[alaskamiller]

A realistic portrayal. Always amusing when I step into a conference room and the little cubbies or trays full of post it notes and sharpies and markers left behind telegraphs how the next few hours in talking with the stakeholders will go since it's clear now I'm here for the "how".

Then when I started leading the design thinking sessions all I can think of is how silly all this is. When we went remote during covid, introducing in virtual whiteboards like Miro and Figma, made the rituals and ceremonies more tolerable and more importantly actionable.

After all this time weaving through Stanford where this all went down, the corporate war rooms all over, settling down now, ultimately I think it just comes down to this: design thinking is really just empathetically solving problems rather than apathetically solving problems (as in working off requirement documents or best practices or protocols or just because you're told what to do).

All the little ceremonies and rituals is inclusivity of everyone to empathize and feel good about each other, and consider things from additional POVs. Which back then at the tail end of Gen-Y transition into the workforce was needed. Now you talk to the Gen-Z workforce about using empathy at work more and they'll just go: facts.