Are you a visual thinker with a lot on your mind? Try mind mapping to get all your thoughts out of your head and onto a screen where you can connect, rearrange, and elaborate.
Tag: design
Systems Thinking Unites Transit Systems
I live in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, where we have 27 transit agencies and yet the 8th worst traffic in the US. What gives?
Getting Into Social Debt–And Getting Out
In Silicon Valley, companies discuss and worry about their “technical debt.” That’s the friction caused by the accumulation of bad design choices, expedient compromises, avoided decisions, and postponed work.
Our Brains Are Wired To Be Social
When I say in this blog that we are social creatures, I’m being quite literal. Our brains are physically wired to be social. Each one of us has an interpersonal neurobiology that responds to the world around us.
Designing Bright Spot Solutions For Reducing Teen Drug Use
Iceland used to have the worst teenagers in Europe: smoking, drinking, getting high, staying out late. What’s a country to do?
Use Focus Groups for Social Goods
Government isn’t business, but we all wish the public sector did a better job at designing, pricing, and delivering the social goods we rely on and expect. Maybe we should have citizen focus groups to give feedback on our social goods.
Designing Elections
We have elections all over the place: within companies, nonprofits, homeowner’s associations, kid’s sports league. Civic elections are a social good. As with all social goods, marketing principles apply to elections.
Designing Immigration Solutions
In the United States, there’s an immigration problem. People are coming to our borders seeking refuge from war, terrorism, gang violence, and climate change. Many more people come than our current immigration system will accommodate. Instead of debating the partisan politics of this issue, let’s look at how a marketing mindset guides us in designing...Continue reading
Designing Healthy Communities Where Low-Income Populations Live Longer
Research by Raj Chetty of Stanford University shows that designing healthy communities can increase life expectancy, especially for low-income populations. What features can you design into healthy communities for people earning incomes in the bottom quartile?
Three Approaches to Neighborhood Design
More and more of us live in cities, which essentially means we live in neighborhoods. A neighborhood may seem either something that’s always been or something that happened spontaneously. In reality, there’s a spectrum of approaches to neighborhood design, from the “organic” to the highly planned.