Empathy is all about trying to learn more about your 'user'. One of the trickiest things to do is truly get into their mind (and body) - but this video showcases a clever way to do so! Definitely worth watching, and consider yourselves...what kind of 'empathy suit' might you use for your projects?

This 'empathy field guide' produced by the Stanford d.school has some fantastic suggestions on how to get the most out of empathy. Has some great tips on observations (what-how-why is particularly good), and on how to approach and undertake interviews.

Food waste is an area that has seen the creation of some awesomely creative solutions (like Food Cloud here in Ireland). This article gives another solution to the problem, which I think is a nice example of empathy & defining the problem.

This is a fascinating article from the Harvard Business Review that looks at some tricks you can use to overcome mental barriers to innovation. It also introduces the technique of brainswarming, which is a nice progression on brainwriting.

One of the main themes of this week was “seeing with fresh eyes”. This very brief article from Entrepreneur magazine that contains a few useful tips on how to be inspired for new ideas by the world around you.

You undertook the 'mix and match' challenge. This (beautifully animated!) video considers this concept, and also highlights the importance of creating spaces where people and their ideas can meet to interact.

This video is one of my all-time favourites. It beautifully shows the importance of prototyping, iteration, and learning from failure (as well as the value of undertaking empathy to understand the user you are designing for!) 

Throughout the week, we learned about the importance of engaging in an iterative process, and failing fast/early/often. This article gives a few tips on how best to embrace and learn from failure.

A great real world example of the 'fail often' mentality - James Dyson. Very interesting!!

This 10-minute TED talk is amazing - given by Manu Prakash, a man who has challenged preconceived ideas about what a microscope should look like. Incredible! One of my favourites.

Getting people to change their behaviour is very difficult! But I love how the invisible bicycle helmet showcases that - with a bit of upside-down-duck thinking - you can address a problem in a totally innovative way. 

By the same group that did the New York City Subway Signs video (our inspiration for our “Delight People” challenge on Friday, this 'piano stairs' video is a great example of how using fun can get people to change their behaviour.

Design thinking in action! This is a short overview of a product created through use and application of the design thinking process. The embrace infant warmer costs just $25 and challenges our preconceived ideas of how an incubator would look and function. Also a great story about empathy, as well as how rapidly new ideas can be developed and prototyped!

Innovation is all about making connections. I came across this article a while ago, about how NASA technology (originally developed to identify constellations) is now being used to track whale sharks, via star-like patterns on their skin. Connections can really be found in the most random of places!

I recently came across this article, and think that it's interesting to consider in the context of design thinking, and the respective values of knowledge gained through education vs skills (like design thinking) in solving problems in the real world. 

In this interesting TED talk, Susan Cain explores the difficulties that group work can present for introverts. I especially like this line, "there's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas".

A fantastic talk from Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability. Being creative can put a lot of people out of their comfort zones, and with this in mind, I think this is a good video to watch.

This Fast Company article suggests that in a typical brainstorming process, a few people do up to 75% of the talking; the article gives another nice overview of brainwriting, the technique we used for the paperclip ideation game.