Our latest thoughts on innovation, design, and transformation.
TOPICS
Innovation Series: Douglas Ferguson talks with Dr. Zayna Khayat, Future Strategist of SE Health, about disruption gurus, Kaiser Permanente, and why she tries to ban the word innovation with her team.
Innovation Series: Douglas Ferguson talks to multidisciplinary designer Lisa Baird about her career journey, falling in love with the problem, the helpfulness of curmudgeonly people, and the deeper systems underneath user experiences.
Innovation Series: Douglas Ferguson speaks with Tom Counsell, Executive Director of B-Hub Prague, about how to build a team that can harness raw potential, being diplomatic about failure, and the amazing innovative power of poor communities.
Kris Pennella, Director of Red Hat’s Open Innovation Labs, is on a mission to assist companies in getting products to market faster by transforming their…
Throughout his experiences as a consultant and at NASA, Steve Rader focuses on the use of crowdsourcing to generate innovative ideas and unlock improvements. He…
"I love running fast. I'm not so much a jogger. I like to sprint." In his earlier days, Dr. Ralph-Christian Ohr was a track and…
I recently spoke with the incredible Tamara Ghandour–author, founder, and president of LaunchStreet, keynote speaker, and creator of the proprietary Innovation Quotient Edge (IQE) assessment.…
When several students at Davidson College in North Carolina pitched an idea to design and teach their own course, the small liberal arts school was…
Control the Room Podcast: Douglas Ferguson speak with Mariano Suarez-Battan, CEO & Co-Founder of MURAL about the power of purposeful silence, how to power up your team’s imagination at work, and why you should be blocking out time for kids and coffee.
Lumos Pharma is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing new therapies for people with rare diseases. Its focus is prioritized in areas where the…
How are your virtual meetings going? If there's room for improvement, we are here to help. Adjusting to the virtual landscape can be a doozy…
When you view your business through the eyes of a customer, what do you see? That is what a design thinking approach to business is…
There’s a better way to run virtual Design Sprints. The current virtual Design Sprint system doesn’t model the real world, and it’s a problem for…
Yes, there’s a lot changing in our world, but not our ability to collaborate, creatively solve problems, and design impactfully. We aren’t able to converse…
For the vast majority of the world, all work and meetings are now virtual. If you’re worried about what this means for productivity and meaningful meetings,…
By now, you’ve probably heard about design thinking. More industries than ever are taking a human-centric approach to evolving their existing products and generating new…
Communication is the lifeblood of a meeting. When that lifeblood is flowing well, your meeting will be smooth, effective, and pleasant to be a part…
Control the Room Podcast: Douglas Ferguson speaks with Tyrome Smith, Principal Consultant at Go-In, LLC, about the BLM movement in relation to his background as a former police officer, the fear of irrelevance in the age of COVID, and how family dynamics leak into institutional structures.
Change is inevitable. But we have the power to prepare for it. Facilitation is the key ingredient to success in the future of work.
Christina Wodtke, author of best-selling book Radical Focus and a lecturer at Stanford University, has helped grow companies such as LinkedIn, Zynga, Yahoo, and The…
You facilitated an amazing meeting. The job is done, right? Not so fast... The idiom “if a tree falls in a forest and no one…
Control the Room Podcast: Douglas Ferguson speaks with Sam McAfee, Founder of Startup Patterns, about Breaking the divide between your personal values and professional persona.
Meetings can get off track, here are three ways to bring them back for optimum meeting outcomes: 1) Reference visible resources & allow for self-correction 2) Directly Address Team Members 3) Ask the group
Control the Room Podcast: Douglas Ferguson speaks with Kaleem Clarkson, COO & Co-founder of Blend Me, Inc., about different types of remote work, why some companies are struggling to transition to remote work, and why it’s so important for a job posting to accurately represent your organization’s culture.
The Design Sprint is a staple structure in the world of facilitation for solving big challenges. Get to know the "what, what, when, where, and why" of running this five-day process.
Treat meeting prep like a surgeon preps for surgery–strategically, meticulously, and with eyes wide open.
Virtual facilitation is more important now than ever. The Great Pause has called upon the need for remote leadership to help the world navigate the…
Bring Your Ideas to Life
Innovation can seem complex or reserved for the exceptional. But we believe innovation is for everyone. We’ve set out to illuminate a path for you to: generate bold ideas, visualize and share them, overcome obstacles, and turn your idea into reality. Our books are equal parts guidebook and stories from years of experience helping companies adopt an innovation mindset and culture. They’re practical & actionable, so you can get started now. We hope they’ll help you on your journey to realizing your biggest, boldest ideas.