brian ling

It is the ability to identify patterns of insights and “connect the dots” in a meaningful way.

Bruce Nussbaum, in a blog post: 3 Paths Toward A More Creative Life, calls it “Pattern Sight”.

I get this all the time.  Whenever we talk about Design Thinking’s user-centered approach to finding opportunities and understanding your customer better, someone always reminds me that one of the worlds most successful company (in my humble opinion), Apple, does not do market or user research.

Similarly, Scott Anthony writes:

Heidi Grant Halvorson shares on Behance’s 99U that being in a position of power will allow you to be more creative.

I chuckled at Tom Fishburne’s Showrooming cartoon, partly because it was funny, and partly because it was so true. I do that all the time in bookstores; flip through the hardcopy and then buy the ebook.

Unfortunately the Retailers still don’t get it, and brands like Borders will continue to drop like flies.

Frog Design has graciously shared their 20 technology trends for 2013, which includes the usual suspects such as mainstreaming of 3D printing and the further humanising of technology. No big surprises, but still a good read anyway. Enjoy!

This week’s “question of the week” is actually quite important. With the growing momentum of design thinking and organizations wanting to have a competence in design, more and more designers will find themselves hired in organizations without a design friendly management structure or colleagues sympathetic to the needs of design.

When I glanced over “Google Equates “Design” With Endless Testing. They’re Wrong” by Co.Design editor Cliff Kuang, my immediate reaction was, does the editorial team at Fast Company’s Co.Design know what they are talking about? I had to re-read it just to be sure, and both times I concluded that they were overly harsh.