Diego Rodriguez

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@ajbitton First of all, there's no better time to plant a tree than yesterday, so go for it! In a year you'll be 27 whether or not you've started studying. I went back to business school when I was 29, and it was one of the best decisions in my life.

4 share tweet・a year ago

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@ajbitton in terms of embracing design thinking and product management, just embrace it. As Buckaroo Banzai once said, "No matter where you go, there you are". If you want to have a career building stuff, go build a bunch of stuff. Find like-minded people and hang out with them, follow them on Twitter, read the books they recommend, go hack some code, mess around with Arduino, etc... don't get ready, get started! Good luck, Avi!

4 share tweet・a year ago

Avi Bitton

@ajbitton

@metacool @ajbitton Awesome advice! Thank you very much 😃

@mcgrawbridget · Enchanted Book Inventor

@ajbitton I started graduate studies (first Fine Art then Interactive Telecommunications) at 29. I didn't start a business until I turned 50-something! Sorry to eavesdrop... but follow your passion!

2 share tweet・a year ago

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

@metacool Thanks for joining us today. During your career to date, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Flip side - what's the worst?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@ems_hodge One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from the great designer Jim Yurchenco, who said “Don’t accept done for good. And don’t accept good for excellent". I was really lucky to have him as a mentor early in my career, and he taught me how to help a group of people keep their standards high. Bad advice? Oh my goodness... there's so much bad advice out there. I would recommend ignoring just about every business book written. If there's not rigorous research behind the ideas being promoted, skip it and read a good piece of fiction (like Don Quixote) instead. You'll learn a lot more.

3 share tweet・a year ago

Tom Charde

@tomcharde · Brand + UX + Web Strategist

@metacool Hi Diego. (I'm a T-shaped, longtime fan of IDEO, design thinking, and "Change by Design".) Your question is... NASA is sending you on a one-way trip to Mars, and you get to bring a book, a CD, and a DVD. (Yes, it's an older spaceship.) Which do you bring?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@tomcharde Book: Don Quixote CD: Tower of Power - Live in Living Color DVD: The Big Lebowski

2 share tweet・a year ago

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@tomcharde I would smuggle a Moon Hooch CD on board, too

Tom Charde

@tomcharde · Brand + UX + Web Strategist

@metacool I checked with NASA; they'll allow it.

Pénélope Romand-Monnier

@penelope_rm · Associate @Hardware Club

Hello Diego! Thanks for being here :) What's the last consumer product or service that caught your attention and why?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@penelope_rm I really like the 21 Bitcoin Computer. I'd like to get one and start hacking around with it. It's the tip of the iceberg.

3 share tweet・a year ago

Vikas Malhotra

@vikasmalhotra08 · Grad Student, Prod Innovator

Howdy Diego. Thanks for answering our questions :) In your opinion, what is the most radical product present today that can potentially change the lives of million of people across Asia & Africa.

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@vikasmalhotra08 For Asia and Africa specifically. Well, they are different (and very big) places, but individuals who are unbanked and off the grid, I would have to say internet, blockchain, and solar.

George Goh

@ge0rgeg0h · Industrial Design Intern, NONOBJECT

@metacool Thanks for putting in the effort to try and answer our questions! What are some of the hardest types of clients you've had to work with (eg. clients who already have a solution in hand when approaching you), and how do you work things out on all fronts?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@ge0rgeg0h That's a great question. What I try is to do is to not think of people being hard or easy, but to look at their situation and try and build empathy for what they're dealing with, and then try to help from there. That really helps get things moving in the right direction.

@mcgrawbridget · Enchanted Book Inventor

@metacool @ge0rgeg0h That's walking the talk! Empathy comes first in design thinking AND good product development.

George Goh

@ge0rgeg0h · Industrial Design Intern, NONOBJECT

@metacool @ge0rgeg0h That is a brilliant perspective that is as easy to grasp as it is to forget! I will keep your words in mind :)

Brett Watson

@brettewatson · Learner

@metacool Thank you for being here, we all really appreciate your time and insight! How do you organize your day, both in and out of work? To go off of that, do you think planning and rules help or hurt creativity?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@brettewatson The paradox of creativity is that it loves structure and constraints, this I believe. Having a plan (even a bad one) is much better than no plan at all, because it forces you to start keeping a list of everything that could potentially bite your endeavor in the ass. I find that if I have a list of those things, then I can sleep well at night. I've been in environments where people assume that they must perpetually "defer judgment" in order to be creative, but the key is to know your key milestones, and then try to jam in as many cycles of experimentation as you possibly can in there. As we say at IDEO Futures, "Don't get ready, get started!"

2 share tweet・a year ago

@mcgrawbridget · Enchanted Book Inventor

Yesterday during the littleBits Electronics community call, Sugata Mitra was online answering questions. When asked about the IoT and education, he said that we have a long way to go with basic connectivity issues first. What do you think stands between smart connected devices and the education ecosystem?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@mcgrawbridget Computers are still too hard to use. We have a long way to go in that respect. I have issues getting my Apple wifi router to work at home, you know?

@mcgrawbridget · Enchanted Book Inventor

@metacool @mcgrawbridget Yes. I have a Bose speaker that occasionally works with my laptop, rarely with my iPad, and always with my iPhone. sigh. Enjoy is onto something with their service I reckon. HBR has a nice paper on the "long tail of service" by Paul Weichselbaum. http://www.plumchoice.com/wp-con...

Josh Lavra

@joshmitro · product manager + design thinker

@metacool Hi Diego! Big fan of the IDEO Futures podcast. How did you go about pitching and growing the idea within IDEO? Also, what's your most mind blowing VDTBOM?

@metacool · Partner, IDEO

@joshmitro Hi Josh, thanks for being our only listener! 8-) Seriously, we really like doing the podcast and are going to try and commit to creating two a month going forward. To your question, we didn't pitch it, we just did it. I bought a microphone for $100 and we started recording... as a result the first few are spectacularly crappy, but they are there, and just jumping in allowed us to learn and grow. I did a similar thing in 2004 when I created the first marketing blog at Intuit. I just started doing it.