Design Thinking Insights Applied to Remittances Company

Checkout www.transferwise.com. These folks have found the real need of immigrants who send money to their loved ones to home countries.

A while ago at PayPal, using design thinking uncovered that immigrants from Mexico only cared about the exchange rate minute-by-minute because the net amount transfer was the most important thing for them and their loved ones.

Banks and other online remitters make money by setting their self-determined excessive exchange rates and predatory fees & this is how they milk the immigrants.

Why get ripped off by banks when you need to send money overseas?

Here is a company that guarantees upfront the exchange rate at the time of you sending money.

Their user interface is awesome and makes it very easy to understand what is going on with the intended transfer.

Customer support is proactive, responsive, and timely.

Oh! One more thing, www.tranferwise.com founders also created Skype.

40 Tools in 20 Minutes: Hack your Marketing from Eric Leist

40 Tools in 20 Minutes: Hacking your Marketing Career from Eric Leist

Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull: A book review

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A tour de force work by creating, living, practicing and improvising a world class creative company culture at Pixar & Disney Animation group.

In particular, the practice has been honed for almost 25 years and additionally tested and successfully deployed inside iconic Disney Animation group. Not many people can claim this impressive repeat creative culture creation.

Any venture wishing to create a lasting creative culture must start with incredible constant self-awareness and absolute candor that begins with top leadership.

Creative culture practice is a marathon and not a sprint!

The most resonant theme expressed is candor at all time and all levels. One of the most misunderstood and ignored concept missing from many prior published works. Candor at all levels is the ability of all people at all levels of the organization having difficult and tough conversations to resolve hidden and unpredictable issues.

One memorable line is: if the hallway knows the truth and conference room does not then it reflects the lack of candor, where people are afraid to speak up without fear of retaliation.

In reading through Pixar quest to live a creative culture, it is very evident that Pixar practices the art of 'Design Thinking' in their particular way for every movie that Pixar has produced. For example, before any movie, the staff went to the actual location to do the 'research' which equates to Design Thinking's observe and empathize techniques.

One example given is, filmmakers of 'Nemo' went and visited dentists offices and then traversed the sewers to find out if fish can escape from dentists office sink to the ocean via sewers. Movies makers also became certified scuba divers to experience what it is like to navigate all the way from sewers to the ocean.

One of the surprises in the book is the last chapter about Steve Job's role at Pixar before its acquisition by Disney. It is the most touching and candid description of Steve Job's transformation to an excellent listener and his knack for giving constructive feedback during Pixar pre-release movie previews.

In fact, Steve's legendary product introductions were stories that people loved to buy iPod, iPhone, and iPad. I am sure he learned the art of storytelling from the master storytellers at Pixar.

This heart touching elucidation runs counter to all what his been written about Steve Jobs after his passing away. Ed Catmull's unique account comes from a close working relationship with Steve Jobs for over 20 years.

Finally, any company trying to navigate through the disruptive digital transformation should make this book a required reading for the entire organization, starting with top leadership.


View all my reviews

The Design of Business: Book Review

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger L. Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A must read for any leader & corporate boards who are challenged with growth in current times and need to transform their companies into a constantly innovating organization.

Very profound insights as to why the lost art and desire of pursuing the unknown to uncover unmet user needs in this age.

The good news is: the solution is in plain sight!

But it requires deep thinking and calculated risk taking to grow. When companies like CocaCola starts to practice the art, the magic happens.

For corporate managers who are happy milking the current status quo, this book can provide a path forward to grow constantly.

In essence, it requires a transformation in the mind of leaders (leaders themselves must become constant learner's).


View all my reviews

Playtix.com | Did the idea originate from Design Thinking application?

Plytix is an interesting company that is targeting the ability of brands to track their product performance above and beyond google analytics.

The question is what informal or formal did Design Thinking play in the founders discovery of the target customer and their idea?

Their press coverage is here

Company site

Hackathons Lack Design Thinking

The following article from FastCompany articulates some of the shortcomings of hackathons disguised as real innovation.

One added dimension is the lack of original Design Thinking application during the hackathons. Because there is not enough time to develop empathy with target customers.

I never saw any useful innovation come out of hackathons while driving internal innovation efforts for a large payments company.

In fact, saw many ideas that have been tried and discarded already because they did not resonate with the target customers.

Seems the real goal of hackathons within companies is to inject temporary excitement within the workforce that rapidly vanishes.

Continuous innovation culture requires company leadership commitment and resources.

FastCompany Article Here

Apply design thinking to your 2-5 year old's future

Most parents start fiscal planning for their child's future education by setting up college tuition savings fund.......Before you do that......listen to this interesting TED talk: