December 9, 2025 • 45 mins
Design thinking isn’t just for designers, it’s something we all practice, often without realizing it. As Wayne puts it, “Everyone is a designer… because everyone has to create something for someone.”
In this conversation, Wayne Li — professor, product designer, and global design-thinker — breaks down how design thinking can transform the way we move through the world. It makes you more curious, empathetic, and observant — qualities that strengthen problem-solving in any field. He also talks about concepts in his book, Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, which is available in the UK, US and other ebook platforms. Listeners in the UK, you can get a 30% DISCOUNT using the code MINDBLEND30 on the UK site.
If you’ve ever wondered how to think more creatively, understand people better, or design a richer life, this episode is full of generous wisdom (and surprisingly helpful omelet analogies).
About Wayne Li
Wayne is a global designer, educator, and professor, known for blending engineering, art, and human-centered design into a powerful approach to solving real-world problems. He has designed products and experiences for major brands across industries, and now teaches students and professionals how to think more creatively and empathetically. Wayne is also the author of Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness: Frames of Reference for the 21st Century Creative, a book that helps readers understand how awareness, curiosity, and intentionality shape every experience we create in work and in life. The book is available in the UK, US and other ebook platforms. Listeners in the UK, you can get a 30% DISCOUNT using the code MINDBLEND30 on the UK site.
You can also connect with Wayne on LinkedIn, and wlidesign.com.
Music YouTube license code: Music Tango de la terrasse EBXILZBYWOLEH1ET
Mind Blend is all about real experiences and meaningful conversations—through sharing these insights, I hope to inspire and empower you as you navigate your unique journey.
What resonated with you today? What topics or guests should we feature next? Let’s keep the conversation going, connect on LinkedIn @Mind-Blend or send me an email!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're expanding and contractingyour field of view.
You're inspiring new ideas. Things that seem implausible
actually come from your gut, right?
There's another kind of firing of neurons kind of in your
intestinal tract. That is kind of how artists use
it. It actually links to their brain
in a certain. Way.
And that is your intuition, right?
And so. If you've ever rearranged your
(00:23):
kitchen or tried to make a morning routine less chaotic,
you're designing an experience without even knowing it.
But what happens when you start doing it on purpose?
Today I'm joined by Wayne Lee, Professor of Design and
Engineering and the author of Design, Empathy and Contextual
Awareness, to explore how designthinking makes you more curious,
(00:45):
more empathetic, and better at navigating real life.
From conversations to career choices to everyday problem
solving, Welcome to the show Mind Blend.
I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of
incredible people, each an expert in their very own way.
(01:06):
Together, we'll uncover insightsand share ideas so you can be
inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey
in life. Ready to get curious and
discover what's possible? Let's blend.
Hi, Wayne. Hi.
How's it going? Good, welcome to my bun.
Yeah, thanks. I'm happy to be here.
I'm really interested in your story.
(01:28):
How did what happened that led you to what you're doing today?
Yeah, it's been a long, long. I won't.
I don't want to go too far back,right?
But it's been a long career and a wonderful kind of journey
around art and design. I think it's always started as
you know, my, my parents, right?My, my mom is a classically
(01:49):
trained brush painter. They're both of my parents are
from Taiwan and my dad is a PhD polymer chemist.
So, so part of it has always been this love of art and
science. And so, you know, whether it be
kind of an analytical mind from more my dad or a more free
flowing intuitive mind for my mom kind of having and then
pursuing both in school, right? I, I wound up graduating with
(02:10):
both mechanical engineering and Fine Arts degrees.
So that kind of dual degree nature led to car design at
Fordham Volkswagen, it led to a product design at, at IDEO.
And then and then Graduate School at at Stanford University
where I learned a lot of, I meana lot of what I learned in human
centered design or user centereddesign back then was kind of
(02:31):
from IDEO and from that from theStanford program where we
established design thinking. So that and then, yeah, then
that led into furniture and housewares design at Pottery
Barn, along with lecturing at Stanford University.
And now I'm here at Georgia Tech.
So Georgia Tech found me as adjunct at Stanford be a
position to extend that philosophy out to the East
(02:52):
Coast. So that was a with you know,
with my graduate advisor's blessing.
It was, it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of think
about, and this is always trickywith with technology you're
working at, you know, we're at atech school, Stanford's R1
research university. How do you humanize technology?
How do you understand, you know,we talked about user experience,
either software or computer interfaces.
(03:15):
My research area was human machine interface.
So you think about the first kind of like automobile.
It's a physical widget with a digital screen with a stir radio
NAV screen, whatever it is. And that's a lot of my research
is how do you humanize the experience such that what it's
safe to drive but also too enjoyable and pleasurable to
drive. You're thinking about what are
(03:36):
those things that do define the driving and writing experience
and then how do you use both hardware and software in order
to make sure and execute on them?
So that's that's kind of the Long story short about blending
art and science to make technology human.
Yeah, that resonated with me so much because you have interfaces
as you can tell that it's only it's not even really designed,
(03:59):
but it's put together by just the people on the engineering
side. You can hardly communicate with
it. So before we dive into design
and design thinking, you mentioned design thinking
earlier. Let's clarify that for our
listeners who are not familiar with design thinking.
Yeah, absolutely. So if you can think about design
just like you stood like in physics, right?
(04:21):
If physics goes through school of thought, right.
So you know Einstein created saylike classical physics, laws of
motion and then you move into non linear physics or or you
know non classical physics and then you go into quantum
physics. So different schools of thought.
So you might have think of art and design starting with say
(04:41):
modernism in the Bauhaus and then you have post modernism and
those types of things. So design is the same way,
right? Design had the same thing where
more modernist approach was justform and function foreign.
Falls, yeah. And then that's more of the
Bauhaus. And now you move into where the
this more what I would consider a more a newer philosophy, a
more, you know, a more a kid philosophy, which is the human
(05:04):
centered design. So what human centered design is
or and then also known to other people and practitioners as
design thinking, right? So looks at putting the human
first when you design product, services, performances, whatever
it is, whatever you make, right.I used product as a very as a
very loose definition. It does not need to be a widget,
(05:27):
doesn't have to be a physical thing.
It's any product of your imagination.
So if that's software, hardware,interpretive dance, a public
policy, doesn't matter. That's a product, right?
It's a product imagination. So the design thinking looks at
putting the human central to that philosophy, but also in
balance with the technology usedto create, to create and bring
(05:49):
it to market, right? And the business forces the
infrastructure around distributing and selling.
If you think of it like if you look up design thinking triple
Venn diagram, they'll put the human technology and business in
these three separate things where I'm thinking or innovation
is the central of all those things.
(06:10):
Those overlap have to be able tobalance those 3 concepts in
order to make successful products for people, right?
So the human represents usability, desirability, right?
The social sciences this that the Fine Arts society, you know
those things. The technology represents the
computer science, material science, engineering, and then
the business represents you know, your accounting, your org
(06:30):
theory, behavioral psychology, things like that.
Desirability, usability on the human feasibility for the
engineering and viability for the for the business.
So it's a philosophy that's moreencompassing than just form
follows function. Yeah.
So just right before I started this episode, I was talking to
my family about like two different brands of devices of
(06:53):
the same thing, basically digital writing pad.
Let's say if we're applying thisphilosophy in creating this
digital writing pad, how would that look like?
Like what are the what would be the three things that are in the
Venn diagram? Yeah, let's go through that.
That's a fun one. I mean, because for the longest
time, right, I've always sketched in analog notebooks
(07:15):
ever since I first started art school, right?
And probably prior to that in high school, I kept like a
little, you know, day planner log or whatever.
And it wasn't until maybe I would say 20/20/2020 that I or
2022 maybe or somewhere around there that I switched to a
digital drawing instrument, right?
So one all right, let's look at the let's let's take the human.
(07:36):
What we would probably do from ahuman centric design is 1
Observe people utilizing writinginstruments, right?
Interview them, observe them like so talk to artists, talk to
poets, talk to a screenplay writer, talk to an engineer that
and then how do they utilize what they use to take notes in?
An artist might use it to draw sketches, but a computer
(07:58):
scientist might use it to plan out an algorithm, right.
And so they, and So what is it that they are writing down?
How are they utilizing writing instrument?
How much do they care about a pen and paper analog feeling for
an artist that actually is quiteimportant, like the friction of
the ballpoint or the felt tip. You actually learn there's a lot
of information signalling that comes through the texture tooth,
(08:19):
the paper along with the nib or the felt tip of the pen and the
strokes you can create at the angle of attack.
Control. It's like calligraphy too.
Yeah, it's like calligraphy, like it's the angle, right?
It's so of the nib. And so, and again, different
people will use drawing instruments differently.
So again, if you talk to a poet,they may not.
Well, I never actually use the pencil on the side and and shade
(08:41):
on the side of the pen, but I might use it.
I might use a pen to indicate stanzas or codas in a poem, in a
poem. And I might use a certain
shorthand, right, that that tells me this is a writing
sequence, B writing sequence. And I might annotate it in a way
that's unique. So what you're trying to do from
a human centric way is to understand how people utilize
(09:03):
things in their own way that defines their culture.
So a poet would have a subculture of poet writing.
An artist would have a subculture of draw of artist
being a visual artist. So understanding that level of
sophistication about different people who use drawing or
writing instruments differently is be the human centric part
(09:25):
right? Now let's move into the
technology part. So if you have to make a product
and it's a digital writing instrument, right, because it's
a digital pad, not an analog one, then we'd have to look at
the technology of it and say, OK, if I were to design, I need
the right technology for that right person.
If I need to be able to take a pen nib and put it on it's side,
(09:48):
well then the digitizing layer of the iPad or the there's more
than one technology, right? An iPad like this one, right?
You know, it's an iPad with this, right?
So that's capacitive layer, multi touch screen, right?
If you use an E Ink pad, like a remarkable tablet, that's an E
Ink display and it's not the capacitive layer, use a
(10:08):
resistive layer on top, right? If you were to use a different
technology, something like a Wacom tablet, right, they use
they, they, they use a differenttype of kind of pen tip that's
measures resistance. So now the question there is
which of those technologies willgive the artist the sides, the
shading idea where they hold thepencil like this, right?
(10:30):
The sideways kind of between their two, their third and their
second and third versus a, a poet who'd hold it like a normal
pencil, right and tack using thepen, the tip of the pen.
So which technology prescribe orallows that type of motion or
that type of activity to happen?The best now, now so that we,
(10:50):
the technology side, choosing the right technology, the
appropriate technology for the human activity.
Then now the business person looks at viability.
If you only sell like are there enough artists on the planet
that could that could justify the more expensive technology if
it was a more expensive technology because you have to
now look at the angle at which the pen can touch the surface.
You. Know if it only touches between
(11:13):
the vertical and 12° off vertical, then then maybe the
technology is much easier to execute.
But if you need to attack the pen, so the pen is 5° from the
flat of. The surface all of the.
Technology is really expensive. So so if if it was, let's just
say 5 the the then now the viability, the business person
is like, well, can I sell enoughto art artists?
(11:34):
Are they willing to pay enough for that technology or do I have
to sell to poets, artists, writers and engineers all
together? And if I do so, the volume
selling price of the unit comes down because you're making more
of them. But at the same time, are you?
Then, you know, that's that balance.
If you now make more of them, they have to be more universal.
If they have to be more universal, then that means that
(11:55):
perhaps that humanity that you are speaking to serve it isn't
quite served well. And that goes back to your
point, something that is just engineered to function.
It served the most people may not actually provide the
experience that people create. That's where that viability,
that's where that business has to come in to say how large is
(12:17):
this market? Where are they willing to pay
and do you have that balance there?
Because the more of obviously the it's a price volume curve,
the more you make cheaper something gets per unit.
So you have to size the market relative to the value you're
driving. So those things, it's so much
more than foreign follows function.
Yeah, right. And that's why we're past the
(12:37):
post that modernism. We're past we're in post
modernism. And I love the approach because
everyone is really thinking of not just their own area.
Because for the people who are only concerned about producing
the thing, like producing, like the engineering, the production
part, they don't care as much. But that's like, that's exactly
(13:00):
what you meant by putting that human in the center.
Yeah. And I really like that holistic
thinking. And I feel like it can be
applied to daily life. You don't have to be producing
something. Karen I mean, I couldn't 100 I
mean 100%. I couldn't agree more.
What I like about design thinking and about, you know,
what I wrote in my book is that it's holistic, right,
Irrespective of what your what your major is or what job
(13:23):
function you have inside a certain company, right Ideal
would always say when I worked there that they like to breed T
shaped people. T shaped.
Which means that you may be goodat one thing, you'll get a
degree in something, right? You're going to be an expert in
something. But are you broad enough or
inspired by multiple disciplinesin order to understand and be
inspired by everyone else? If if for a like you mentioned,
(13:45):
for a company, yes, you might have an accounting department,
an engineering department, you know, a design department.
It's how much the designers can also understand engineering and
business. It's how much the engineers can
respect design and not override the designers wish to serve the
human right because you know, because they're you're at
different stages of the development process.
(14:07):
The engineers closer to manufacturing and engineering
right there may not be as close to marketing and design because
of when they touch the product. Because remember, several hands
touch a product before it gets released.
So having a company that is fullof T shaped people who can
understand where this other perspective is coming from.
It's more collaborative, it's more inclusive, it's more
(14:27):
multidisciplinary, it's more empathetic.
And what happens then is if you put the human, the customer, at
the focus of your company, teachyour workers how to get along
with each other so that they're not silos in a company, there
are actually more multidisciplinary, nimble teams
that work. Then you wind up making a better
(14:48):
experience for customers. And ultimately you become more
financially successful because customers demand your product
rather than the product that's not made for them.
So there's two things. One, it can improve business a
great deal. Two, in as an individual instead
of a collection of it can improve your processes really
well. Or what I talk about is that,
(15:08):
and this is kind of the researchholistically, when you think of
creating something for someone, I don't care if you're making
eggs for your roommate in the morning.
Right now you're an avian culinary designer, right?
You're a now if you go to the court on blue or you go to
school studying for four years on how to make omelets, then now
you're a capital Bachelors of science ACD major, right?
(15:29):
But everyone is a designer in that sense, right?
A little D designer, just like everyone who makes eggs is an
avian culinary designer, right? So you know, everyone is a
little E engineer, right? So in that sense, holistically,
if you're a designer and everyone is because everyone has
to create something for someone eventually, your mental state
(15:54):
when you are empathetic, when you care about people, that is 1
mindset when you're creative andyou need to now make things like
imagine a better future for someone and then instantiate it,
like make it for people right through a prototype, mock up,
sketch, drawing, model, whatever, that's creative.
And then when you have those things in your possession and
(16:16):
you bring them back out to the field, you bring them back to
people who go, which one of these do you like?
Which one of these writing instruments do you like?
Which one of these omelets do you like?
And they go, I like that omelet.Now you're a testing with people
and understanding their preferences.
That is a critical mindset. That's what engineers do is they
value different qualities and they put numbers and ascribe
numbers to them. So go to marketing agents,
(16:38):
right? That's exactly what they do.
So there's a role for everyone at this table though, but how
holistically you can think of doing things will determine your
ultimate success in the market. Yeah, the testing the water well
in design thinking there's this like prototyping mindset.
That's right, which which is testing like I know not like if
(17:00):
we think about making the omelettes, we probably don't
start out thinking we're going to make it 10 times just to see
how well it's perceived. So can let's dive into this
prototyping mindset because it'slike really important to get get
some get something out there, get some feedback from whoever
is receiving that and then improving it.
(17:21):
Let's. Talk about that.
No, listen, So I mean, yeah, prototyping is a whole another
level, right? I mean, in my book, I talk about
that. There's these kind of five
design behaviors, right? You have design empathy or
empathy, contextual awareness. We have creativity craft,
creative craft, right? So that's kind of the ability to
create and instantiate ideas, iteration and testing, rapid
(17:42):
iteration and then entrepreneurial sustainability.
So if we start talking about creativity and craft, which is
where you're talking about prototyping, Yeah.
Let's use the omelet example, Right.
So yeah, you live with a flatmate in London and you
exchange. So one, you're right.
Like you can't make 10 omelettestogether, right?
That might be a little bit wasteful, but you know, you're
(18:03):
gonna live with your flatmate for at least a year of the
lease. You know, you exchange breakfast
cooking duties every other Saturday.
OK, So what would be the first level of prototyping?
What would be the first level ofengagement with someone?
If you've just met that flat Nate, and you're sharing the
lease or sharing the rent, you might say, OK, well, I'm making
breakfast for you this Saturday.You're going to make breakfast
for you next Saturday. What things do you like?
(18:25):
So that's just the first interview, right?
And it may be something simple where you're like, I'm going
grocery shopping for breakfast, right?
Name five ingredients that you would normally eat.
And so strawberries and I like ham and I like, you know, I like
Peppers and bacon and eggs. You're like, OK, so that may be
that first engagement, which is the lowest level, right?
(18:46):
There's no commitment. There's nothing that you've
spent nothing, right? You've done some amount of
engagement. And it might be something where
that first Saturday you'd come back from the Friday nights or
Friday's worth of shopping and bring it in.
OK, I'm making, I'm going to make eggs for you tomorrow here.
The ingredients. I, I, I bought, I've got ham,
I've got onions, I've got green Peppers, mushrooms and cheese.
And which, which ones do you think would work an omelet?
(19:09):
And they would say, OK, well, I like these three things.
And so, so that Sunday you do have a first prototype, which is
this, they've already decided what ingredients they like, but
maybe you cooked it wrong or maybe you put way too many
onions in it right on that Sunday they're like, oh, that
was an OK omelet. And so at that point you've got
(19:30):
what so the the first engagementis just talking and then maybe
presenting some very quick options.
And that what we call low fidelity prototype little
fidelity was you made an omelette for the first time, the
middle fidelity right now they told you, hey, that was an OK
omelette, but there are way too many onions in that.
And so now you were finding it again.
(19:52):
And now you're like, well, the next Sunday you put fewer
onions, but this time you add extra pepper and paprika just
for fun. Right, like you find out more
and more through that person. Now you're if refining and
evolving that. So every Sunday that omelette
gets better and better and better.
But so by the end of the month there you've make an omelet that
they that is to them perfection.Then you become a really great
(20:13):
roommate because you're always making their favorite omelette
every Sunday, right. So in that sense, it's a it is
both a way to build community, it's a way to build
relationships, and at the same time, it's also a way to
understand preferences as they evolve.
Because maybe by the 4th Sunday also, it's like, man, I've had
the same omelette, though it is amazing.
(20:34):
I'm now like, what would happen to I trust you now as a cook?
What do you think I would want? Now I know you like savory
rather than sweet omelets, right?
And you so, but what would happen if I paired bacon, which
I know you like because it's kind of a savory thing with
apples and cinnamon and made this save a more of a sweet
savory crepe that's also an omelette.
(20:57):
But it's not, it's not, it's not.
So let me make you that. And now all of a sudden they're
you've expanded their horizons. So I think in that sense, you're
looking at design thinking as a way not only to make successful
products, but it made to make successful relationships.
Yeah. So in the process of someone
practicing this, they are sharpening their own toolkit
(21:19):
when it comes to like empathy. It's kind of like the backbone
of this, but you become a betterand more relevant problem solver
I think. Yeah, I mean, I think part of
why I teach on this campus or why I teach in general actually
is just that idea, I think at least in the States, right, the
the art, the theater, radio, television, film.
(21:41):
I went to a performing Arts and Sciences high school, but a lot
of that is being cut, right. And so that A and STEAM is, is,
is underserved in a lot of different ways.
And we teach critical thinking amazingly well, right?
Engineering teaches analytical thinking quite well.
It's where you have to start thinking more intuitively, more
improvisationally and more futuristically that creative
(22:04):
thinking is not taught as well. Some say that like, and again, I
don't, and I wouldn't agree withthis, but some say, oh, well
then you can't teach creativity.I'm like, actually, yeah, you
can't. It has been proven you can't
teach creativity. And so the the the question is,
do you teach it well enough thatactually makes people think of
ideas outside of the norm? This is why you know why humans
can't be replaced by AI? Because context creativity can't
(22:28):
be programmed in. You have to you have an
inspiration and be able to permute it.
Not by the most common answer, right?
There was actually something in the news article recently about
how large language models may have a limit because at the end
of the day, to write poetry isn't just about choosing,
choosing what's the most common rhyming answer.
It is what will drive emotion contextually choosing maybe
(22:52):
happenstance words that rhyme. So in that sense, context will
always be key. And so creativity, understanding
of context, those things need tobe taught better.
Those things need to be enforcedstronger in our our higher
education. And so you're right, empathy is
the backbone. But so but and by being more
(23:14):
empathetic, you're able to understand cultures that are not
your own. Take perspectives that again,
are maybe different or seem foreign to you, but you'll be
able to appreciate it in a way that allows you to drive a
product or service, whatever forsomeone in order to give them a
(23:35):
better life, a better experience, or to help imagine a
better life Co designed with them rather than just dictating
it to them. And so that is something that's
really valuable. And then that creativity aspect.
Exactly, you can hone that as well.
So my whole philosophy on that kind of is yes, if you practice
empathy, creativity and criticality, those 3 mindsets in
(23:58):
that book, in the book, you willeventually become better at
whatever you do, no matter what discipline you choose to be.
Like I said, we're all Little D designers.
Yeah, yeah. And.
Not everyone is a culinary Michelin chef, but what makes
you that is whether or not you went to a chef school and then
dedicated your trade, plied yourcraft to the point in which
(24:20):
someone else deems your cooking of a certain quality.
So everyone has the capability and should practice those
mindsets, and if they practice it well enough through that
iteration, then they'll become good at whatever they do.
Yeah. Yeah, I have always thought I'm
not creative, but it's really just because I'm like in the
box. I don't, well, I, my background
(24:43):
is project management, so I create the box.
But because I'm aware of that, yeah, I now I try not to stay
within the box. And like in doing so, you're
pushing limits. You're like, you're just opening
up new neuro pathways. And I do think like sometimes
just daydreaming or just like randomly thinking of things, you
(25:05):
get random ideas that is actually applicable.
It is, yeah. Your subconscious does that.
Actually, that was something I wrote about is that, Karen, you
are creative. The fact that you're able to see
there was a box, that you prescribe the box, and now that
you decide, you know what? I don't need to be in this box,
right? That is, that is showing that
your creative muscle is there, right?
(25:25):
It's when people don't realize they're in a box at all, right?
They're cognitive by like James Adams wrote a wonderful book
called conceptual blockbusting, which is the word that's where
the term thinking inside the boxcomes from, right?
He actually has he has an exercise that that is a nine dot
exercise. If people can look up on the
Internet, I'm sure. But but that's where that phrase
came from, thinking outside the box, right?
And so, but the fact that, you know, there's a box there, it
(25:49):
shows that you're creative. The people who don't know
there's a bot who, who implicitly draw inside the box
because they think there's a boxthere and they don't realize
there's a box there. That's the one that where you
need a break, right? The fact that you're like, you
know what? I arbitrarily made these
constraints. I put these crisps and people do
this all the time in creative works.
Like I was, I don't know, when I, my first art, my well, 2nd
(26:12):
art class in at the University of Texas, my teacher was like,
Oh, I see you constrained yourself.
I didn't put those limits on you.
You did. And I and I said yes, I need to
because if I don't, I wouldn't know where to begin.
OK, So many people because when like they call it the power of
the white. If I give you a blank canvas,
(26:33):
sometimes you're the fact that you have so many possibilities
intimidates you. It scares.
You. So people can't just start
thinking outside the box right away because there's so many
possibilities. So it is human to say, OK, well,
let me let me take a smaller subset of what the answers could
(26:53):
be, right? So let me at least draw a single
line or a single circle. Now that the the power of the
white is broken. I have a circle on this page.
Now I know the circle is a snowman, an ice cream cone, the
head of a clown, whatever, an orange, whatever.
I can still be creative inside the box.
Yeah. So that's a normal human
condition because it reduces theinsecurity of not knowing the
(27:16):
answer. People constrain themselves
normally because they need to come up with the answer.
Now the cool part of the creative part is when they go, I
arbitrarily put that circle downthere so that I can come up with
the answers. If you read Release the fetters,
see where you go, constrain yourself again, release it
again, constrain it again, release again.
(27:37):
That is what creativity is that that creativity is about
episodically both inspiring and then thematically grouping and
then inspiring and thematically grouping.
The neurositis is kind of, well,at least some of the papers on
creativity is being studied by agreat number of people.
But I, I feel like I might be missing some then that that's a
(27:59):
signal to your brain to go, OK, that was a box.
I'm going to, I'm now, I'm goingto, I'm going to take those
ideas I'm going to put over here, put on the side, and then
now I'm going to imagine there'sone offshoot there that seemed
random at the time. What was random about that?
And that's that daydreaming partyou said is when you Daydream or
when you slow down. And part of this is the
(28:19):
creativity network in the brain isn't the same as the critical
network in the brain. Like they're in two sides of the
brain. So if yeah, this goes back to
kind of Scott Taylor's research at Babson and his collaborators.
When you are critical like you, you poo poo ideas.
You cannot come up with new ideas because you're too busy
criticizing. If someone seems like
(28:40):
something's like, wow, this camefrom nowhere.
Like I slept on it and this random idea popped out, rather
than saying that was a random idea, let's not use it, right?
That's criticizing it. If you're creative, you go, what
was it about that idea that mademe think of that?
And that's usually when the creativity, that's when that
they always go, oh, that's that spark of inspiration.
It's not on a lightning strike event.
(29:00):
And then what happens now is that random idea has some type
of association with your original group of criteria or
your original subset, but it's that free association that
allows you to become to associate another group of sets
of ideas. And that's what we, you know
that that is creativity. You're finding super sets from a
(29:22):
subset. Criticality is finding a single
answer from a group of ants in narrowing your approach or you
being like they call it divergent convergent thinking,
Are you converging and coming with many more ideas or are you
narrowing the possibilities? So that's really where the
creativity comes from. Yeah.
And that's what you said earlier, the criticality is
(29:42):
important too, because I'm sure we have different types of
listeners. Some are more the free, free
thinking, some are more the critical ones.
So like design thinking is a really, really deep concept.
Like it's not hard to understand, but there is a lot
to it. And just with our time today,
we're definitely not going to cover all of it.
(30:05):
Like if anyone is interested by Wayne Spock, I'll put the
information in the show notes. So for someone who wants to do
something like after hearing today's episode, they're
intrigued. Like how can we what can they
start doing so they can at leaststart practice design thinking?
I love that, that you know, and yeah, and, and just yeah, for
(30:26):
that same thing here for that short plug, right?
If you're sure what I'm talking about, right, My books called
Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, and you can find it
on Amazon. You can find it at the Lawrence
King website that that it's publicly available.
Now. Some of the things that I think
about again is cultivating this holistic mind, right?
If if you're one thing I always say are as far as advice for
(30:51):
young students or anybody who fats is themselves who wants to
become more of a creative professional, right?
Professional who comes up with more ideas as more to become
more successful in their endeavors.
Whatever it is one live richly. Find ways in which you can
engage with people that aren't necessarily like you.
(31:15):
This could be something as simple as walking across the
street to a different area of the neighborhood or metropolitan
city you're in right? I know you know you know, London
has different neighborhoods and groups.
New York has different neighborhoods and areas and just
eating at a restaurant that was slightly different than yours
and engaging, not just eating, but engaging with people.
(31:35):
I think that one is living richly.
It doesn't require a lot of money.
It just requires a curious mind and and so that will help
develop your empathy skills. The creative skills is what I
say is see the meta, see the context.
You, you see something in just in your daily walks of life.
(31:56):
Be curious, be a question, how did this come to be?
Why did it come to be? What were the forces behind it?
And just asking why this might have happened if someone might
have missed, If you see someone and you're writing the the tube
and someone missed their station, right?
It might just something like, Ohmy gosh, they missed their
station. And obviously you feel sorry for
(32:16):
them. You'd help them get off at the
next stop. But at the same time you'd ask,
why did I think that happened? What was it that caused that?
And it may have, you know, it may have been and that this just
something small like that. See the context.
Why are you, if you're at a university, a lot of my students
on my my obviously I teach at a university or a technical
institute. I asked my students, why are you
(32:37):
here? Why are you taking this class?
What you know, it's you're here.Yes, you may hear it be this
class, this day to pass this test, but why do you even want
to pass the test? What's the point of it?
And then by allowing them to kind of expand and go well, I
see a broader future for myself.If I get good grades, I see a
good job. If I see a good job, I see a
(32:58):
better career. If I see a better career, I see
a happiness of doing what I would like to do.
It's like, see the context, see the meta.
Right, that was me. That was me when I was in
university. Like that, but that's got to be,
it's surprisingly sometimes people live their life with
blinders. Like I, you know, they're so
narrow focused, they never see the meta.
And when they don't, then they lose that creativity, they lose
(33:21):
that great daydreaming. They lose that ability to kind
of meander, right? Sometimes life doesn't always
present itself exactly the way you plan.
And so it's theme, the meta allows you to pivot.
It allows you not to just focus on one thing, but to focus on
many interests. And it's surprising how life
rewards you when you have multiple interests.
(33:43):
You can pivot to a new career. You can pivot to a new
discipline. You can change majors.
That's never too late to design A life that's meaningful to you
because you have so many ways inwhich it can be fulfilling.
Yeah. So that's seeing that, that's
kind of seeing the meta. The last one I would say is if
you're thinking about developingyour critical mind, right, is
really thinking about when you engage with things, products,
(34:04):
services, people, there's nothing wrong with asking and
going what really drives this forward, right?
You know, what do I really love about this product or what do I
love about this food? And just to say like being able
to discern the quality, like I love this masala chicken.
Why the Curry is just amazing. And you can narrow it down to
(34:25):
something like that. Then you're definitely an
engineer, but a little E engineer, right?
You're a Cullen. So in that sense, you're seeing
the how the qualities of life orthe qualities of certain things
contribute to your appreciation of them.
Like that is a being an engineerand a designer in a lot of ways.
So that's the kind of advice I would give.
(34:48):
Wow, you were describing my lifestory, or at least like aspect
of it. And I think, like, the common
thread is the curious and connecting with dots, like, try
to understand a layer deeper into things instead of just
like, OK, I ate this Curry, it was good.
(35:08):
That was it. So yeah, our life will be all
like, a lot more meaningful. And if we have more empathy, we
create a smoother world. I think, like, less friction.
But one example that I always want to use like as a joke is if
you're sending me a Google map, like telling me where to go,
don't send me a screenshot. So it's something like that.
(35:33):
So for the last part, let's playa rapid fire round.
So. Go for it, yeah.
What's something you've designedrecently that made your life
easier? Big or small?
Wow. That made my life easier.
Within the last couple of years,I got this digital tablet to
(35:53):
start drawing in and I've been recently recreating some of the
UI and some of the software. So it allows some of the drawing
software, the note taking software I use the, the, the
tools are fine, right? That's fine.
It's what I've been doing is hand I've been using my graphic
design skills to create new types of templates just for my
(36:16):
workflow. So whether it be expenses,
things to do, prioritizing clients, prioritizing classes,
I've created templates over the years because I always tend to
write things the same way in thesame area of the page.
And So what I've been able to dois to say, OK, I'm going to just
use Indesign used to, you know, grab that software and create
templates, which I now use as under layers.
(36:38):
And when I draw or take notes, it becomes much more fluid for
me to work. So it's been very helpful for me
to kind of hone my tools over time.
Wow, you are. You are a product designer after
all. Yeah, I am a product designer.
I've designed everything from automobiles to sunglasses for
celebrities. So it just depends.
(36:59):
Wow, amazing. Next one.
What's What's a design flaw in everyday life that secretly
drives you crazy? Like who thought this was a good
idea? Oh my gosh.
Oh man, that's real. Listen, I don't like to cast
aspersions on designers, right? You don't have to name names it.
Yeah, listen, I think, listen, it's interesting.
(37:19):
Like there's some things that, Imean, they don't drive me crazy,
but they do irk me, right? So some things about like media,
media consumption and how we utilize it and social media as
well, how we utilize it, right. On the one hand, I realize it is
a business, right? You if you watch broadcast
television right now, maybe in London is different because you
have more of a nationalized television service than we do.
(37:41):
Yeah. It's by the way that ads have
both, you know, the push and pull between how you insert ads
into watching videos versus broadcast.
Like in broadcast, something we know you're gonna watch 12
minutes of TV and then you get like 3 minutes of ads.
So it's very consistent. And yes, it's Free TV because
you can get it off the antenna. But once you digitally start
(38:03):
streaming it, now there's a is this if you pay this much, you
don't get any ads because you'repaying more.
But if you get less than there'sthe ad supported.
And so this whole idea of it's not very clear to customers what
they're getting and why they want it, how they want to use
ads. So like some of that stuff that
can be annoying, like, oh, watchthis ad before you see this 32nd
YouTube video. Yeah, right.
So that that stuff can be annoying.
(38:24):
But I, you know, I know why it'sthere, but it is that's, that's
always an interesting one. And then the other one I would
say is within social media, the the kind of arbitration of
truth, right? Because of the this kind of
fragmentation of the medial ecosphere, everyone can move
into their own little bubble, their own.
Little Yeah. And so part of that is there is
(38:46):
no, you know, and I think this is this is currently under talks
of regulation, but what is what is the ramifications of
spreading disinformation online?If we are if we appeal to the
humanity of the freedom of thought and the freedom of
expression, are there any repercussions if you willingly
choose to lie or to to put something that posts something
(39:08):
that is untrue? The when media was in the more
traditional media systems of saybroadcast television or even
cable television, there are editors, there are arbiters to
Fact Check your work, right. So there is none of that online
in social media. So how, how do we look at that
responsibility as ourselves, as technology, especially because I
(39:31):
teach at Technology Institute and between the AI and social
media and all the different things that we create to make
communication faster and easier,which is great.
We also have to slow down and think about what is the, what is
that arbitration? What is that arbiter of truth
such that we don't reward peopleto disseminate lies on life?
(39:53):
Yes, wow, that's way deeper thanjust a simple like I hate this.
OK, let's talk about the flip side.
It is one of the things that irks me though.
It definitely irks me everyday, yeah.
What's one thing in your home that you think is perfectly
designed? Oh my gosh, that's a trick.
Well, I mean, I have. There's the first one, which is
(40:14):
I love my family. I think that's a wonderful.
OK. Right, because I, I chose my
wife, we got married, we had kids.
I think there's and every day isa wonderful day to empathize
with them, see what see both their successes and their
happiness and their travails andsadness and to find ways every
day to kind of design their experiences in a way, right.
(40:38):
Like if my child wants to, to, to paint, how would I create
that painting? Like, yes, you buy the brushes
and the paint, but then how do you, how do you then design that
experience? How do you then go, how do you
go? OK, and let's say she gets
frustrated because she mixed 2 paints together and made purple
and she didn't mean to, right? And then she's she's 4, by the
(41:00):
way, Sophia's four so and Asher's six.
But but even looking at it and then saying, well, teaching her
kind of that idea. So so you made a color you
didn't intend, you know, and you're upset about it.
How do we how do we make it better?
How do we improve upon it? How do you take that lemon and
make lemonade? And then how do you show her
that creativity to paint again or work with it?
(41:23):
Right? It work.
Just can you make that work and make that a, they call them
happy surprises, right? Whatever things that they're,
they're happy surprises. So those are, those are designs
in a way, you're designing that learning experience for her.
And in that sense, I love it. It couldn't be any more perfect
than it is now. If you're talking about a
physical object in my, you know,then then that would be the
(41:47):
dining table I designed. So obviously I designed my own
furniture. I worked for Pottery Barn for
five years. I decorated and designed my own
house, right. So, so in that sense, you know,
I took a fixer upper and then wound up renovating it,
obviously with contractors as well.
I mean, it's not a single personjob, but if it was something
huge like the kitchen or the bathroom that required
(42:08):
electricians and plumbers, I'm not a licensed plumber.
I'm not a licensed electrician. But all the other rooms pretty
much I designed myself. So the dining room table I
designed, I worked with a shop, a furniture fabricator and
repurposed a bowling alley. So there's a bowling alley going
out of business and we repurposed the bowling lane.
(42:31):
So the bowling lane is 3 inch Maple.
Like that's really thick wood. It's solid.
So it's not a light table. That's an heirloom product.
It will probably stay with the house forever.
So it is a three inch Maple repurposed bowling alley late
with A4 with the steel kind of in a modernist.
(42:51):
I mean, it's a relative, but warm.
It's a rustic kind of my my style.
When I decorate along with my wife, we both love modern, but I
tend to look at an industrial chic.
It's kind of where I look at. So if if modernism breed and A
and a farmhouse and A and an industrial warehouse had a baby,
then that's what the usual industrial look is in my
(43:12):
interior. Repurposed bowling alley with
with kind of more of a steel legH frame to hold the wood is kind
of what that is. So that'd be the most proud
design I have as far as inside the home.
And you know it's going to be sturdy.
Think of all the bowling balls to get thrown to it.
I know, I know. And it's because it is solid 3
(43:34):
inch thick Maplewood. It's not light.
Right into. The house Mike use it as a Fort,
as a tent. They use it as a dancing like a
dancing stage so they can dance on top of it, right.
Like that's just yeah. And because there's no the the
wonderful thing about the fabricator and their, their,
their, their abilities is the the entire Maple is suspended.
(43:58):
So there's no there's like normally you have a kitchen
table, you know, have that little arms or.
Supports. Stress underneath the kitchen
table. You bang your knee into that and
always hurts. Well, there's none of that.
It's just a plank of Maple so they can go underneath it and
then they can play inside as a 10.
Not something I expected becausewhen I designed the table, I
didn't have kids. But now that it is like they can
bump their head up, right up to the ceiling and not hurt
(44:20):
themselves at all because it's completely smooth underneath.
And so they play under that all the time, right?
Which is just again something you a happy surprise in the
design of life. Wow, that's just like another
design perk. Yes, absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for talking to me today like this,
encouraging people to just be curious and connect dots, be
(44:42):
empathetic. It's it's been like one of the
main drivers of me starting the podcast.
So I'm very happy to be talking to you today.
Likewise, it was a wonderful conversation, Karen.
Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Mind One. Maybe enjoy the conversation,
Don't forget to follow and shareit with anyone who needs to hear
(45:03):
it. And let's keep the conversation
going. Connect with me on LinkedIn or
leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious,
keep exploring, and let's continue to clean our minds and
discover what's possible.
You're expanding and contractingyour field of view.
You're inspiring new ideas. Things that seem implausible
actually come from your gut, right?
There's another kind of firing of neurons kind of in your
intestinal tract. That is kind of how artists use
it. It actually links to their brain
in a certain. Way.
And that is your intuition, right?
And so. If you've ever rearranged your
(00:23):
kitchen or tried to make a morning routine less chaotic,
you're designing an experience without even knowing it.
But what happens when you start doing it on purpose?
Today I'm joined by Wayne Lee, Professor of Design and
Engineering and the author of Design, Empathy and Contextual
Awareness, to explore how designthinking makes you more curious,
(00:45):
more empathetic, and better at navigating real life.
From conversations to career choices to everyday problem
solving, Welcome to the show Mind Blend.
I'm your host, Karen Chong, and I'll be diving into the minds of
incredible people, each an expert in their very own way.
(01:06):
Together, we'll uncover insightsand share ideas so you can be
inspired and empowered to navigate your own unique journey
in life. Ready to get curious and
discover what's possible? Let's blend.
Hi, Wayne. Hi.
How's it going? Good, welcome to my bun.
Yeah, thanks. I'm happy to be here.
I'm really interested in your story.
(01:28):
How did what happened that led you to what you're doing today?
Yeah, it's been a long, long. I won't.
I don't want to go too far back,right?
But it's been a long career and a wonderful kind of journey
around art and design. I think it's always started as
you know, my, my parents, right?My, my mom is a classically
(01:49):
trained brush painter. They're both of my parents are
from Taiwan and my dad is a PhD polymer chemist.
So, so part of it has always been this love of art and
science. And so, you know, whether it be
kind of an analytical mind from more my dad or a more free
flowing intuitive mind for my mom kind of having and then
pursuing both in school, right? I, I wound up graduating with
(02:10):
both mechanical engineering and Fine Arts degrees.
So that kind of dual degree nature led to car design at
Fordham Volkswagen, it led to a product design at, at IDEO.
And then and then Graduate School at at Stanford University
where I learned a lot of, I meana lot of what I learned in human
centered design or user centereddesign back then was kind of
(02:31):
from IDEO and from that from theStanford program where we
established design thinking. So that and then, yeah, then
that led into furniture and housewares design at Pottery
Barn, along with lecturing at Stanford University.
And now I'm here at Georgia Tech.
So Georgia Tech found me as adjunct at Stanford be a
position to extend that philosophy out to the East
(02:52):
Coast. So that was a with you know,
with my graduate advisor's blessing.
It was, it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of think
about, and this is always trickywith with technology you're
working at, you know, we're at atech school, Stanford's R1
research university. How do you humanize technology?
How do you understand, you know,we talked about user experience,
either software or computer interfaces.
(03:15):
My research area was human machine interface.
So you think about the first kind of like automobile.
It's a physical widget with a digital screen with a stir radio
NAV screen, whatever it is. And that's a lot of my research
is how do you humanize the experience such that what it's
safe to drive but also too enjoyable and pleasurable to
drive. You're thinking about what are
(03:36):
those things that do define the driving and writing experience
and then how do you use both hardware and software in order
to make sure and execute on them?
So that's that's kind of the Long story short about blending
art and science to make technology human.
Yeah, that resonated with me so much because you have interfaces
as you can tell that it's only it's not even really designed,
(03:59):
but it's put together by just the people on the engineering
side. You can hardly communicate with
it. So before we dive into design
and design thinking, you mentioned design thinking
earlier. Let's clarify that for our
listeners who are not familiar with design thinking.
Yeah, absolutely. So if you can think about design
just like you stood like in physics, right?
(04:21):
If physics goes through school of thought, right.
So you know Einstein created saylike classical physics, laws of
motion and then you move into non linear physics or or you
know non classical physics and then you go into quantum
physics. So different schools of thought.
So you might have think of art and design starting with say
(04:41):
modernism in the Bauhaus and then you have post modernism and
those types of things. So design is the same way,
right? Design had the same thing where
more modernist approach was justform and function foreign.
Falls, yeah. And then that's more of the
Bauhaus. And now you move into where the
this more what I would consider a more a newer philosophy, a
more, you know, a more a kid philosophy, which is the human
(05:04):
centered design. So what human centered design is
or and then also known to other people and practitioners as
design thinking, right? So looks at putting the human
first when you design product, services, performances, whatever
it is, whatever you make, right.I used product as a very as a
very loose definition. It does not need to be a widget,
(05:27):
doesn't have to be a physical thing.
It's any product of your imagination.
So if that's software, hardware,interpretive dance, a public
policy, doesn't matter. That's a product, right?
It's a product imagination. So the design thinking looks at
putting the human central to that philosophy, but also in
balance with the technology usedto create, to create and bring
(05:49):
it to market, right? And the business forces the
infrastructure around distributing and selling.
If you think of it like if you look up design thinking triple
Venn diagram, they'll put the human technology and business in
these three separate things where I'm thinking or innovation
is the central of all those things.
(06:10):
Those overlap have to be able tobalance those 3 concepts in
order to make successful products for people, right?
So the human represents usability, desirability, right?
The social sciences this that the Fine Arts society, you know
those things. The technology represents the
computer science, material science, engineering, and then
the business represents you know, your accounting, your org
(06:30):
theory, behavioral psychology, things like that.
Desirability, usability on the human feasibility for the
engineering and viability for the for the business.
So it's a philosophy that's moreencompassing than just form
follows function. Yeah.
So just right before I started this episode, I was talking to
my family about like two different brands of devices of
(06:53):
the same thing, basically digital writing pad.
Let's say if we're applying thisphilosophy in creating this
digital writing pad, how would that look like?
Like what are the what would be the three things that are in the
Venn diagram? Yeah, let's go through that.
That's a fun one. I mean, because for the longest
time, right, I've always sketched in analog notebooks
(07:15):
ever since I first started art school, right?
And probably prior to that in high school, I kept like a
little, you know, day planner log or whatever.
And it wasn't until maybe I would say 20/20/2020 that I or
2022 maybe or somewhere around there that I switched to a
digital drawing instrument, right?
So one all right, let's look at the let's let's take the human.
(07:36):
What we would probably do from ahuman centric design is 1
Observe people utilizing writinginstruments, right?
Interview them, observe them like so talk to artists, talk to
poets, talk to a screenplay writer, talk to an engineer that
and then how do they utilize what they use to take notes in?
An artist might use it to draw sketches, but a computer
(07:58):
scientist might use it to plan out an algorithm, right.
And so they, and So what is it that they are writing down?
How are they utilizing writing instrument?
How much do they care about a pen and paper analog feeling for
an artist that actually is quiteimportant, like the friction of
the ballpoint or the felt tip. You actually learn there's a lot
of information signalling that comes through the texture tooth,
(08:19):
the paper along with the nib or the felt tip of the pen and the
strokes you can create at the angle of attack.
Control. It's like calligraphy too.
Yeah, it's like calligraphy, like it's the angle, right?
It's so of the nib. And so, and again, different
people will use drawing instruments differently.
So again, if you talk to a poet,they may not.
Well, I never actually use the pencil on the side and and shade
(08:41):
on the side of the pen, but I might use it.
I might use a pen to indicate stanzas or codas in a poem, in a
poem. And I might use a certain
shorthand, right, that that tells me this is a writing
sequence, B writing sequence. And I might annotate it in a way
that's unique. So what you're trying to do from
a human centric way is to understand how people utilize
(09:03):
things in their own way that defines their culture.
So a poet would have a subculture of poet writing.
An artist would have a subculture of draw of artist
being a visual artist. So understanding that level of
sophistication about different people who use drawing or
writing instruments differently is be the human centric part
(09:25):
right? Now let's move into the
technology part. So if you have to make a product
and it's a digital writing instrument, right, because it's
a digital pad, not an analog one, then we'd have to look at
the technology of it and say, OK, if I were to design, I need
the right technology for that right person.
If I need to be able to take a pen nib and put it on it's side,
(09:48):
well then the digitizing layer of the iPad or the there's more
than one technology, right? An iPad like this one, right?
You know, it's an iPad with this, right?
So that's capacitive layer, multi touch screen, right?
If you use an E Ink pad, like a remarkable tablet, that's an E
Ink display and it's not the capacitive layer, use a
(10:08):
resistive layer on top, right? If you were to use a different
technology, something like a Wacom tablet, right, they use
they, they, they use a differenttype of kind of pen tip that's
measures resistance. So now the question there is
which of those technologies willgive the artist the sides, the
shading idea where they hold thepencil like this, right?
(10:30):
The sideways kind of between their two, their third and their
second and third versus a, a poet who'd hold it like a normal
pencil, right and tack using thepen, the tip of the pen.
So which technology prescribe orallows that type of motion or
that type of activity to happen?The best now, now so that we,
(10:50):
the technology side, choosing the right technology, the
appropriate technology for the human activity.
Then now the business person looks at viability.
If you only sell like are there enough artists on the planet
that could that could justify the more expensive technology if
it was a more expensive technology because you have to
now look at the angle at which the pen can touch the surface.
You. Know if it only touches between
(11:13):
the vertical and 12° off vertical, then then maybe the
technology is much easier to execute.
But if you need to attack the pen, so the pen is 5° from the
flat of. The surface all of the.
Technology is really expensive. So so if if it was, let's just
say 5 the the then now the viability, the business person
is like, well, can I sell enoughto art artists?
(11:34):
Are they willing to pay enough for that technology or do I have
to sell to poets, artists, writers and engineers all
together? And if I do so, the volume
selling price of the unit comes down because you're making more
of them. But at the same time, are you?
Then, you know, that's that balance.
If you now make more of them, they have to be more universal.
If they have to be more universal, then that means that
(11:55):
perhaps that humanity that you are speaking to serve it isn't
quite served well. And that goes back to your
point, something that is just engineered to function.
It served the most people may not actually provide the
experience that people create. That's where that viability,
that's where that business has to come in to say how large is
(12:17):
this market? Where are they willing to pay
and do you have that balance there?
Because the more of obviously the it's a price volume curve,
the more you make cheaper something gets per unit.
So you have to size the market relative to the value you're
driving. So those things, it's so much
more than foreign follows function.
Yeah, right. And that's why we're past the
(12:37):
post that modernism. We're past we're in post
modernism. And I love the approach because
everyone is really thinking of not just their own area.
Because for the people who are only concerned about producing
the thing, like producing, like the engineering, the production
part, they don't care as much. But that's like, that's exactly
(13:00):
what you meant by putting that human in the center.
Yeah. And I really like that holistic
thinking. And I feel like it can be
applied to daily life. You don't have to be producing
something. Karen I mean, I couldn't 100 I
mean 100%. I couldn't agree more.
What I like about design thinking and about, you know,
what I wrote in my book is that it's holistic, right,
Irrespective of what your what your major is or what job
(13:23):
function you have inside a certain company, right Ideal
would always say when I worked there that they like to breed T
shaped people. T shaped.
Which means that you may be goodat one thing, you'll get a
degree in something, right? You're going to be an expert in
something. But are you broad enough or
inspired by multiple disciplinesin order to understand and be
inspired by everyone else? If if for a like you mentioned,
(13:45):
for a company, yes, you might have an accounting department,
an engineering department, you know, a design department.
It's how much the designers can also understand engineering and
business. It's how much the engineers can
respect design and not override the designers wish to serve the
human right because you know, because they're you're at
different stages of the development process.
(14:07):
The engineers closer to manufacturing and engineering
right there may not be as close to marketing and design because
of when they touch the product. Because remember, several hands
touch a product before it gets released.
So having a company that is fullof T shaped people who can
understand where this other perspective is coming from.
It's more collaborative, it's more inclusive, it's more
(14:27):
multidisciplinary, it's more empathetic.
And what happens then is if you put the human, the customer, at
the focus of your company, teachyour workers how to get along
with each other so that they're not silos in a company, there
are actually more multidisciplinary, nimble teams
that work. Then you wind up making a better
(14:48):
experience for customers. And ultimately you become more
financially successful because customers demand your product
rather than the product that's not made for them.
So there's two things. One, it can improve business a
great deal. Two, in as an individual instead
of a collection of it can improve your processes really
well. Or what I talk about is that,
(15:08):
and this is kind of the researchholistically, when you think of
creating something for someone, I don't care if you're making
eggs for your roommate in the morning.
Right now you're an avian culinary designer, right?
You're a now if you go to the court on blue or you go to
school studying for four years on how to make omelets, then now
you're a capital Bachelors of science ACD major, right?
(15:29):
But everyone is a designer in that sense, right?
A little D designer, just like everyone who makes eggs is an
avian culinary designer, right? So you know, everyone is a
little E engineer, right? So in that sense, holistically,
if you're a designer and everyone is because everyone has
to create something for someone eventually, your mental state
(15:54):
when you are empathetic, when you care about people, that is 1
mindset when you're creative andyou need to now make things like
imagine a better future for someone and then instantiate it,
like make it for people right through a prototype, mock up,
sketch, drawing, model, whatever, that's creative.
And then when you have those things in your possession and
(16:16):
you bring them back out to the field, you bring them back to
people who go, which one of these do you like?
Which one of these writing instruments do you like?
Which one of these omelets do you like?
And they go, I like that omelet.Now you're a testing with people
and understanding their preferences.
That is a critical mindset. That's what engineers do is they
value different qualities and they put numbers and ascribe
numbers to them. So go to marketing agents,
(16:38):
right? That's exactly what they do.
So there's a role for everyone at this table though, but how
holistically you can think of doing things will determine your
ultimate success in the market. Yeah, the testing the water well
in design thinking there's this like prototyping mindset.
That's right, which which is testing like I know not like if
(17:00):
we think about making the omelettes, we probably don't
start out thinking we're going to make it 10 times just to see
how well it's perceived. So can let's dive into this
prototyping mindset because it'slike really important to get get
some get something out there, get some feedback from whoever
is receiving that and then improving it.
(17:21):
Let's. Talk about that.
No, listen, So I mean, yeah, prototyping is a whole another
level, right? I mean, in my book, I talk about
that. There's these kind of five
design behaviors, right? You have design empathy or
empathy, contextual awareness. We have creativity craft,
creative craft, right? So that's kind of the ability to
create and instantiate ideas, iteration and testing, rapid
(17:42):
iteration and then entrepreneurial sustainability.
So if we start talking about creativity and craft, which is
where you're talking about prototyping, Yeah.
Let's use the omelet example, Right.
So yeah, you live with a flatmate in London and you
exchange. So one, you're right.
Like you can't make 10 omelettestogether, right?
That might be a little bit wasteful, but you know, you're
(18:03):
gonna live with your flatmate for at least a year of the
lease. You know, you exchange breakfast
cooking duties every other Saturday.
OK, So what would be the first level of prototyping?
What would be the first level ofengagement with someone?
If you've just met that flat Nate, and you're sharing the
lease or sharing the rent, you might say, OK, well, I'm making
breakfast for you this Saturday.You're going to make breakfast
for you next Saturday. What things do you like?
(18:25):
So that's just the first interview, right?
And it may be something simple where you're like, I'm going
grocery shopping for breakfast, right?
Name five ingredients that you would normally eat.
And so strawberries and I like ham and I like, you know, I like
Peppers and bacon and eggs. You're like, OK, so that may be
that first engagement, which is the lowest level, right?
(18:46):
There's no commitment. There's nothing that you've
spent nothing, right? You've done some amount of
engagement. And it might be something where
that first Saturday you'd come back from the Friday nights or
Friday's worth of shopping and bring it in.
OK, I'm making, I'm going to make eggs for you tomorrow here.
The ingredients. I, I, I bought, I've got ham,
I've got onions, I've got green Peppers, mushrooms and cheese.
And which, which ones do you think would work an omelet?
(19:09):
And they would say, OK, well, I like these three things.
And so, so that Sunday you do have a first prototype, which is
this, they've already decided what ingredients they like, but
maybe you cooked it wrong or maybe you put way too many
onions in it right on that Sunday they're like, oh, that
was an OK omelet. And so at that point you've got
(19:30):
what so the the first engagementis just talking and then maybe
presenting some very quick options.
And that what we call low fidelity prototype little
fidelity was you made an omelette for the first time, the
middle fidelity right now they told you, hey, that was an OK
omelette, but there are way too many onions in that.
And so now you were finding it again.
(19:52):
And now you're like, well, the next Sunday you put fewer
onions, but this time you add extra pepper and paprika just
for fun. Right, like you find out more
and more through that person. Now you're if refining and
evolving that. So every Sunday that omelette
gets better and better and better.
But so by the end of the month there you've make an omelet that
they that is to them perfection.Then you become a really great
(20:13):
roommate because you're always making their favorite omelette
every Sunday, right. So in that sense, it's a it is
both a way to build community, it's a way to build
relationships, and at the same time, it's also a way to
understand preferences as they evolve.
Because maybe by the 4th Sunday also, it's like, man, I've had
the same omelette, though it is amazing.
(20:34):
I'm now like, what would happen to I trust you now as a cook?
What do you think I would want? Now I know you like savory
rather than sweet omelets, right?
And you so, but what would happen if I paired bacon, which
I know you like because it's kind of a savory thing with
apples and cinnamon and made this save a more of a sweet
savory crepe that's also an omelette.
(20:57):
But it's not, it's not, it's not.
So let me make you that. And now all of a sudden they're
you've expanded their horizons. So I think in that sense, you're
looking at design thinking as a way not only to make successful
products, but it made to make successful relationships.
Yeah. So in the process of someone
practicing this, they are sharpening their own toolkit
(21:19):
when it comes to like empathy. It's kind of like the backbone
of this, but you become a betterand more relevant problem solver
I think. Yeah, I mean, I think part of
why I teach on this campus or why I teach in general actually
is just that idea, I think at least in the States, right, the
the art, the theater, radio, television, film.
(21:41):
I went to a performing Arts and Sciences high school, but a lot
of that is being cut, right. And so that A and STEAM is, is,
is underserved in a lot of different ways.
And we teach critical thinking amazingly well, right?
Engineering teaches analytical thinking quite well.
It's where you have to start thinking more intuitively, more
improvisationally and more futuristically that creative
(22:04):
thinking is not taught as well. Some say that like, and again, I
don't, and I wouldn't agree withthis, but some say, oh, well
then you can't teach creativity.I'm like, actually, yeah, you
can't. It has been proven you can't
teach creativity. And so the the the question is,
do you teach it well enough thatactually makes people think of
ideas outside of the norm? This is why you know why humans
can't be replaced by AI? Because context creativity can't
(22:28):
be programmed in. You have to you have an
inspiration and be able to permute it.
Not by the most common answer, right?
There was actually something in the news article recently about
how large language models may have a limit because at the end
of the day, to write poetry isn't just about choosing,
choosing what's the most common rhyming answer.
It is what will drive emotion contextually choosing maybe
(22:52):
happenstance words that rhyme. So in that sense, context will
always be key. And so creativity, understanding
of context, those things need tobe taught better.
Those things need to be enforcedstronger in our our higher
education. And so you're right, empathy is
the backbone. But so but and by being more
(23:14):
empathetic, you're able to understand cultures that are not
your own. Take perspectives that again,
are maybe different or seem foreign to you, but you'll be
able to appreciate it in a way that allows you to drive a
product or service, whatever forsomeone in order to give them a
(23:35):
better life, a better experience, or to help imagine a
better life Co designed with them rather than just dictating
it to them. And so that is something that's
really valuable. And then that creativity aspect.
Exactly, you can hone that as well.
So my whole philosophy on that kind of is yes, if you practice
empathy, creativity and criticality, those 3 mindsets in
(23:58):
that book, in the book, you willeventually become better at
whatever you do, no matter what discipline you choose to be.
Like I said, we're all Little D designers.
Yeah, yeah. And.
Not everyone is a culinary Michelin chef, but what makes
you that is whether or not you went to a chef school and then
dedicated your trade, plied yourcraft to the point in which
(24:20):
someone else deems your cooking of a certain quality.
So everyone has the capability and should practice those
mindsets, and if they practice it well enough through that
iteration, then they'll become good at whatever they do.
Yeah. Yeah, I have always thought I'm
not creative, but it's really just because I'm like in the
box. I don't, well, I, my background
(24:43):
is project management, so I create the box.
But because I'm aware of that, yeah, I now I try not to stay
within the box. And like in doing so, you're
pushing limits. You're like, you're just opening
up new neuro pathways. And I do think like sometimes
just daydreaming or just like randomly thinking of things, you
(25:05):
get random ideas that is actually applicable.
It is, yeah. Your subconscious does that.
Actually, that was something I wrote about is that, Karen, you
are creative. The fact that you're able to see
there was a box, that you prescribe the box, and now that
you decide, you know what? I don't need to be in this box,
right? That is, that is showing that
your creative muscle is there, right?
(25:25):
It's when people don't realize they're in a box at all, right?
They're cognitive by like James Adams wrote a wonderful book
called conceptual blockbusting, which is the word that's where
the term thinking inside the boxcomes from, right?
He actually has he has an exercise that that is a nine dot
exercise. If people can look up on the
Internet, I'm sure. But but that's where that phrase
came from, thinking outside the box, right?
And so, but the fact that, you know, there's a box there, it
(25:49):
shows that you're creative. The people who don't know
there's a bot who, who implicitly draw inside the box
because they think there's a boxthere and they don't realize
there's a box there. That's the one that where you
need a break, right? The fact that you're like, you
know what? I arbitrarily made these
constraints. I put these crisps and people do
this all the time in creative works.
Like I was, I don't know, when I, my first art, my well, 2nd
(26:12):
art class in at the University of Texas, my teacher was like,
Oh, I see you constrained yourself.
I didn't put those limits on you.
You did. And I and I said yes, I need to
because if I don't, I wouldn't know where to begin.
OK, So many people because when like they call it the power of
the white. If I give you a blank canvas,
(26:33):
sometimes you're the fact that you have so many possibilities
intimidates you. It scares.
You. So people can't just start
thinking outside the box right away because there's so many
possibilities. So it is human to say, OK, well,
let me let me take a smaller subset of what the answers could
(26:53):
be, right? So let me at least draw a single
line or a single circle. Now that the the power of the
white is broken. I have a circle on this page.
Now I know the circle is a snowman, an ice cream cone, the
head of a clown, whatever, an orange, whatever.
I can still be creative inside the box.
Yeah. So that's a normal human
condition because it reduces theinsecurity of not knowing the
(27:16):
answer. People constrain themselves
normally because they need to come up with the answer.
Now the cool part of the creative part is when they go, I
arbitrarily put that circle downthere so that I can come up with
the answers. If you read Release the fetters,
see where you go, constrain yourself again, release it
again, constrain it again, release again.
(27:37):
That is what creativity is that that creativity is about
episodically both inspiring and then thematically grouping and
then inspiring and thematically grouping.
The neurositis is kind of, well,at least some of the papers on
creativity is being studied by agreat number of people.
But I, I feel like I might be missing some then that that's a
(27:59):
signal to your brain to go, OK, that was a box.
I'm going to, I'm now, I'm goingto, I'm going to take those
ideas I'm going to put over here, put on the side, and then
now I'm going to imagine there'sone offshoot there that seemed
random at the time. What was random about that?
And that's that daydreaming partyou said is when you Daydream or
when you slow down. And part of this is the
(28:19):
creativity network in the brain isn't the same as the critical
network in the brain. Like they're in two sides of the
brain. So if yeah, this goes back to
kind of Scott Taylor's research at Babson and his collaborators.
When you are critical like you, you poo poo ideas.
You cannot come up with new ideas because you're too busy
criticizing. If someone seems like
(28:40):
something's like, wow, this camefrom nowhere.
Like I slept on it and this random idea popped out, rather
than saying that was a random idea, let's not use it, right?
That's criticizing it. If you're creative, you go, what
was it about that idea that mademe think of that?
And that's usually when the creativity, that's when that
they always go, oh, that's that spark of inspiration.
It's not on a lightning strike event.
(29:00):
And then what happens now is that random idea has some type
of association with your original group of criteria or
your original subset, but it's that free association that
allows you to become to associate another group of sets
of ideas. And that's what we, you know
that that is creativity. You're finding super sets from a
(29:22):
subset. Criticality is finding a single
answer from a group of ants in narrowing your approach or you
being like they call it divergent convergent thinking,
Are you converging and coming with many more ideas or are you
narrowing the possibilities? So that's really where the
creativity comes from. Yeah.
And that's what you said earlier, the criticality is
(29:42):
important too, because I'm sure we have different types of
listeners. Some are more the free, free
thinking, some are more the critical ones.
So like design thinking is a really, really deep concept.
Like it's not hard to understand, but there is a lot
to it. And just with our time today,
we're definitely not going to cover all of it.
(30:05):
Like if anyone is interested by Wayne Spock, I'll put the
information in the show notes. So for someone who wants to do
something like after hearing today's episode, they're
intrigued. Like how can we what can they
start doing so they can at leaststart practice design thinking?
I love that, that you know, and yeah, and, and just yeah, for
(30:26):
that same thing here for that short plug, right?
If you're sure what I'm talking about, right, My books called
Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness, and you can find it
on Amazon. You can find it at the Lawrence
King website that that it's publicly available.
Now. Some of the things that I think
about again is cultivating this holistic mind, right?
If if you're one thing I always say are as far as advice for
(30:51):
young students or anybody who fats is themselves who wants to
become more of a creative professional, right?
Professional who comes up with more ideas as more to become
more successful in their endeavors.
Whatever it is one live richly. Find ways in which you can
engage with people that aren't necessarily like you.
(31:15):
This could be something as simple as walking across the
street to a different area of the neighborhood or metropolitan
city you're in right? I know you know you know, London
has different neighborhoods and groups.
New York has different neighborhoods and areas and just
eating at a restaurant that was slightly different than yours
and engaging, not just eating, but engaging with people.
(31:35):
I think that one is living richly.
It doesn't require a lot of money.
It just requires a curious mind and and so that will help
develop your empathy skills. The creative skills is what I
say is see the meta, see the context.
You, you see something in just in your daily walks of life.
(31:56):
Be curious, be a question, how did this come to be?
Why did it come to be? What were the forces behind it?
And just asking why this might have happened if someone might
have missed, If you see someone and you're writing the the tube
and someone missed their station, right?
It might just something like, Ohmy gosh, they missed their
station. And obviously you feel sorry for
(32:16):
them. You'd help them get off at the
next stop. But at the same time you'd ask,
why did I think that happened? What was it that caused that?
And it may have, you know, it may have been and that this just
something small like that. See the context.
Why are you, if you're at a university, a lot of my students
on my my obviously I teach at a university or a technical
institute. I asked my students, why are you
(32:37):
here? Why are you taking this class?
What you know, it's you're here.Yes, you may hear it be this
class, this day to pass this test, but why do you even want
to pass the test? What's the point of it?
And then by allowing them to kind of expand and go well, I
see a broader future for myself.If I get good grades, I see a
good job. If I see a good job, I see a
(32:58):
better career. If I see a better career, I see
a happiness of doing what I would like to do.
It's like, see the context, see the meta.
Right, that was me. That was me when I was in
university. Like that, but that's got to be,
it's surprisingly sometimes people live their life with
blinders. Like I, you know, they're so
narrow focused, they never see the meta.
And when they don't, then they lose that creativity, they lose
(33:21):
that great daydreaming. They lose that ability to kind
of meander, right? Sometimes life doesn't always
present itself exactly the way you plan.
And so it's theme, the meta allows you to pivot.
It allows you not to just focus on one thing, but to focus on
many interests. And it's surprising how life
rewards you when you have multiple interests.
(33:43):
You can pivot to a new career. You can pivot to a new
discipline. You can change majors.
That's never too late to design A life that's meaningful to you
because you have so many ways inwhich it can be fulfilling.
Yeah. So that's seeing that, that's
kind of seeing the meta. The last one I would say is if
you're thinking about developingyour critical mind, right, is
really thinking about when you engage with things, products,
(34:04):
services, people, there's nothing wrong with asking and
going what really drives this forward, right?
You know, what do I really love about this product or what do I
love about this food? And just to say like being able
to discern the quality, like I love this masala chicken.
Why the Curry is just amazing. And you can narrow it down to
(34:25):
something like that. Then you're definitely an
engineer, but a little E engineer, right?
You're a Cullen. So in that sense, you're seeing
the how the qualities of life orthe qualities of certain things
contribute to your appreciation of them.
Like that is a being an engineerand a designer in a lot of ways.
So that's the kind of advice I would give.
(34:48):
Wow, you were describing my lifestory, or at least like aspect
of it. And I think, like, the common
thread is the curious and connecting with dots, like, try
to understand a layer deeper into things instead of just
like, OK, I ate this Curry, it was good.
(35:08):
That was it. So yeah, our life will be all
like, a lot more meaningful. And if we have more empathy, we
create a smoother world. I think, like, less friction.
But one example that I always want to use like as a joke is if
you're sending me a Google map, like telling me where to go,
don't send me a screenshot. So it's something like that.
(35:33):
So for the last part, let's playa rapid fire round.
So. Go for it, yeah.
What's something you've designedrecently that made your life
easier? Big or small?
Wow. That made my life easier.
Within the last couple of years,I got this digital tablet to
(35:53):
start drawing in and I've been recently recreating some of the
UI and some of the software. So it allows some of the drawing
software, the note taking software I use the, the, the
tools are fine, right? That's fine.
It's what I've been doing is hand I've been using my graphic
design skills to create new types of templates just for my
(36:16):
workflow. So whether it be expenses,
things to do, prioritizing clients, prioritizing classes,
I've created templates over the years because I always tend to
write things the same way in thesame area of the page.
And So what I've been able to dois to say, OK, I'm going to just
use Indesign used to, you know, grab that software and create
templates, which I now use as under layers.
(36:38):
And when I draw or take notes, it becomes much more fluid for
me to work. So it's been very helpful for me
to kind of hone my tools over time.
Wow, you are. You are a product designer after
all. Yeah, I am a product designer.
I've designed everything from automobiles to sunglasses for
celebrities. So it just depends.
(36:59):
Wow, amazing. Next one.
What's What's a design flaw in everyday life that secretly
drives you crazy? Like who thought this was a good
idea? Oh my gosh.
Oh man, that's real. Listen, I don't like to cast
aspersions on designers, right? You don't have to name names it.
Yeah, listen, I think, listen, it's interesting.
(37:19):
Like there's some things that, Imean, they don't drive me crazy,
but they do irk me, right? So some things about like media,
media consumption and how we utilize it and social media as
well, how we utilize it, right. On the one hand, I realize it is
a business, right? You if you watch broadcast
television right now, maybe in London is different because you
have more of a nationalized television service than we do.
(37:41):
Yeah. It's by the way that ads have
both, you know, the push and pull between how you insert ads
into watching videos versus broadcast.
Like in broadcast, something we know you're gonna watch 12
minutes of TV and then you get like 3 minutes of ads.
So it's very consistent. And yes, it's Free TV because
you can get it off the antenna. But once you digitally start
(38:03):
streaming it, now there's a is this if you pay this much, you
don't get any ads because you'repaying more.
But if you get less than there'sthe ad supported.
And so this whole idea of it's not very clear to customers what
they're getting and why they want it, how they want to use
ads. So like some of that stuff that
can be annoying, like, oh, watchthis ad before you see this 32nd
YouTube video. Yeah, right.
So that that stuff can be annoying.
(38:24):
But I, you know, I know why it'sthere, but it is that's, that's
always an interesting one. And then the other one I would
say is within social media, the the kind of arbitration of
truth, right? Because of the this kind of
fragmentation of the medial ecosphere, everyone can move
into their own little bubble, their own.
Little Yeah. And so part of that is there is
(38:46):
no, you know, and I think this is this is currently under talks
of regulation, but what is what is the ramifications of
spreading disinformation online?If we are if we appeal to the
humanity of the freedom of thought and the freedom of
expression, are there any repercussions if you willingly
choose to lie or to to put something that posts something
(39:08):
that is untrue? The when media was in the more
traditional media systems of saybroadcast television or even
cable television, there are editors, there are arbiters to
Fact Check your work, right. So there is none of that online
in social media. So how, how do we look at that
responsibility as ourselves, as technology, especially because I
(39:31):
teach at Technology Institute and between the AI and social
media and all the different things that we create to make
communication faster and easier,which is great.
We also have to slow down and think about what is the, what is
that arbitration? What is that arbiter of truth
such that we don't reward peopleto disseminate lies on life?
(39:53):
Yes, wow, that's way deeper thanjust a simple like I hate this.
OK, let's talk about the flip side.
It is one of the things that irks me though.
It definitely irks me everyday, yeah.
What's one thing in your home that you think is perfectly
designed? Oh my gosh, that's a trick.
Well, I mean, I have. There's the first one, which is
(40:14):
I love my family. I think that's a wonderful.
OK. Right, because I, I chose my
wife, we got married, we had kids.
I think there's and every day isa wonderful day to empathize
with them, see what see both their successes and their
happiness and their travails andsadness and to find ways every
day to kind of design their experiences in a way, right.
(40:38):
Like if my child wants to, to, to paint, how would I create
that painting? Like, yes, you buy the brushes
and the paint, but then how do you, how do you then design that
experience? How do you then go, how do you
go? OK, and let's say she gets
frustrated because she mixed 2 paints together and made purple
and she didn't mean to, right? And then she's she's 4, by the
(41:00):
way, Sophia's four so and Asher's six.
But but even looking at it and then saying, well, teaching her
kind of that idea. So so you made a color you
didn't intend, you know, and you're upset about it.
How do we how do we make it better?
How do we improve upon it? How do you take that lemon and
make lemonade? And then how do you show her
that creativity to paint again or work with it?
(41:23):
Right? It work.
Just can you make that work and make that a, they call them
happy surprises, right? Whatever things that they're,
they're happy surprises. So those are, those are designs
in a way, you're designing that learning experience for her.
And in that sense, I love it. It couldn't be any more perfect
than it is now. If you're talking about a
physical object in my, you know,then then that would be the
(41:47):
dining table I designed. So obviously I designed my own
furniture. I worked for Pottery Barn for
five years. I decorated and designed my own
house, right. So, so in that sense, you know,
I took a fixer upper and then wound up renovating it,
obviously with contractors as well.
I mean, it's not a single personjob, but if it was something
huge like the kitchen or the bathroom that required
(42:08):
electricians and plumbers, I'm not a licensed plumber.
I'm not a licensed electrician. But all the other rooms pretty
much I designed myself. So the dining room table I
designed, I worked with a shop, a furniture fabricator and
repurposed a bowling alley. So there's a bowling alley going
out of business and we repurposed the bowling lane.
(42:31):
So the bowling lane is 3 inch Maple.
Like that's really thick wood. It's solid.
So it's not a light table. That's an heirloom product.
It will probably stay with the house forever.
So it is a three inch Maple repurposed bowling alley late
with A4 with the steel kind of in a modernist.
(42:51):
I mean, it's a relative, but warm.
It's a rustic kind of my my style.
When I decorate along with my wife, we both love modern, but I
tend to look at an industrial chic.
It's kind of where I look at. So if if modernism breed and A
and a farmhouse and A and an industrial warehouse had a baby,
then that's what the usual industrial look is in my
(43:12):
interior. Repurposed bowling alley with
with kind of more of a steel legH frame to hold the wood is kind
of what that is. So that'd be the most proud
design I have as far as inside the home.
And you know it's going to be sturdy.
Think of all the bowling balls to get thrown to it.
I know, I know. And it's because it is solid 3
(43:34):
inch thick Maplewood. It's not light.
Right into. The house Mike use it as a Fort,
as a tent. They use it as a dancing like a
dancing stage so they can dance on top of it, right.
Like that's just yeah. And because there's no the the
wonderful thing about the fabricator and their, their,
their, their abilities is the the entire Maple is suspended.
(43:58):
So there's no there's like normally you have a kitchen
table, you know, have that little arms or.
Supports. Stress underneath the kitchen
table. You bang your knee into that and
always hurts. Well, there's none of that.
It's just a plank of Maple so they can go underneath it and
then they can play inside as a 10.
Not something I expected becausewhen I designed the table, I
didn't have kids. But now that it is like they can
bump their head up, right up to the ceiling and not hurt
(44:20):
themselves at all because it's completely smooth underneath.
And so they play under that all the time, right?
Which is just again something you a happy surprise in the
design of life. Wow, that's just like another
design perk. Yes, absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for talking to me today like this,
encouraging people to just be curious and connect dots, be
(44:42):
empathetic. It's it's been like one of the
main drivers of me starting the podcast.
So I'm very happy to be talking to you today.
Likewise, it was a wonderful conversation, Karen.
Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Mind One. Maybe enjoy the conversation,
Don't forget to follow and shareit with anyone who needs to hear
(45:03):
it. And let's keep the conversation
going. Connect with me on LinkedIn or
leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious,
keep exploring, and let's continue to clean our minds and
discover what's possible.
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