Earlier this year, on the first day of my class at the Integrated Innovation Institute of the Carnegie Mellon University, a graduate student (who has several years of experience as a software product manager) asked me “What do you think about Design Thinking?” I do not remember the answer I…

22 years ago I was working on an emerging markets study for Microsoft to understand the life of people in China, Thailand and India. The overall objective was to help our client team understand how Microsoft could develop software (and possibly hardware) tools to serve the unique needs of people…

I have been a nomad all my life. For the past almost thirty years I have been an ethnographer of imagination. My curiosity for human perception of the material world brought me to the United States to study Product Semantics. As I shifted my attention from the material things I…

five thousand friends on facebook felt more like my audience than friends when i cut them down to two hundred i stopped responding to hateful comments and felt calm and balanced i don’t even need facebook anymore to feel connected because my real friends care for each other

Background Last week I reconnected with an old designer friend who has lived in Thailand for the past two decades. Sridhar Rylie worked for the Thailand Creative Design Center (TCDC) since its inception in 2005, as an advisor on design, innovation policy, and creative economy. After giving up his full…

I was born in a family of political and social activists. Visitors to our home brought with them energy, ideas and commitment to making the world a better place. While listening to the passionate conversations at home and observing and sometimes participating in my parents’ activism I embraced a few…

Background In this article I introduce empathic immersion as an essential practice for business leaders if they want to cultivate and improve their instincts for the people they serve. Empathic immersion will help business leaders become mindful, alert and responsive to the rapidly changing mindsets and behaviors in the world. …

Yesterday I had a long conversation with my dear friend Pree Kolari who is a designer, artist, engineer, and a beekeeper. He started his academic career studying instrumentation engineering in Mysore and has evolved into a sensitive silicon valley tech leader who is driven by humanitarian and sustainability values. During…

What if work did not feel like work! What if hard work did not feel like work load! Is such an experience possible for everyone of us within the framework of the employer employee relationships that exist today? In this article I propose that such a future is possible if…