Encore Episode: Wendy MacNaughton on Road Testing Inspiration

09/11/19 • 49 min

In the lead up to the launch of Change Lab Season 5 on September 25, we’re releasing a series of “Encore” episodes. For this final installment, we caught up with graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton to discuss her latest creative endeavor: A Honda Element she’s tricked out to function as a mobile studio. The car features a custom-made drafting table, art supply storage, and a double bed to catch some zzz’s on longer road trips. Wendy embarked on the project after realizing that solo time on the road has always been a reliable source of creative inspiration.

Wendy called us from her idea-generating machine in San Francisco to update us on her most recent wanderings. We hope you enjoy the episode. Don’t forget to tune in for a whole new season of conversations on creativity and transformation kicking off with Lorne’s incisive interview with IBM design chief, Phil Gilbert.

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Encore Episode: Reconnecting with Jesse Genet on the Growth of Lumi and the Future of E-Commerce

In the lead up to the launch of Change Lab Season 5 on September 25, we’re releasing a series of “Encore” episodes.

For this installment, we caught up with designer and entrepreneur Jesse Genet for an update on the big changes she’s undergone in the short time since we last spoke. As the home-shopping revolution continues to redefine the way we shop and live, Lumi, Genet’s packaging business, has become an integral part of the e-commerce pipeline. To accommodate this growth, Lumi has moved into a larger space near the Arts District in Downtown L.A. Genet invited us into Lumi’s new HQ to give us the lowdown on the latest developments in her dynamic career.

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27 IBM Design Chief Phil Gilbert on Leadership as Love

Though Phil Gilbert’s official job title is General Manager of Design at IBM, he’s more often referred to as IBM’s very own design evangelist. But ask him to describe his earliest creative impulses and he’ll tell you without hesitation that he was an entrepreneur from “day one.”

It quickly became clear that Phil is all these things and more after spending the day with him at IBM’s colorful, post-it-strewn design studio in Austin. In other words, to use a tech-speak term of art: Phil is a unicorn.

Need proof? Look no further than his decision to embed design thinking at scale across a company that spans 387,000 employees and 170 countries. Fast Company recently praised Gilbert’s accomplishment at IBM as “establishing a modern standard for increasing the role of arts in business.”

Under Phil’s leadership, the legacy computer brand has resurrected and expanded its venerable design program and transformed itself into a nimble, forward-thinking company employing a fleet of designers, charged with applying their problem-solving skills to innovative software and B2B infrastructure initiatives, like quantum computing and state of the art digital security. To wit, ArtCenter alum Tina Zeng, a design researcher on IBM’s security team, offers an insider’s perspective on how design is being deployed on a day to day basis under Phil’s leadership.

Over the course of a lively Change Lab conversation (conducted in IBM’s employee programmed radio station) Phil opened up about his appreciation for the school busing program in Oklahoma City that first exposed him to the value in a diverse learning environment, his evolution as a leader and the importance of seeing every day as a prototype that can be improved upon.