Secret to Design Thinking: Just LIE

A lot of people today have heard of design thinking and have some vague idea about what it is. For the ones who haven’t, check out this link or read this post or just go to the next “networking event” around you. Every person or organization that knows the term - design thinking - has its own version. Tim Brown, who is the CEO of IDEO (one of the best known design and innovation firms in the world), also, has his own version which you can watch here. I have been an avid observer and a keen learner of this space since a while now and have formulated my own image. I believe, to be a good design thinker, you need to LIE. Yes, it is an acronym and, no, I am not expecting you to actually lie.

LIE stands for Listen, Imagine, and Empathize. These are not just verbs or actions that you need to do, but are skills that you need to hone to be a good design thinker. You listen to people and sounds around you all day, you constantly imagine yourself in the past, present or future situations and you empathize with people and other living beings. But that is not good enough. Design thinking is as much an art as it is sheer hard work. In fact, all innovation is.

Innovation is not a flash of epiphany that occurs to the so-called innovators. Innovation is a skill that is acquired by these innovators using techniques and tools available or built by them. Design thinking is similar in that you can learn the process and can continue doing it over and over again to become better at it. All you have to continually do is follow a three step process (not necessarily in that order):

1. Listen – like a blind person
2. Imagine – like an infant
3. Empathize – like a mother

In each of the above set of people – blind individuals, infants, and mothers, the respective skills come naturally. They don’t have to imbibe them into their behavior. For a grown up male who has perfect vision, these skills need to be honed and worked upon to come close to following an ideal design thinking process. The core of design thinking is to understand the needs of humans; hence, it is also known as human-centered design. Fulfilling the needs of humans as the ultimate goal is epitome to design thinking.

"You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology." – Steve Jobs during the World Wide Developers Conference in May 1997.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Listening needs you to pay attention to what you hear and process it as you are hearing. Listening expects your mind to be much more involved than just receiving sound bites. On the other hand, a blind person listens at a whole another level. For her to understand her surroundings she has one less source of input (her eyes) than normal; hence, her auditory input needs to compensate for her visual input as much as it can. To truly make an attempt to listen, you have to listen like a blind person does.

 You learn about concepts and images as toddlers by observing, touching, smelling, and tasting objects around you. But these are all inputs to your mind, which is collating all the information and forming pictures constantly. This is your imagination performing it at its best. According to research, your mental growth happens the most in the earliest years because in your mind, everything is possible. Nothing seems too difficult to imagine as the slate is clean. That’s when your paintings are vivid, your colors are wild, and your objects are crazy! You know no bounds. Your imaginations starts getting limited by boundaries as you start learning either by yourself or by a person who is “educating” you.  To truly get in touch with your imagination, imagine like an infant.

 A human mother keeps the baby in her womb and carries her around for nine months. In almost all the other species of animals too, the mother is involved in giving birth to the baby and nurturing her initially. This activity gives all mothers a unique natural skill to empathize for her baby like no one else can. She does not have to try to feel the baby’s pain. Each problem that the child goes through, her mother feels the pain at least as much as the child. Hence, if we imagine the child as your customer, you need to empathize like her mother to truly address her needs. Think about the customer like her mother would and you will naturally start designing for her demands.

Design thinking is touching all sorts of businesses and industries today, like technology did in the past decade. It is increasingly important that you think about your end customer and design your product or service for her. Listening, Imagining, and Empathizing are skills that are crucial to design for this end customer. So keep your ears open, let your mind wander, and feel the pain for whom you are designing!  

The biggest secret behind Facebook’s success revealed

The greatest of all inventions that humans have made till today have been successful because they address our fundamental needs. Humans are hungry for appreciation. We want to flaunt our achievements and hide our shortcomings. Since childhood, a baby who hasn't yet learned much tries to grab attention of the people around. Once she grows she wants her mom and dad to praise every little move she makes and every little word she utters. In school, she wants a pat on her shoulder and a star in her book by her teacher. As grown-ups, we want people to like our opinions, our decisions, and our ideas. We strive for acceptance and approval. We make friends who like us and search for our soul-mate who acknowledges our actions towards him/ her and gratifies us with something we call love. Once we have children, we want them to be proud of our achievements. In our old age, we tell our heroic stories to people around us to gather appreciation and to satisfy ourselves that we led a fruitful life. We want lesser regrets and more contentment. And even after our death, we still want people to talk good about us; hence, we only write our achievements on our tombstone. Have you ever seen someone’s tombstone saying - killed 5 people and robbed 13, or had 27 enemies and no relatives? We all say - lived like a hero and died like one.

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” - Mother Teresa

Basically, what we look for throughout our life, and even post that, is appreciation and gratification.The biggest reason why Facebook has become a household name is it offers instant gratification. The best part is that it doesn't take much to gratify others. In fact, all it takes is a quick click of a button and that too for no cost at all (technically there's a negligible cost involved in the internet connection that you pay for, but you get the point right?) Facebook helps us share our selected and filtered thoughts and actions not to the world, not to a large unselected set of people but to a group of people that we carefully choose by being "friends" with them. These friends become our fans as they get to know about our selected achievements. Facebook has given "grass is greener on the other side" a whole new meaning. Each of us feel that our friends are great achievers and we are surrounded by amazing accomplished people when in fact they are the same people who surrounded us even before Facebook was invented. Now you would argue that other platforms such as Twitter and Google Plus also allow for the same gratification. But your premise is just partly correct. On Twitter, anyone can follow you, so if you're followed by your enemy, he/ she can write comments that you have no control over, and so is the case with Google Plus. But with Facebook, you first choose the people to be your friends carefully and even if a friend turns into a foe, you can delete his/her comments or simply"unfriend" him/ her and restrict that person from responding to your updates. I wish real life were so easy! 

Facebook has become the place where you feel good about yourself and where you get news about your friends and family easily. There is a reason Facebook has never introduced, and I reckon will never introduce, a “dislike” button. If it does, the dislike button will belittle our thoughts and actions due to which we will not want to go on Facebook anymore, because it will just be a replica of our real life. Currently, people are addicted to Facebook because of the single-most yet most impactful reason - instant gratification! Do you think you’re addicted to it too?

Sachin Tendulkar's last match - Recounting a historic experience

Have you ever been a part of the huge crowd that chanted "Sachinnn...Sachinnn" *clap clap clap*? (spoiler alert: you're going to read this cheer quite a few times ahead) If not, you, my dear friend, have missed out on something really incredible in the era you lived in. I was missing out too, until recently. I have guy friends who are crazy fans of Sachin Tendulkar (the GOD, as they like to address him). They remember his cricket career statistics and the dates more distinctly than they know their girlfriend's choices and her birth date. But somehow, I never counted myself one among them. Obviously, I knew that Sachin is a legend and I'm a huge fan of his cover drives, straight drives et al. But not to the extent of painting my face, yelling his name out loud every time he bats, bowls or even fields, bunking lectures, missing exams, and sitting in the college/office canteen for hours discussing about his test and ODI innings. I have truly admired the guy (pardon me for not referring to him as GOD) and he is the most inspiring sportsperson I know in our country. 

Sachin's last celebration lap around Wankede, Mumbai.

But on 16th November 2013, I became one among them! It was Sachin’s last international cricket appearance and I knew I couldn't miss it for anything. Since he announced that this match will be his last, everyone in Mumbai wanted to be in the stadium to watch him play live for one last time. With a stadium capacity of 45,000 and with Mumbai’s population of more than 20 million, my chances of getting a ticket to the match was, well...you can do the math. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the tickets for all five days. I fortunately had a holiday on day two of the match and took a day off of work on day three - how could I not! I yelled so much in the two days that my voice got hoarse (it was totally worth it). I’m proud to say that I was a Sachin fanatic for a short, but the most memorable, period of time.

Day two of the match

I went to see the match on the second day. At 9:30 am, he came out of the dressing room and the crowd roared! The minute he entered the ground, all I could hear was - "Sachinnn...Sachinnn" *clap clap clap*. He batted with so much ease as if it were his 1st test match and no one in the stadium knew him. But the truth was, every ball he faced, every run he took, every move he made was watched avidly by millions of people around the world. He was playing his usual awe-inspiring shots and looked in great form. But suddenly, at 74, he tried flicking the ball past the first-slip fielder and got caught by the fielder. The entire stadium dropped silent. Everyone's heart sank at that very moment. We didn't know how to react because we were gearing up to celebrate his last century. He began walking towards the dressing room. But the entire crowd recuperated in seconds and there we were, giving him his one last standing ovation after he inspired us with his batting. Many of us had tears in our eyes as we knew this could be last time our hero was batting for us, for India. The chants of "Sachinnn...Sachinnn" *clap clap clap* continued until he reached the dressing room. Just before walking up the stairs of the pavilion he turned and waived to the entire stadium as an acknowledgement for its support – what a true gentleman! 

Throughout the rest of the day, as other Indian batsmen continued batting, the crowd kept cheering for Sachin. People squalled to Dhoni (the Indian team captain) to declare the innings, to the umpires suggesting them to cheat and declare the other batsmen out, and to the West Indies team supporting them as they struggled to restrict the Indian batsmen from scoring runs. The crowd didn’t mean ill for the rest of the Indian team, but they came with a sole purpose - to watch their hero bat! At the end of the day, the Indian team had overtaken the West Indies team by a good 300+ runs and took 3 early wickets in a matter of just 12 overs. Everyone knew that day three will most probably be the last day of this test match. They might not get to see Sachin bat once again. 

Day three of the match

All the predictions came true today. Day three turned out to be the last day of the match. I took an off from work because I knew that I will be witnessing a historic moment in the stadium. I reached the stadium early with my best friend. Having her by me as we witnessed the day was just an added advantage. At 9:30 am the third day of the match began. As soon as Sachin came out of the dressing room, the entire crowd erupted in chants of, no points for guessing here, "Sachinnn...Sachinnn" *clap clap clap*. He was like a superhero on the ground that day. Whichever direction he looked, people waved frantically and yelled. He waived back to all of them every single time. The crowd was sad that they wouldn’t see their superhero ever again after that day, but I was imagining what Sachin’s thoughts were. He would miss all this love and attention from his fans soon. 

West Indies team kept struggling to find a good partnership and kept losing wickets quickly. Before we knew, in a couple of hours, West Indies had lost 8 of their wickets. Our hearts were beating fast because we knew “the end” was approaching sooner than we thought. The crowd wanted Sachin to bowl (though he isn’t a professional bowler, he is pretty good at it) at least a few overs. Luckily, Dhoni gave him two overs. As soon as Sachin took the ball in his hand, removed the cap to give to the umpire and walked past the crease, the entire crowd stood up and erupted to make a loud cheer for him. Both the overs were mediocre but no one bothered. It was total “paisa wasool” for all the attendees. Soon after his overs ended, the match came to an end after West Indies lost all their wickets and an inglorious match came to an end for them. 

The historic moment

As soon as the last wicket was down, the entire crowd of 40,000+ people stood up. They knew what they’re going to see next is what they will be telling people outside the stadium for the rest of their lives. I know I will! The Indian players congratulated each other and everyone except Sachin sprinted to form the Guard of Honor for his hero. Sachin walked through them as the players and everyone around applauded. The crowd kept applauding as they saw their hero get emotional. In the dressing room he was presented a special memento by the West Indian team. Both the teams then came out for the presentation. During the entire presentation, every mention of Sachin was received by a huge roar. But the most memorable part was when Sachin was handed over the microphone to speak. The whole crowd kept roaring "Sachinnn...Sachinnn" *clap clap clap* for more than 40 seconds, literally! Sachin gestured the crowd to be silent but the people were too ecstatic to control their feelings. After a long wait, Sachin gave up and began talking. Watching him speak on the huge screens, the entire crowd dropped silent. Every single person was standing since the time the match ended and listened to Sachin passionately. We laughed, clapped, sighed, and reacted to his words innocently like children. It was an amazing moment to hear our hero’s last speech where he thanked each and every person who touched his life. My respect for him and the people, who made him who he is, rose to another level. You can view his last touching speech here. As soon as he finished his speech, there was pin drop silence around the stadium. I reckon many of us were in tears. Not me though, I cried a bit later. I’ll get to that soon. 

So, here we were, with our moist eyes readying to bid adieu to a guy who entertained us for 24 long years, a guy whom we, including many legendary cricketers, like to call GOD. Escorted by tight security, he began his final walk around the stadium waving to the people. He was surrounded by his family, security personnel, journalists, team mates, and others. Soon, his teammates picked him up. There are 8 stands in the Wankhede stadium; as he passed each stand, everyone in that stand either clicked pictures and videos of him deliriously or bowed to him. I was among the latter group of people. As he came towards my stand, it all seemed unreal! I couldn’t believe my eyes that Sachin Tendulkar was just 10 meters away from me. I usually don’t refer to Sachin as GOD, but just for that moment, I said to myself – “So, this is what it feels to see GOD smiling in front of you!”  After his lap around the stadium, he went to the pitch alone and touched it for one last time. It was one emotional moment for him and his millions of fans. I have to admit, a tiny drop of tear rolled down my cheek as I realized that I will never see my hero play supernatural shots ever again. His humility and innocence was evident through his eyes and gestures. This was indeed the most special moment in his as well as our lives. Witnessing that epic moment made each of us feel special. I will remember those 3 minutes for life. I have never felt so much respect gushing into my veins for any person as I felt at that time. It was ethereal! I have never admitted that I was a Sachin follower, but after that day, I would be lying to myself if I denied being one. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, I bow to thee! 

Confessions of an irresponsible citizen

The following is an incidence that happened in my life recently. It’s a true story (wish it had never happened, though, and even if it did, wish it never ended the same). But as they say, some things are meant to happen! It has taught me a lot in a short span of 30 minutes and the memories will stay with me for a long time – which is a good thing as it’ll help me be more responsible. Without adding more to the suspense and without further ado, I’ll directly jump onto the story.

There are some guys (perhaps girls too) who drink too much and can't handle it. It was a usual day and I was on my way back home. It was about 6:30 pm. While crossing the bridge in Dadar (one of the busiest railway stations in Mumbai) I found a drunken guy wandering around. He looked disgusting in his worn out clothes and one could make out that he was drunk by just going near him. He soon suddenly began stalking a girl. He was trying to grab her attention by walking closely behind her and occasionally staring at her from the side. She sprinted, changed her route, slowed down and tried everything to dodge him, but he continued. He followed her to the ticket window and waited while she took her ticket. At first, I thought he perhaps knows her and she’s just angry at him for something he has done (may be a sad love story), but soon I realized that that wasn’t the case.

I began following them closely to see whether the girl knows him. After she took the ticket he continued following her. While getting down the stairs she gathered enough courage to turn back, yell at him and warn him that she’ll call the police if he didn’t stop stalking her. That’s when I was sure that he was a random stranger harassing an innocent girl. I sprinted and tried getting hold of that guy, but to my surprise, both of them disappeared suddenly. I felt really ashamed of myself. I didn’t realize what impact my ignorance or indifference can have on someone else’s life. The girl was going through a mental trauma, or perhaps much more. She (and may be many such girls) would be scared to move out on the streets because of such horrendous experiences. That guy might have left a lasting scar on her mind. The next time she walks on that bridge, she might never feel secure again. I could have helped her but somehow just didn't want to get into a mess. Somehow I felt I'm responsible for what happened to her. She didn't have to go through it. I could have helped but I chose not to. I was really disappointed in myself – felt like an irresponsible citizen.

Luckily, just minutes after that, I came to the platform to catch my train and saw that guy following another girl. I began chasing him this time. Coincidentally, a female police officer walked past me just about the same time. I told her about this guy who’s drunk and is following girls. She found him and realized that he's drunk. She thanked me for bringing it to her notice and dragged him away (hopefully to the police station).

By handing him over to the police, I might have saved a few other girls from getting traumatized but I feel utterly humiliated that I couldn't stand up for a girl who had no choice but to go through this. I respect all women and after this incidence, I’m sure that I will never let this happen again. Girls deserve to be treated with high respect; it's high time we (filthy) men understand that. If you’re a guy reading this, please make sure you don’t repeat the mistake I did and if you’re the drunk guy in this story, then I hope you get locked up in jail! If you’re a girl, please make sure to immediately report such an incidence and make people around you aware of what you’re going through. I’m sure many people around you would understand your situation and react appropriately........wish I had!