n an age when the mantra is that data is gold (I agree with Ben Evans on this that a lot of data is sand) it's easy to believe that big data tells you all you need to know. But it doesn’t. When I ran a consumer facing startup we had hundreds of thousands of daily users; I could see the data every morning on what they were doing. But if I wanted to... See more

The “Design Rule of Three” (Thinking, Doing, Culture) remains valid, but the centres of gravity will probably move:

• Thinking → less about post-it ideation, more about systems, ethics, and emergent intelligence.


• Doing → blends human and machine creativity; AI becomes a design material.


• Culture → moves from craft communities to ecosystem stewardship:

... See more

The label is now (in 2025) less common, but the idea has become more embedded. The business design mindset — experimentation with business models, user validation before scaling, marrying user insights with funding plans has become a norm in corporate venture and innovation studios and labs, and in small and growing firmswhereyou must prototype... See more

Business design both brings the human angle to the forefront but also forces design to consider the business practicalities

curiosity – my friend and cofounder of Fjord Olof Schybergson always insists this is the most important quality in a designer – and the ability to work with other team members who will be bringing different mindsets to a project: for instance developers, strategists, project managers.