Art is an expression of our ideas into forms that are meant to provoke. Design is what transforms that provocation into service. Both are exercises in balancing freedom with constraints. I'm writing this having just watched a disturbing YouTube investigation into the role of AI-generated copies and publishing by the educational entertainment channel Fern. Fern blends investigative journalism with statistics-laden, data-driven, education into documentary-style YouTube videos, which are seen by millions. They carefully expose and illustrate how unscrupulous actors are basically stealing, copying, and manipulating their own content to serve their financial needs, while generating videos that are either misleading, highly incomplete, or outright false in their claims.

Remember the Nintendo Wii?

Design thinking needs rethinking about ethics, tools, and models.

Generative AI allows us to create content, but it doesn't allow us to become something more. A look at how design and human creation transform us and how AI is taking that from us if we let it.

Travelling offers up some of the clearest examples of how complexity, connection, and coordination intersect. Consider how many relationships, represented in networks, embodied practices, and individual nodes (people, transactions, units) are involved in a flight from one place to another. It's an amazing feat when you think of how often things go relatively smoothly and straightforward, despite the many things that are going on and can happen. What I love about using the travel example is that it represents one of the most difficult aspects of complexity and systems, which is the fact that many complex systems have within them elements of simplicity, complicated arrangements, and chaos alongside those that are complex.

Design Thinking Mode Design Thinking is the process we use to conceive our products and guide the process of design. This is the design journey. The benefits of engaging with design thinking go bey…

When the online mechanisms for fostering professional networking fail, what do we do? Could the lowly email newsletter be the key to building the trust needed to network well and maintain what was once lost from the platforms who no longer serve our needs.

The idea of entanglements is central to understanding complexity in systems and the knots that they generate The idea of entanglements and systems is at the heart of our understanding of complexity…

What if we designed for seasons, not static systems? A living systems approach to creating better services and systems means designing like gardeners, not engineers. The implications for health systems is enormous.

Explore the power of two critical questions in design to improve products and services effectively. Discover more in our article!

Learn the fundamentals over lunch

Explore the SWOT analysis tool: its history, applications, strengths, and criticisms in strategic design. Unlock your team's potential today!

Explore how strategic design can address classroom complexity and transform educational practices for better learning outcomes.

Looking at the evolving nature of writing in the age of AI, highlighting concerns over diminishing human creativity and independent authorship. Through examples from various writers, I illustrate how AI's influence compromises the authenticity of content creation. Ultimately, the piece emphasizes the importance of preserving personal expression in creative endeavors.