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Our societies are becoming more complex, dynamic, and networked every day. Public organizations and companies alike are learning the hard way that the societal challenges before us cannot be resolved as they were in the past. We need new approaches to these problems.

Over the past ten years, an increasing number of government organizations, companies, and individuals have realized that special practices from design can help us rise to the challenge. At the core of this book are twenty case studies from around the world that demonstrate how design approaches can be used for societal change. These extensive case descriptions are interspersed with reflections, lessons learned, and tricks and tips for the practitioner, culminating in a vision of how design can revolutionize society.

The fundamental question that the book addresses is: Are our innovation efforts aligned to the challenges of our times? We face high costs, global competition, low productivity, and technology disruptions. Our education system is geared towards solving known problems through an inductive thinking mindset. We have relied on massive technology investments as our source of competitive advantage, but our growth is declining. If we want to maintain our standard of living, we need firms to grow. Firms therefore need a new approach to innovation, one that focuses on customer engagement in its business model. The concept of design thinking is often described as the mindset for firms to make this transition. But with so much being written on design thinking, why do so many firms struggle to adopt this mindset and make this transition?

Do you find innovation a maze? In creating your new business case, do you find you get stuck by what seem like insurmountable obstacles along the way?

Many people experience innovation as a maze and get lost or stuck in their journey behind obstacles such as having no internal support, a lack of resources, no time, and no inspiration, meaning that statistically, eighty percent of all innovation projects never reach the market.

This book is a practical guide on how to navigate the innovation maze. It shows four clear routes from different natural innovation starting points and guides you through overcoming the obstacles to successfully deliver new business cases for products, services, and business models.

This much-needed hands-on guide—written by Gijs Van Wulfen, a recognised authority, author, and keynote speaker on innovation and creativity—gives clear directions on how to effectively overcome these obstacles and deliver. The Innovation Maze makes innovation simple, delivering a coherent approach to the creation of new business cases. Written for startups, entrepreneurs, managers, consultants, and those who are looking for practical real-life advice to successfully get through the innovation maze.

The Fast Guide to Architectural Form, while staying on theoretical ground, is a very practical guide to the basic forms and shapes in architectural planning and design. The book is foremost a visual guide. The author presents sixty different architectural basic forms with both a schematic illustration and images of the forms applied in buildings. The text is extremely short, just focusing on the dos and don’ts of the forms and some tips to keep in mind when applying these forms, perfect for students and architects looking to browse for inspiration and guidance.

This book provides valuable insights for CEOs, as well as financial, commercial, and marketing directors/managers, business owners, startups, and students.

Businesses are on the lookout for the one methodology that singlehandedly helps to achieve their goals, and definitively address issues such as “what needs to done” and “which activities to avoid”. With BITSING, a scientifically proven methodology, you are able to predict results by using facts in order to be 100% certain of achieving goals. This book enables factual insight into (positive) financial returns, in advance of executing strategies accordingly. BITSING can be applied by the biggest multinational to the smallest startup.

The 7 laws in this book guide you through the process of improving your business strategy. With chapters like How to be Unbeatable, Realise Effective Campaigns, and Ensure That You Reach Your Goals, the author explains how this methodology works and how to implement it in your own business. By using examples, illustrations, and insights, this book provides multiple entry points for readers who want to execute the BITSING strategy accordingly.

As a result of working closely with several universities, the methodology is scientifically validated, in addition to its proven performance within numerous organisations and businesses. Shell International, Hewlett Packard EMEA, and Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen are amongst those that have benefited from this method, by using it to meet targets time and time again. Some have experienced exponential growth and reached the magic level of 300%.

This book offers advice, tools, and direction in what is required in your organisation to achieve goals. The methodology increases efficiency without sacrificing jobs, and has even helped to stimulate employment, including recruiting top talent. BITSING has also boosted employee performance, changed stakeholder behaviour, and optimised work-life balance.

There is a new cookbook in town. Not just another. This one has the longest recipe to make. Not challenging enough? Edible art and music is possible. Your dinner will become an unforgettable experience for your guests even before you start eating. Your meals won’t be a still life painting on a table anymore or a cooking tv show to impress your friends. And its not just the simple how to bake a carrot cake, it’s a totally new and different one. Groundbreaking in its content. The Creative Chef takes us in his world of creativity and cooking and helps us to make our lives more beautiful when cooking for others. Do you know how to make music out of chocolate? Which scents go well with Russian Vodka and which stories go well with mushrooms? The innovation in your capacities as a chef doesn’t come only with new ingredients and presentation but mostly through these stories that will change not only the way you cook but also how to be inspired by the interconnection of food with everything around you. It´s not so much about cooking and recipes, but more about creating an amazing eating experience. It’s full of tips, ideas, and instructions for activities and presentation on and around the dinner table and magic to turn your dinner party into an amazing food experience. You have to have this unique and groundbreaking cookbook, you dig? Don’t stop playing with your food!

The programme ‘Create with Artists’ offers the most inspiring workshops the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art in Amsterdam has organized for young people over the past decade. These workshops with artists and designers have become a true phenomenon in Amsterdam. Only about a dozen kids can participate in a workshop, which are always sold out, leaving the parents and many, many others jealously behind. In response to their ever-increasing popularity, the workshops have been transformed into this book. Now everyone can do these fun workshops-created by renowned contemporary artists and designers-at home, at a party, at a community centre, or at school. All the artists have a special connection to the museum and many of them are world famous. In this book they give us insights into their ways of looking at the world and the questions they ask themselves. The artists also share their personal tips and techniques. The workshops all start with a question to trigger the imagination and are spread out over an array of media, from painting, to sculpture, video, design, graffiti, photography, and more. The workshops are accessible for both children and grownups and can be done in groups as well as individually. The Stedelijk Museum is the largest museum for modern and contemporary art and design in the Netherlands.

Have you ever wondered why our senses become more alert and sensitive and we see things that continually surprise and inspire us when we visit a city for the first time as a tourist? On the other hand, why does it often seem that nothing extraordinary or exceptional ever happens during our everyday routines? Is it possible to discover something wonderful and special without necessarily visiting museums, monuments, or places that are different from where we habitually go?

Art is Everywhere combines science, hands-on practices used in art workshops, and clear and simple language to answer these questions (and raise some others). This illustrated book aims to stimulate readers to observe the world as they have never seen it before by suggesting how ordinary things can be seen differently and how art, if made more accessible to everyone, can help us see things differently.

The author triggers the reader to see the world with fresh eyes and to discover art in everyday things. The workshop that is part of this book can be applied very well in art education starting form secondary school level.

From the makers of ‘Once Upon a Time I Was…’, the guided notebook to create your own autobiography (now in its third printing), we present this new notebook, which helps you to find your talent and passion and the job and life that matches best with who you are and what you want to be.

Whatever age you are, knowing what you want to be and do in your professional life can give such fulfilment. It can make you wake up with a smile every day and give you a sense of belonging. Like you have found your place in the world. But how many people do you know who really do what they love? And what about yourself? Do you have any idea of what you want? What makes you tic? And what (if somebody would ask you to) would you do for free because you are so happy doing it? This book will give you the tools to find out what that thing is that you want to do with the rest of your professional life and it will give you tips and insights on how to achieve it.

This is the fourth of a DIY city guide series on the market, now with the most popular city in the USA: New York City. These guides are colouring and creative activity books, travel notebooks, and city guides all in one.

Each book contains beautiful illustrations of the city for you to colour in or finish, inspirational to-do lists, and fun facts about the city. But it also leaves plenty of space for your own stories, drawings, pictures, tickets, notes, and tips. With this journal you create your own city guide full of memories and tips about your trip to the city to cherish as a keepsake of your trip and to inspire friends to go there, too.

This is a guided diary which helps you create your own autobiography by means of questions and space for pictures, little drawings, lists of your favorite things, your memories and more. Record the stories of your life – or a loved one’s – in this keepsake that will be cherished for generations to come! Think of how nice it would have been for your mother or grandmother to have filled this book with their responses, memories, photos and drawings, allowing you a glimpse into their lives of yore. ‘Once upon a time I was…’ makes it easy to preserve and share the memories that make up your life.

Many designs that appear in today’s society will circulate and encounter audiences of many different cultures and languages. With communication comes responsibility; are designers aware of the meaning and impact of their work? An image or symbol that is acceptable in one culture can be offensive or even harmful in the next. A typeface or colour in a design might appear to be neutral, but its meaning is always culturally dependent. If designers learn to be aware of global cultural contexts, we can avoid stereotyping and help improve mutual understanding between people.

Politics of Design is a collection of visual examples from around the world. Using ideas from anthropology and sociology, it creates surprising and educational insight in contemporary visual communication. The examples relate to the daily practice of both online and offline visual communication: typography, images, colour, symbols, and information.

Politics of Design shows the importance of visual literacy when communicating beyond borders and cultures. It explores the cultural meaning behind the symbols, maps, photography, typography, and colours that are used every day. It is a practical guide for design and communication professionals and students to create more effective and responsible visual communication.

When times are particularly difficult, and you are likely to slip into despair, some of the greatest pop songs can provide true comfort to make it through the pain. The problem with advice in general is that we often don’t take it. The great thing about advice songs is that you can kick back and listen to someone else coach you through a tough situation while rocking out at the same time.

This wonderful book lists 250 of the best pop songs for those times that solid life advice is needed. The songs represent all popular music styles from the last fifty years, from rock to folk, and from punk to hip hop.

There are for example many times in which the three words “let it be” are words of wisdom. Although the lyrics may have originally been written in reference to interpersonal difficulties within the Beatles, the song does possess a universality that makes “Let It Be” one of the great advice pop songs of all time.

Other famous pop music advice to live by:

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free” by Sting “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Eric Idle Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa) is a collection of all the famous advice songs and many surprises as well. It gives the reader the song titles, painted by hand by the designer, and a striking quote from the song lyrics as well as indices on artist and themes.

This well produced, iconic looking album of words of wisdom from pop music is the perfect gift for music lovers of all ages.

Rubbish rocks! For, whoever has an eye for it, there is beauty in everything, from rubbish to plain useless stuff. Designer Anja Brunt and illustrator Tineke Meirink have always been intrigued by the beauty of the mundane. For BIS Publishers, they both made a memory game and now they join forces for a combination celebration and DIY book on rubbish art.

The book features fifteen international artists from various countries, who work with rubbish. It showcases some of their projects, and gives the reader step-by-step instructions to make their own artwork in the spirit of the artists.

The popularity of urban art, recycling and the whole ‘make culture’ gave the authors the idea to combine these fine works with DIY projects with step-by-step instructions. That way you’ll discover how beautiful and useful rubbish can be.

You are negotiating every day, whether it’s with business partners, colleagues, in the community or at home. The challenge isn’t to get as much for yourself as you can at the other’s expense. It’s in the art of searching together for possibilities that serve as many interests as possible. The premise of this book is that it’s both possible and necessary to create value together, distribute the consequences fairly, while strengthening the relationship. In times where ‘win as much as you can’ is on the rise worldwide, this is a refreshing alternative.

‘Mastering the Art of Negotiation’ goes beyond deal-making situations. It covers decisionmaking, solving problems together, leading and cooperating, creating partnerships, handling difficult situations, and managing the games people play. The book gives seven practical guides that help you prepare and manage negotiations at moments when the complexity and uncertainty increase. These guides create a comprehensive framework for your ongoing learning and development as a negotiator.

In practice, this helps you to: • increase your awareness during your day to-day negotiation challenges • prepare for both simple and more complex negotiation situations and processes • handle increasing complexity in negotiations more consciously and with more resilience • set up constructive dialogues • gain insights into your personal pitfalls when under pressure • develop both a mindset and skills set

Using this book and the toolkit will let you embrace complexity and uncertainty with a clear head, a warm heart and on nimble feet.

Conceptual thinking involves adding vision to a product, service, or organisation. Content is key, as it determines the coherence of the concept. Consumers want to experience every aspect of the concept. In addition, the producer must meet the emotional and functional needs of the consumer. Therefore, while it is necessary to “think conceptually”, it is also important to “do conceptually”; a concept must be executable (doable). In order to attract and bind your consumer, your concept becomes vital for your success.

Concept Code guides you through every stage of bringing life to an idea in order for it to grow into a fully matured concept. It also gives insight into the importance of the consumer’s mind and how this functions in to make your concept successful.

Understanding trends, the emerging values and needs of groups in society provides you with a foundation to innovate and create change. This book gives you a candid and unbiased overview of the trend research process. lt brings a structured, research-based approach to the table instead of a crystal ball.

‘How to Research Trends’ is practical, hands-on and offers multiple perspectives on researching trends for professionals and trend students around the globe. lt shows you that researching trends is a skill that combines the intuitive and the analytical.

This book is written for everyone interested in human-centred innovation and for everyone interested in learning more about trend research. Trend research includes so much more than just hypes, styles and the latest gadgets. It studies change and provides an analysis of emerging shifts in people’s needs and wants. These trend insights are essential during any innovation process as a foundation to create future proof concepts that improve people’s quality of life.

Based on a 3 step method, you will learn in a hands-on way to scan your environment for signs of change, analyse your trend spots and apply your trend insights to kick start innovation. This book synthesises existing theories, concepts and ideas on trend research. The interviews with experts and students will guide you on your trend journey. This will help you to innovate and create change in the short and long term and execute your own trend research.

Some of the most life-changing connections are made at events. But if you can’t design events, how can you change your world? The answer? This handbook will change the way you think about how events change the world you live in. It shows the way to re-design your world on one sheet of paper using the #EventCanvas.

This book identifies the starting point of any event and outlines steps of how events come to life. It focuses on the DNA of specific aspects of events, and provides insight into how to observe and analyze events, understand stakeholders, and define behavioural changes required to deliver value. It also identifies the levers and mechanisms that influence such behavioural changes in event design.

This handbook lays the foundation for creating a common language. A language that can be spoken and understood by those who know and those who don’t yet know the mechanics of events. It is a pragmatic approach for designing and creating events that matter.

For more information about the #EventCanvas visit: http://www.eventcanvas.org/eventdesignhandbook

Understanding trends, the emerging values and needs of groups in society provides you with a foundation to innovate and create change. This book gives you a candid and unbiased overview of the trend research process. lt brings a structured, research-based approach to the table instead of a crystal ball.

‘How to Research Trends’ is practical, hands-on and offers multiple perspectives on researching trends for professionals and trend students around the globe. lt shows you that researching trends is a skill that combines the intuitive and the analytical. This book is written for everyone interested in human-centred innovation and for everyone interested in learning more about trend research. Trend research includes so much more than just hypes, styles and the latest gadgets. It studies change and provides an analysis of emerging shifts in people’s needs and wants. These trend insights are essential during any innovation process as a foundation to create future proof concepts that improve people’s quality of life.

Based on a 3 step method, you will learn in a hands-on way to scan your environment for signs of change, analyse your trend spots and apply your trend insights to kick start innovation. This book synthesises existing theories, concepts and ideas on trend research. The interviews with experts and students will guide you on your trend journey. This will help you to innovate and create change in the short and long term and execute your own trend research.

Don’t just read ‘How to Research Trends’, get yourself into action mode with the ‘How to Research Trends Workbook’!

How can we protect our privacy in this digital era? Because of the emerging of ‘The internet of things’ this question becomes more and more relevant to designers. Technology becomes part of our daily used products. Watches, clothing, cars, houses are becoming ‘smart’, all being connected to the ‘cloud’. This book gives you guidance on how to design for privacy.

This book is written to encourage designers to think about and to design for privacy issues. The technology behind the smart products and systems are so complex, that for the consumer it is difficult to understand what the consequences are for everyday life. Designers have to start thinking about transparency and accessibility in the design of privacy-sensitive products and services. This book offers the designer guidance, in the form of eight design principles, that help with designing products and services.

By enhancing your ability to identify connections, you can enhance your creativity. This exercise book strengthens your ability to recognise connections. The exercises are based on the theory of the book The Secret of the Highly Creative Thinker, as well as observations in neuroscience, and seventy years of creativity studies.

This exercise book is based on a dynamic balance of theory, technique, and exercises, it’s a practical hands-on workbook. It’s the perfect outlet to get your hands dirty and dive into exercises that strengthen one’s ability to see and make connections.

This book is for those seeking to enhance their creativity. It can be used to: – Develop one’s creative capacity – Train underlying mechanisms in creative thinking – Enrich educational purposes – Increase idea production

Creative Thinker’s Exercise Book is for everyone that’s eager to indulge in exercises to enhance their innate creativity by identifying connections.

Creativity research shows that dividing thinking into divergent and convergent forms improves and increases idea production; this leads to unexpected thoughts and original solutions. Divergent thinking is used to generate ideas; convergent thinking helps in selecting the best ideas.

The concept of divergent and convergent thinking is so integral to the creative process and innovative thinking that it is known as ‘the heartbeat of creativity’. It is the underlying rhythm of creative thinking. This book is an introduction to divergent and convergent thinking and includes guidelines to enhance innovative thinking, as well as hands-on exercises to strengthen creativity.

The concept of the book is supported by its triangular shape, illustrating divergent and convergent thinking: the top half of the book communicates divergent thinking, while the bottom half communicates convergent thinking. This principle remains the same throughout the book.

The word nothing might sound like a fart in the wind. A useless word that no one would bother to think about. But you might have forgotten that the greatest mathematicians have struggled with the question of where nothing begins and where it ends. The most brilliant philosophers have examined the meaning of nothingness for ages. Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have been racking their brains on whether there is even such a thing as nothing. In this book you will learn everything about nothing.

This book is for the curious, the smartasses, and the conversation starters. And for everyone who needs more of nothing in their daily life. Read Nothing in Here is an unscientific exploration into the meaning, function, history, and misuse of the word nothing. This is what makes this the first real book about nothing.

Customer EXperience (CEX) is hot! Nowadays, it’s getting increasingly hard for companies to be distinctive through the products they offer. So it is key for them to stand out by means of the services they offer in addition to these product. A focus on the customer experience is needed. Many companies realize this, but only few manage to be successful. They understand the theory and the process to get there, but what they lack are concrete tools to bring the theory into practice.

CEX SELLS is the inspiration book for companies that want to deliver distinctive customer experiences in order to achieve their business objectives. The authors discuss the various ingredients needed to deliver perfect customer experiences. Ingredients to define and design the optimal experience, but they also offer a description of what is needed in the organization for them to be able to deliver and manage that desired experience. They show how front runners worldwide have optimized their customer experience, and what other companies could learn from that. A book that will definitively inspire you to improve your own customer experience!