When it comes to emerging technology, it’s often anyone’s guess what the future will hold. At IDEO U we are far from having a crystal ball and that’s why we advocate for “building to think” or, rather, making prototypes to learn how people react. To help get our heads around emerging tech, we invited our IDEO friends, IDEO CoLab, in for a Creative Confidence Series session about emerging tech (and why you should care).

As a leader, how can you take a step back and get curious? And how can you build curiosity on your team? It starts with daily practices that allow us to seek and find inspiration everywhere—not just when we’re searching for it.

Observing and listening to consumers in their natural environments—where they eat, sleep, work, play and shop—can generate a bounty of innovative inspirations that are nearly impossible to discover without leaving the corporate campus.

We spoke with Paul about what he sees as cornerstones of creative leadership, how to use storytelling to catalyze people toward action, and his no fear attitude toward delving into the void—darker more challenging topics like death and aging.

How do you build the capacity for continuous innovation within a company? Bryan Walker developed a curiosity for this challenge, designing for change, as he was trying to figure out how to help organizations get new ideas out in the world. As a partner at IDEO, he leads the IDEO Design for Change studio and is an instructor in the upcoming IDEO U course, Designing for Change.

You may know Debbie Millman from her podcast Design Matters—the world’s longest running podcast on design—or from her six books, two of which are collections of illustrated essays and poems. Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, Debbie is a fierce figure in the world of design. She gravitated to a career in design because she realized that greatness could be achieved through design and ultimately, that’s what grounds her work. We caught up with Debbie in preparation for Dribble’s Hang Time Boston event this month.

Curious about what makes a successful, innovative team, Google led a two-year research project with 280 teams. They found only one distinction between innovative and non-innovative teams—psychological safety.

A creative mindset can be a powerful force for looking beyond the status quo. People who use the creative techniques we outline are better able to apply their imagination to painting a picture of the future. They believe they have the ability to improve on existing ideas and positively impact the world around them, whether at work or in their personal lives.

After an epic two-year journey that included sailing through the Panama Canal, around the Caribbean, and crossing the Atlantic during hurricane season with her husband and 10-year-old son, Jen Massaro had a story to share. But she struggled to tell it in a way that was meaningful for her friends and colleagues. Through the process of refining her story, Jen gained a deeper understanding of what matters most in storytelling.

As founder of IDEO, for over 30 years David Kelley has been tackling complex problems using design. We sat down with David to talk about what he’s learned over the decades and why design thinking is more relevant now than ever. But as David says, don’t trust us, design thinking is our religion.  

In our Creative Confidence Series chat with IDEO Design Researcher Silvia Vergani and Principal Research Scientist at Verily Life Sciences Danielle Schlosser, we chatted about the challenges and opportunities in healthcare innovation today and how healthcare practitioners can begin to apply a more human-centered approach to their work. When design thinking methodologies are applied to healthcare they lead to a human focus and an openness to generate and test lots of ideas to find more innovative, far-reaching solutions.