Design Thinking

So, you’ve been an entrepreneur pretty much your whole life. And there’s been a lot of talk among entrepreneurs about something called design thinking. Do you use this yourself? And why do you think it’s become so popular?

I do, and I think it’s become so popular because we are short on time. There’s so much information being thrown at us all the time that everything is vying for our consciousness. So if you’re a business and you want to get the attention of a consumer, you want to design experiences in a way that’s going to be most approachable and most perhaps entertaining, thoughtful, and value creative for that consumer.
And so turning around, you know, in the old days, you create a product, then you get it out there and you pitch it and hope the world will like it. And I think there’s just too much of that, there’s not enough bandwidth for folks to consume that. So, turning around 180 degrees and rather thinking from the perspective of the consumer, what would make their lives easier, what would give them a boost, what would entertain them, what would give them that that they’re seeking in the simplest, most thoughtful way possible, is an element of design thinking that I think separates really successful businesses of the future for ones that really won’t be.