You belong here / Du gehörst hierher
A poster you can download and share if you would like to welcome people to Germany in their own language.
2018
Introducing the Design Dash
A short introductory design thinking activity for you to use and modify.
2017
Stay grounded, stay curious: using books and articles in early-stage design research
Reading articles doesn't have to feel abstracted or second-hand. It's a valuable way for designers to explore a new topic – as long as they read with the right questions in mind.
Through the looking glass: exploring design thinking's parallel universes
Design thinking is practiced all over the world. Are we really doing the same thing – and does it matter?
A quick descriptive model of cultural adaptation
Or, why I will always like your shirt.
Introducing Protobot
A random product idea generator to unfreeze your design process.
2016
Taming the steamroller, or how to communicate compassionately with non-native English speakers
Your own communication style is the key to building awesome work relationships with non-native English speakers. Here are some of my hard-earned learnings from a year of working with an international team.
From palm trees to pine trees, or what I'm doing in Germany
I left San Francisco and took a new job at the Hasso-Plattner-Institut School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, Germany. Here's how it happened, and what I'm doing.
2015
My flower-shop tricks for putting flowers in a vase
This is the most useful thing I learned from working at a flower shop. I keep showing people how to do this in real life, so I thought I'd put it on the internet.
What Car Talk taught me about teaching
Why radio – and teaching – are better with two.
2014
No more "put a skirt on it"
I gave a lightning talk at Double Union in summer 2014. It addresses something I've long been frustrated with: the sorry state of "default" imagery.
What I've learned in 2 months at an agency
2 months ago, I started my first design agency job. I thought I'd share a couple unexpected things I'm loving – and not loving – about the pace and feel of agency work.
2013
SF Muni countdown display
Why should you have to go to the Muni stop to find out when the next Muni is coming? We hacked up a simple display that helps us figure out when to leave the house in order to catch the streetcar at just the right time.
Learning, Design, & Technology at Stanford
I graduated from the Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) program at Stanford in 2011. Picking a graduate program is tough, and picking an ed tech graduate program is especially hard since it's an awfully diffuse field. So here are a few thoughts that might help any information-seekers. (My opinions are SO not endorsed by the Stanford Graduate School of Education.)
Running an online course: 4 more lessons
More lessons from The Future of Stuff: thoughts on social media, mobile-readiness, and course staffing.
4 lessons I learned running an online course
Take a design and social entrepreneurship challenge and put it online – at the same time as it's running in person. Sound crazy? Well, in the spirit of prototyping, my team of edu-innovators gave it a try. Here are 4 things we learned from our pilot.