Kickstarter, and crowdfunding in general, are examples of one of four fundamental changes occurring within the business realm:<ol><li>Easier access to capital via crowdfunding and venture funding for start-ups.</li><li>High-performance and efficient manufacturing.</li><li>Direct-to-consumer sales with e-commerce.</li><li>Communication between innovators and end users via digital media.</li></ol>“For the first time ever, the creation of real value for people is beginning to align itself more and more with the creation of value for business.”

Kickstarter

Unicorns have entrepreneurial gifts that let them create business strategies and make their dreams realities:They balance imagination and execution, risk and caution – Unicorns are original thinkers, imagining impossible things and then finding ways to make them possible. They understand that innovative things always involves risk and that calculated risks are necessary to gain knowledge. They are proactive – They don’t take things at face value. They ask fundamental questions to see if ideas are being accepted unquestioningly, hiding a better approach.

Unicorns

They are kind and trustworthy.-They love diversity –-They encourage dialogue –-They are respectful – -They know how to tell a story –-They are good mentors –-They have a sense of fun –

Unicorns have social gifts that help them connect with teammates and customers.

A human-centered approach to business mirrors the logic of “design thinking”: Design thinking focuses on the experience of the human being using the product. When creating new products, designers balance the three pillars of innovation:<ol><li>Human beings, or the product’s desirability for the user.</li><li>Science and technology, or the product’s technical feasibility.</li><li>Businesses, or the product’s economic viability.</li></ol>“Designers are essentially trained to become innovators: holistic, multidisciplinary innovators who are able to deal with any kind of problem.”

Design-Thinking

To achieve excellence, firms must stop thinking of their customers as consumers. Thinking of customers as users helps innovators focus on creating functional value for them. Going a step further and viewing them as human beings emphasizes users’ happiness. Rather than seeing good products solely as a way to generate profits and business growth, human-centered businesses look at them as a way to make people happy.“Consumer-centricity is about understanding people in order to sell them something. Human-centricity is about understanding people to build real value in their lives.”

To be human-centered, businesses can adopt design thinking.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">In the future, only human-centered businesses will survive.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">To be human-centered, businesses can adopt design thinking.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Meaningful design is human and innovative.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Modern branding also needs to be meaningful and human-centered.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">It takes “unicorns” – exceptional individuals – to succeed in human-centered design.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Unicorns are always seeking to resolve tensions harmoniously through innovation.</li></ul>

The Human Side of Innovation

How do designers respond to these 3 criteria? They use design thinking. Design thinking activities:<ul><li>“Empathy” – The designer gets into the heads of users to find out what is relevant to them.</li><li>“Strategy” – A designer must find out if an idea is relevant for the company.</li><li>“Prototyping” – Prototyping catalyzes thinking about strategy and empathy.</li></ul>“From doodling on Post-it notes to the first functioning model of a car, the prototype is an example of the aesthetic and functional characteristics of a product…created with the aim of generating reactions, interactions, thoughts and reflections.”

Designers Criteria

PepsiCo's award-winning chief design officer reveals the secret to creating life-changing innovations: putting human needs at the center of any design process. Innovation is an act of love-or at least it should be. Always. It is a gesture of empathy, respect, generosity, of one human being's devotion to another, writes Mauro Porcini at the beginning of this extraordinary book. It is in part a memoir by one of the world's leading designers-the first chief design officer at both 3M and Pepsi. But even more, it is a manifesto for a genuine, authentic, and deeply humanistic approach to design, one that aims to create personal and social value first and financial and economic value afterward. In every industry, new technologies have lowered the barrier to entry like never before. Either you design exceptional products or somebody will beat you to it. Porcini shows, through example after example and story after story, that the key to real, world-changing innovation is to put people first-not only the people we innovate for but also the people who lead the innovation process. Putting people first requires what Porcini calls unicorns: people who are in love with people, who have a genuine fire in them to create meaningful solutions for actual human beings. In this book, he describes them, celebrates them, and details their superpowers so you can find them, hire them, grow them, and retain them. Some are qualities you might expect-the ability to dream combined with the ability to execute. But when was the last time you heard an executive ask prospective hires if they were kind, optimistic, curious, or humble? Porcini uses his journey across startups and multinational corporations, through successes and failures, to create a handbook for modern innovators.

books

Books

PepsiCo's award-winning chief design officer reveals the secret to creating life-changing innovations: putting human needs at the center of any design process. Innovation is an act of love-or at least it should be. Always. It is a gesture of empathy, respect, generosity, of one human being's devotion to another, writes Mauro Porcini at the beginning of this extraordinary book. It is in part a memoir by one of the world's leading designers-the first chief design officer at both 3M and Pepsi. But even more, it is a manifesto for a genuine, authentic, and deeply humanistic approach to design, one that aims to create personal and social value first and financial and economic value afterward. In every industry, new technologies have lowered the barrier to entry like never before. Either you design exceptional products or somebody will beat you to it. Porcini shows, through example after example and story after story, that the key to real, world-changing innovation is to put people first-not only the people we innovate for but also the people who lead the innovation process. Putting people first requires what Porcini calls unicorns: people who are in love with people, who have a genuine fire in them to create meaningful solutions for actual human beings. In this book, he describes them, celebrates them, and details their superpowers so you can find them, hire them, grow them, and retain them. Some are qualities you might expect-the ability to dream combined with the ability to execute. But when was the last time you heard an executive ask prospective hires if they were kind, optimistic, curious, or humble? Porcini uses his journey across startups and multinational corporations, through successes and failures, to create a handbook for modern innovators.