Design Thinking is not just something for adults on their search for new ideas to innovate in their companies, but can also be applied by children. Gigi Read, my former SAP-co-worker, has been conducting Design Thinking workshops for kids aged 10 and older for the past two-and-a-half years.
What originally started as a short program evolved to a more expanded series of workshops. The workshops include Design Thinking, but also Scratch-programming for navigating robots or building video-games.
And we are bringing that now to Europe! We are going to teach workshops for kids and train adults to conduct such workshops. If you think we should come to your town or city to bring Design Thinking to kids, get in touch with us. Read more here.
New Website! The last driver license holder!
I launched a new website about the upcoming disruption in the car industry. And I want you to join the newsletter (also in German). Here is why you should:
The car industry is a 3.5 trillion dollar industry globally. A lot of jobs are depending on cars. From car-makers, drivers, to hospitals staff and traffic police. And many jobs will go away within the next few years. And the way we use our roads, parking spaces, and build our cities and homes will affect all of us. And of course I do some entertaining writing about those trends ;-)
Here are some of the many articles (many of them are also in German) that I already published (a book will follow soon) to get you started:
The Three Princes of Serendip did not plan their journey into the last detail, they kept their eyes and itinerary open for unexpected moments. This way they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.
Sounds scary? In fact, many discoveries and innovations were made by people who did not look for them. Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin by accident. Percy Spencer discovered the effect of Microwaves when his chocolate bar melted, while walking through a radar test room.
When you come visiting Silicon Valley, don't plan your journey in every detail. Executives want to minimize risk by planning everything, with whom they are meeting, why this is important, what they will learn. It's not working that way. Planning innovation is like scheduling spontaneity. Prepare for the unexpected. There are the known knowns, there are the known unknowns, and what you should look for are the unknown unknowns.
The bias is always against innovation, if you try to measure innovation projects. R&D and innovation start out with costing a lot of money, have an unknown market potential, and are generally risky. At the same time the current products and their improvement seem to be a much safer bet and use of your money.
The fact is that this is not true. We often don't realize this, because we are not measuring innovation correctly. We use the same operation and efficiency metrics on innovation. But they contain a bias against innovation. What the bias is and how to overcome that is the content of several recent blog posts of mine.
3,000. This is the number of managers and executives that visited Silicon Valley last year alone from Germany, according to the German General Consul in San Francisco. To experience yourself how Silicon Valley does innovation and what the latest trends are, join our Silicon Valley Inspiration Tours that give you multi-day deep dives into the San Francisco Bay Area. You can also like our group on Facebook and browse through pictures from past and current tours. See also more tour details here:
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NSFW - Time Laps Video of San Francisco
Today's NSFW - internet lingo for Not Safe For Work - is a time laps video of one of those places that catch our imagination and feel like paradise. San Francisco seen in a footage that makes you want to come here right away. Especially mesmerizing is how the clouds are embracing the buildings of the city.
