Nowadays a 3 Stacks sighting is like an album drop. They are rare but significant. If you are not familiar with Andre 3000 he is one of the greatest rappers to ever live, he is one half of the mighty Outkast, and he is an example of the importance of wandering.
Lonnie Johnson is the creator of the Super Soaker and the biggest innovator of the water gun since its invention. This story is not about how Lonnie Johnson was a black man who worked at NASA as an aerospace engineer in the 70s or was an amazing entrepreneur that delivered an amazing product that shaped the childhood of kids around the world.
When you think of the terms prototype and test, you make associations to objectivity and the scientific method, at least after you stop humming the Andre 3000 song. You might imagine a lab, experiments, and a backdrop that looks eerily sterile. Those thoughts could not be further from the truth of effective testing and prototyping.
How setting the scene in a workshop can help improve dialogue. Taking a space that aligns with the type of dialogue you want want and improving that space can lead to better insights.
Sonder is an interesting word that perfectly describes what being empathy-minded is. Sonder is a moment where you realize everyone passing you by has their own life, pain,obstacles, and challenges.
A scar is a result of the body's natural healing process. Sometimes we may not get the opportunity to heal from the emotional wounds we incur. People will answer questions they are comfortable answering and tell stories they are comfortable sharing especially if you create a safe and transparent space.
Blue Bottle Coffee allows its customers to know precisely where the coffee bean comes from the produced the drink in their hands. The venture capital company GV engaged Blue Bottle in Design Thinking to innovate in their space.
Designing solutions that dismantle bias and racism in any work environment is difficult. Of course design is more about unpacking problems than it is finding solutions. One of the biggest obstacles when it comes to making a cultural change in the workplace is when there is an awareness of problems but policies set in place cause a bystander effect.
When people reach out for help with diversity and inclusion problems they often think we will put together a slideshow. Often the leads we get stand against oppression themselves and have a lot of amazing knowledge. Especially since the murder of brother George Floyd people are more aware of the plight of the oppressed and black folks in particular.
Shallow, surface, and materialistic are words we can use to describe the vanity in our world. Vanity may not go a long way but it does coax us to a particular road. Vanity in any experience can raise the tolerance of our attention.
Time is a resource that we do not have enough of. I perception of time also induces a lot of stress and limited thinking. In our fight for creative justice in the fashion industry let's unpack how designers in other industries perceive time.
Business practices and services are simply ideas that are continually executed. Maybe at one point they worked or maybe they were just good enough. One societal shift, one new innovative change and what was once successful is now obsolete.
A decision for massive layoffs of a Brazilian textile company was not accepted. Instead, the team decided they were not going silently into the night to borrow a line from Independence Day, shout out to Will Smith.
Over the past ten years, I have had very candid conversations with people about race. It is in fact the only time many of those people ever talked about race. I have facilitated many workshops where people are grateful to have had the conversation but that very well may have been the only conversation they ever had about any type of oppression. What do we do with that? How do we start to have conversations around race? Once those conversations are had where do we go from there.
The criticisms of design thinking I am making in this article are not about misuse they are about the process itself. I want to make that clear from the jump. I want to improve the inherent problems in the process and work toward preventing its misuse. I also want to step into my love and use of design thinking as a process so this criticism is much more about advancing practice than it is tearing down the framework without providing a path forward.
Fashion has a very prominent place in the culture of society. Fashion is an outward expression of internal emotion and history has a responsibility to source inspiration responsibility and contribute to the cultures it sources from. We have seen several missteps by fashion brands with black culture in particular for decades while many brands pull inspiration from black culture in terms of fit, material, and design.
Loss prevention on its merits seems like a reasonable idea toward preventing theft and profit loss in shops. The challenge is how loss prevention perpetuates a system of systemic racism through the profiling of people of color and black people in particular.
Micro-Cultures are the enthusiastic loyal followers of established businesses and they are the niche passionate group with a special problem for a new business.
Authenticity is thrown around a lot as a desired trait. “Be authentic,” is the most difficult piece of advice you can get.I come from the streets and now I work in the mainstream worlds of education and design...
I design brand and identity systems for companies, organizations, and solopreneurs. In my work I often find that people come to the table thinking their brand is interpreting who they think they are...
One of the most popular NBA players of all time is Hall of Famer Allen Iverson. Not necessarily because of what he did but A.I. showed people how to do it their way...
February 21, 2019
Destroy racism now.
Today is the day you assess what it will take for your business to create a product, service, or environment that closes equity gaps.
