, to show the impact of a product on the environment? —Dean Malmgren

Time Itself
Time travel. It’s just too difficult currently. —Sean Hewens

Getting Towed
It’s scary, financially exploitative, and just generally terrible. —Tara Safaie

The News
I would like to redesign our concept of what news is. I’ve tried many different sources, and have found none to offer adequate choice, curation, or quality. Most of what passes as news is superficial, salacious, irrelevant, and/or extremely upsetting. I find I’m constantly disappointed. The news needs a total overhaul. —Betsy Fields Smith

Childcare
The process of finding childcare. Every parent seems to reinvent it all over again. —Annette Diefenthaler

Access to Capital
Women entrepreneurs receive about 2% of all venture capital dollars as compared to men. There's a lot of opportunity to reimagine the funding process so that it's more inclusive of women, people of color, and non-US nationals. —Sam Schulman

Winning and Losing
The definition of success. —Ramon Marc

Online Ticketing
You have the ticket price and another $20 in service fees, and sometimes you're required to print out a physical ticket that arrives digitally. Huh? —Miles Holenstein

Life Transitions
Post-job changes, post-move changes, post-high school changes, post-college changes, postpartum changes, post-divorce changes, post-(insert life change here). There’s no blueprint. Help. —Sue-Jean Sung

Hot Dogs
I want them to be healthy. —Michael Hendrix

If your organization would like to work with us to solve one of these problems, you can reach us at octopus@ideo.com.

Illustrations by Jenice Kim

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When was the last time you were annoyed by something small? Like the mean, angry noise a chip reader makes when it’s done with your card? Or the mess a pen makes when the cap pops off in your back pocket? Or how deeply, achingly, frustratingly hard it is to tie a water balloon?

Beyond CSR’s spectacular rise, several other indicators signal a growing belief in the role of business and innovation in addressing societal problems: 88% of millennials say they will only work for values-aligned companies, and Blackrock CEO Larry Fink demanded publicly in 2018 that companies be driven by purpose. Fink calls for a new model of corporate governance:

Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.
_{Larry Fink, Blackrock}

That’s the CEO of a company managing $6.5 trillion in assets pushing for the same economic shift demanded by today’s youth: to ensure that innovation serves a social purpose. Mainstream box: check.

But experts are skeptical. In her opening presentation at last year’s Social Innovation Summit, Caroline Barlerin, former Global Head of Social Innovation at Eventbrite, asked, “Is the mainstreaming of social innovation something to celebrate? Is it enough?”

The answer is no. Not enough, not even close. While CSR reporting and growing social innovations are surely positive developments, they also reflect an insufficient response by the private sector, civil society, private philanthropy, and government to today’s global challenges.

Rather than count how many companies have begun to invest in CSR efforts, the real measure of progress is how we’re faring against the challenges of our time. Whether you focus on global climate change, the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, or the health and wellness of the fabric of our society, it’s clear that whatever “mainstream social innovation” is, it’s not enough.

As we enter 2020 and head toward momentous change in the US and the world, we also need to enter a new phase of social innovation. Three important changes will help us get there.

1. From innovations to ecosystems

Just as the complex biological system of a rainforest allows individual plants to flourish, so do complex entrepreneurial ecosystems work to help social innovators succeed. Healthy, diverse, and inclusive ecosystems allow talent, information, and resources to flow quickly. These networks can’t be bought, they have to be built. _{Andy Stoll, Kauffman Foundation}

Today’s societal challenges require vibrant systems of diverse innovators attacking societal problems from many angles. Investment needs not only to support scaling, but also to create the conditions that allow entire fields of innovators to advance. As Managing Director of OpenIDEO—IDEO’s participatory, decentralized innovation platform—I’m inspired every day by the thousands of innovators who we support, a reminder that there’s never been more human energy and creativity directed toward global challenges. After years of leveraging open innovation to create a pipeline of promising concepts and ventures, OpenIDEO now strengthens entrepreneurial ecosystems to address pressing societal challenges collaboratively.

In 2016, OpenIDEO worked with a consortium of partners to introduce the Food Waste Challenge, a program that sought to address the 40% of food that goes to waste in the United States. Rather than selecting a small number of winners, we created the Food Waste Alliance, a virtual network of 80 organizations that proved pivotal to the development of several food waste startups still growing today. Realizing the potential for ecosystems to create greater impact over time, we designed OpenIDEO’s 2018 Early Childhood Innovation Prize to advance an entire sector of innovators in the early childhood development space. After 30 teams of entrepreneurs were selected and received a share of $1 million in grants, OpenIDEO and our partners at Gary Community Investments then launched a virtual accelerator and partner network, which brought together innovator teams and institutional partners to advance winning ideas.

The program eventually transitioned to two new accelerator networks fully dedicated to early childhood innovations, Promise Venture Studios and Futurebound—long-term, ecosystem-building initiatives sparked by the initial open innovation program.

To create breakthrough change, all of us must work together. That means platforms and tools like prizes or challenges that transparently support people to develop their best ideas and collaborate.
_{Steffanie Clothier, Gary Community Investments}

2. From delivery to co-creation

Increasingly, funders and innovators alike are recognizing the need for solutions to be truly rooted in the needs of those they’re trying to serve. In their recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article, The New Practice of Public Problem Solving, Tara McGuiness and Anne-Marie Slaughter note this as one of four major trends:

The relentless focus on what users need and how they experience services brings people into the process of providing feedback for services where they have not traditionally had a voice.
_{Tara McGuiness and Anne-Marie Slaughter}

While the growing interest in human-centered design is a positive step forward, the next chapter of social innovation will require another leap. Rather than just gathering user feedback on potential solutions, the people we design for will increasingly become part of design, implementation and evaluation. As technology makes it ever easier to be more inclusive, it will become unacceptable to exclude or overlook people affected by social innovations. True co-creation facilitates a greater sense of community ownership and more grassroots capacity building.

OpenIDEO has been learning about new ways to innovate alongside the communities we serve. Our 2019 BridgeBuilder Challenge—the third annual $1m social innovation prize offered in partnership with GHR Foundation—sought to better include a group that’s more often a recipient than an active participant of social innovations: displaced migrants and refugees.

We began by partnering with former BridgeBuilder Challenge winner NaTakallam to include people with relevant lived experience in creating the brief. Applicants were also expected to show evidence that the voice and perspective of a person currently or previously experiencing displacement was part of the ideation, process, and project. NaTakallam later helped us hire a group of mentors who have experienced displacement to provide feedback and mentorship for applicants, and to support the evaluation process.

3. From disengagement to connection

In 2016, a Gallup poll reported that employee engagement in the United States had returned to its highest level since 2000, when it began studying worker enthusiasm and interest. That high is disappointingly low: just 34% of our workforce feel engaged in their work. Meanwhile, according to research conducted by Opportunity Knocks in 2011, half of nonprofit workers reported either being burnt out or in danger of burn out. Taken together, these studies reflect a failure to create work that is both inspiring and reasonable. As today’s problems can only be solved by dedicating attention to them, this failure is tragic.

Social innovation can play a central role in better aligning talent to our needs by creating new jobs, helping employees become engaged in issues they care about, and fundamentally reshaping the culture of work. To make this true, a reasonable work-life balance is one obvious need. Less obvious, but perhaps just as important, is a sense of connection—both to purpose and to other people.

• Connection to Purpose: It’s important to remember that individual and organizational purpose are separate, and that understanding and supporting an individual’s purpose is as critical as encouraging focus on organizational purpose.
  
  
• Connection to People: Cultures of self-sacrifice, efficiency and competition often impede deep connection with potential allies within teams or sectors. It’s important to combat isolation and loneliness in order to maintain passion for the work.
  

Once or twice a year, the OpenIDEO team gets out of the office and away from our daily responsibilities for a team retreat. We use the time to look inward to better understand the aspirations bringing us all to work every day and how each of us is connected to a shared purpose.

While the challenges facing social innovators are serious, we have reason to be hopeful: today there are unprecedented levels of energy and creativity going toward improving the state of the world. That energy is humanity’s greatest resource, but it’s too often depleted by underinvesting in the ecosystems entrepreneurs need to thrive, ignoring the creative potential of people with lived experience, and failing to help employees connect to purpose and each other. Building the next chapter of social innovation will require new thinking, practices and tools. It'll take bold action and a continuous commitment to pushing boundaries, not settling for a place in the mainstream.

In 2020, OpenIDEO will continue to explore how the social sector can be advanced and adapted to tackle tomorrow’s challenges. Follow along and join the conversation.

Illustration by Antonio Sortino

The once radical notion of leveraging business to address societal problems has become mainstream. As of 2017, 85% of Fortune 500 companies reported their environmental and social impact—an astonishing 65% increase since 2012. By this metric, the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is verging on ubiquitous.

As we wrap up the year, we’re reflecting on the power of creativity to inspire change in ourselves, our work, and the world around us. We've pulled together The Octopus’s top ten most read stories of 2019, each of which offers tips, tools, and mindsets to help you cultivate creativity as a tool to navigate the constant ambiguity facing us in these turbulent times.

And as always, a heartfelt thanks from The Octopus team for stopping by. We can’t wait to see what 2020 has in store.

1. 10 Exercises to Build Your Creative Confidence

Creativity is like a muscle—it can be strengthened with practice. Try these activities from David Kelley & Tom Kelley’s book Creative Confidence to get started.

2. Corporate Innovation Needs a Shakeup. Here’s a Blueprint.

Innovative ideas don’t happen by accident. Check out these tips for creating an environment that fosters innovation from the team behind IDEO’s newest digital tool, Shape.

3. The 3 Mindsets of Great Interaction Designers

Being a successful interaction designer is about more than mastering digital tools—it’s about the soft skills that help you push your designs to the next level.

4. The Best Managers Understand Their Employees’ Emotions—And Their Own

There’s no denying it: your relationship with your boss makes or breaks your experience at work. Here’s how the best bosses create positive emotional environments for their employees.

5. Practice Your Prototyping Skills with These 4 Resources

An old IDEO proverb states, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.” These resources from IDEO designers will help you prototype efficiently, effectively, and creatively.

6. 3 Creative Exercises to Make Change Stick in 2019

We kicked off 2019 with intention, sharing three activities to help you actually reach your New Years’ goals. So, how’d you do?

7. Turns Out Emotions Do Belong in the Workplace—Here’s Why

The definition of professionalism is changing. Here’s why organizations should invest in their “emotional culture” and allow employees to express feelings at work.

8. An IDEO Recruiter’s 3 Strategies for Writing a Better Resume

Planning to start off the new year with a new gig? Use these three tips to help you create a resume that stands out in a sea of sameness.

9. AI Needs an Ethical Compass. This Tool Can Help.

Artificial intelligence is the product of those who create it—biases included. That’s why IDEO data scientists created a tool to help teams design ethical AI solutions.

10. Design an Organization’s Purpose Statement With This Tool

Why does your company exist beyond making profit? IDEO organization designers built a colorful tool to help you arrive at an answer.

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2019 was widely regarded as a year of tumult—politically, environmentally, societally. But in the face of it all, 2019 brought us unparalleled human advancement, from Greta Thunberg’s movement of youth-led climate activism to NASA’s first-ever image of a black hole. For better and worse, 2019 kept us on our toes.

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.